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salaciousdoll · 9 months

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· · The Rich Farmer's Daughter Turned Town's Slut · ·

From City Girl to Farmer’s daughter, oh how will you ever survive on the countryside? The answer is simple: fucking.

･˳ . ⋆ Reporting Live with Eren Yeager, Zeke Yeager, Yelena, Armin Arlert, Jean Kirtstein, Connie Springer, Oyankopon, Sasha Braus, Mikasa Ackerman,Annie Leonhart, Miche(Mike)Zacharias, Erwin Smith,Nile Dok, Historia Reiss, Ymir, Kenny Ackerman, Levi Ackerman, Porco Galliard, Reiner Braun, Hange Zoe, Pieck Finger, Eren Kruger, Keith Shadis, Theo Magath x chubby!Bimbo!Fem! reader ･˳ . ⋆

୨⍣୧ ⁺⁎˚ ⋆━━ Warnings : First part is in fic format, second part is in Drabble/headcannons format, Confident chubby girl, Smut, threesomes, foursomes, fivesomes, group sex, wlw, reader is bisexual, Sasha x Mikasa is shown a little bit( no I don’t ship, if you do this is the place for you), dildo usage( double ended dildos too), dacryphillia, heavy Bimbo activities implied here, very self indulgent but anyone can read, outfits are describe for a reason here( only because I like Bimbo farmers daughter aesthetic), chubby!reader, rich black farmers and daughter, dirty talk, cock warming on Erwin’s part, big exhibition here, Kenny is the bad guy who wants your father’s crops, could be considered dubcon on his part, reader is very dumb, fucked dumb too, implied protected/unprotected sex, this is fictional so none of that sick shit applies here but please do not go around doing this without protection( wrap up), reader is in her early 20s( 21-24), age gaps all throughout this story( some big, some not), dominant characters( Mikasa, Annie, Levi, Erwin, miche, Keith, Kruger, etc.), pet names ( bunny, sl*t, wh0re, pretty girl, town’s sl*t, princess, doll, doll face, butterfly, sweat pea, etc.) body fluids( squirting, cumming, spit swapping), bondage( handcuffs/ swimsuit used as handcuffs), use of strap on, oral receiving and giving, descriptions of body hair, pussy/dick visuals, tattooed eren!, reader could be implied to be a nympho here, degradtation/ praise, breeding kink, grisha lurking for him and Carla. Basically you fuck everyone damn!, have fun and if im missing something let me know.

୨⍣୧ ⁺⁎˚ ⋆━━ Word Count : 14.4k, longest fic I’ve ever written

18+, Minors do not interact

PSA from me : I wanted to write this to celebrate me hitting 4K followers, so I hope you all enjoy. Thank you all for 4K followers <333 And for the love of anything, please do not do none of this stuff with strangers like the reader did in this fic, if you happen to, wrap it up!!

Also credit to @bimbohub for the farmer’s daughter inspiration, so sorry I didn’t tag you when I publish it, mainly because I forgot but yes I want to thank you for making that fic and giving me inspiration for it<33

Jujutsu Kaisen Version Tokyo Revengers Version

You remember the time you first learned about your move to the town you wanted no relation to ever since your visit when you were 8 years old.

Summer days were upon you as you came home from a long year of college. You were only in college because your parents forced you to go, otherwise you would’ve just set up a camera in your room and gave older men shows in order to get money. Being in your early twenties is a curse because now you had to actually do adult things and adulting wasn’t for you at all.

In college, you didn’t understand anything about what you learned, especially with the business major you’re forced to take up. Bad on your parents part because you didn’t even know what a mortgage is and how it’s gonna benefit you. You didn’t know or care about things like that, but you passed— only because you convinced the nerdy boy next to you to give you the answers to every test you took and every project you needed to complete. The speeches you had to give in front of the class were all of his words and he stood there smiling because the pretty girl finally gave him the attention he wanted. And you did. You actually found him useful and pretty, he just needed to fix up his looks and that was the deal you proposed to him and he took it with no problem. You even added that he was gonna finally feel and taste how bubble gum tastes if you passed.

So now you were back home and staring up at your father and mother who had the biggest smiles on their face. The next words that fell out of their mouths after congratulating you for even finishing your second year of college were horrifying. “ We’re going down to Napeville, your grandfather has now retired his position as a farm owner and your father wanted to take control of it since he was trained his entire childhood.” Your mother finished her statement and your gum popped on your face as you stared at her with wide eyes.

You stare without blinking as your dad grabbed your suitcases on the side of you bringing them into the house, “ Why?! Can’t you just go down there on your own pops’, gramps only wanted you to go down there right?!…Wait are we moving down the-” your father came back out again to grab your bag you had in the trunk of your car— afterwards stopping in front of you when he retrieved the bag from the car. “ Yes, my little pumpkin, we’re moving down there. Aren’t you glad to go back there? I’ll even teach you all about farming if you want.”, Your father said as he smiled at you. You in fact did not want any of that shit. You only remembered the ugly house and barn your grandparents had you and your parents staying in. Being 8 years old, you remembered the faces of the people down there and let’s just say you aren’t gonna find love down there if they all looked and act the way they did when you were 8. Farming life was boring compared to what you were planning to do with your friends this summer. They were not gonna ruin this for you so you proposed a deal with them, hoping they’ll listen.

“ Hmm, what if I just go down there in the summer and come back up here to go back to school and you, my dear pops’ can buy me an apartment! The smartest idea I’ve ever came up with right?!!”, You say, with your arms wrapped around the neck of your dad hugging him from the side. Your mother wanted so badly to facepalm because that was a stupid idea, but she couldn’t say because you are her daughter and you are very sensitive.

Your father removed your arms off his neck and gave you his stern look, “ Enough, { reader}! You know better than to argue with us and besides you don’t even have a good paying job to afford an apartment months rent, especially for the apartment you are tryna’ get for yourself.” You pucker your lips out while huffing, “ Okay okay, I’ll get another one.” Your father shook his head and went inside the now almost empty house.

You stopped and looked around to see the way your house looked and gasped loudly as your parents continued what they are doing, “ Ma’, where’s our stuff, did you have an yard sale without me knowing, why didn’t you tell me because I wanted to keep that love seat we had and put it in my room.”

Your mother sighed loudly before turning to you, “ {reader}, honey, if we just said that we’re moving, what does that mean to you? What do most people do when they move?” She was already tired of packing up most of her and your equipment while you were off at college doing God knows what. You didn’t really check in with them like you used to do in your first year.

You almost narrowed your eyes at her, but decided not to do it since you didn’t feel like getting yelled at for looking at her like that. Answering whilst twirling the string of chewed up gum around your index finger, “ Um, we move. I don’t know ma’, it’s too much to think about really. Anyways, since I clearly have no choice but to obey you two, I’m gonna hang out with my friends for the last time.”

Your mother rolled her eyes as she put the tape on the last box you all had before you tidy up the move from this house to your farming house, “ be back before 12, you may be grown, but you’re still my child living under my rules.” You nodded your head and bit your tongue to stop you from saying something or rolling your eyes.

You were excited to see your bitches again but before you were off, you took out your phone and texted your friends that you wanted to roller skate like the old times. You put your phone away without their answers to your text and walked to where your mother just walked to, “ Ma’, which box are my baby pink and blue roller skates in? Need them for my girly time today.” Your mother walked to a box and kicked it towards you prior to walking off to finish what she was doing.

You opened the box, thanking the heavens that she didn’t box them up with that ugly tape. “ Aww I missed you babies so much, I bet you kissed your mommy just as much.” Your father wanted to really question if you got this personality from your moms side of the family so he asked, “ She got that shit from your side not mine, baby.”

You paid no mind to what the two of them were whispering about as you grabbed your roller skates in your baby pink manicured hands. Hurrying out the house before you got called back in to pack up something they missed, you walked down your stairs to your car. You honestly should’ve taken the hint that you all were moving when you saw the moving truck on the side of your parents car in the garage way. You smiled as you walked to your baby pink and white G-Wagon, “ I’ll make my last night worth it for sure.” You talked to yourself a lot since you were an only child and found a friend in yourself before you found friends. You looked down at your outfit and smiled, your tits looked yummy and your thighs did too.

The memory was four weeks ago and you were now driving your car in silence while following your mom and dad leads to the Legendary farm house. You were leaving so much behind. Your bed, your friends, college associates, your favorite nerd, now who’s gonna help you pass your classes. You huffed to yourself, still following after your parents to the next town you were going to have to adjust to. You were going to miss the stores you got to shop at, the malls were your favorite and least favorite because it was a hit or miss with the brookefield mall. Being the size you were was not a guarantee that you were going to find something in the mall for you, so when you found that one store that sold cute clothes in your size, you had no choice but to max out with your pops’ black card. You were also glad for the mall and of course the internet because you got to shop for new clothes prior to coming to this small town.

You were going to miss the boys and girls in that city. You were gonna miss Hitch and Boris, your main two toys you like to play with. Both were hot and were everything you needed to get by. The city was full of whores and now you gotta move to the country where they are so holy and thou there. Ewww, you're gonna hate it there.

By the time you all arrived at the house you were blown out of your mind when you looked up at the farm house. It was incomparable to the farmhouse you knew from your childhood. This town was so different from how it used to be, it used to be quiet and old looking now it looks a little loud and modern, you were so stuck because you thought of the farmhouse that looked like a cottage house with a big barn behind it like it used to look, now it looks too luxurious— to your liking. The house had big glass windows with a black wooden roof and a big riva double eyebrow 4-lite steel Iron, glass door to greet you. Honestly, the gate when you first entered gave it away that this was going to be different, but you didn’t even think about it because you’re too busy listening to your favorite playlist right now in the act of sucking on your blue cotton candy sucker.

The gate was long and you bet it was even longer than you actually think, your grandpa was full of surprises. The ride to the house was even longer. Nothing but acres of grass mountains and grasslands plus a few animals standing there greeted you as you drove to the house. You were so glad because your hands hurt from driving all night and the sight of sheep somehow made you brighter than before. Once you parked the car on the pavement of the garage behins the moving truck, you got out and looked at it stomping your red and white gingham platform heels on the ground at the sandy dirt on your tires, “ fucking dirt roads, hate them so much.” Your parents were already hugging your cousin while you were grumbling about your tire and car having dirt on it. You decided to wear red and white today to match the cherry red nails with cherry charms on them. You also wanted to try to fit into the countryside by wearing this, after all, you were now a farmer’s daughter.

Your cousin's smile brightens once she sees you come to her with your arms out, “ Bubbles!” You screamed out as you hugged her and she screamed your nickname right after, and the country accent was heard loud and clear. You figured that she must’ve been lonely as hell here because this place was huge and it looks like she’s the only one here.

“ If you’re looking for grandpa, he’s at his house around the corner from here.”, Your cousin said as she brought you inside the house. It was so neutral and blended inside compared to the outside. You almost wanted to puke from the smell of discoloration this house reeks of. So plain and boring.

“ pops’, are we going to go see him later or something?”, you yelled throughout the house since you were walking up the stairs. You heard an answer but didn’t bother to actually listen because your cousin was pulling you to your room she set for you. It was a room you never would have even step foot into a few weeks ago but now you had no choice, at least the bed was big just like your bed at home. Home. You missed it already.

Your cousin then gave you a cola she got out of the little fridge you guessed she stocked in your room, “ How thoughtful of you, { cousin’s name}. Seems like you didn’t change at all.” Your cousin smiled at your comment before taking your hand to go back down stairs to the movie truck, “ And you did. Not in a bad way, sugs. Just didn’t expect you to be like dis’ gotta say you look so gorgeous with that outfit and hairstyle but that’s not what we wear out chea’. Anyways I’ve called my friends and the people your father and I know over here before y’all arrived. You’re gonna love them. They all offered to help with these heavy ol’ boxes here.”

You furrowed your eyes because exactly how many of them are going to come. You start guessing in your head and thought your brain felt like it was combusting. Too much thinking again, so you just smiled. You started to stare off into space until your cousin snapped her fingers in front of your face, “ Hey hey, we gotta get some of these boxes out of chea’, we’re having tons of fun later, silly so let’s get this started now. It’s about 11 am right now, we all should be able to finish by 9, perfect time too.”

You stared at her like she was the sheep in the backyard before grabbing the lightest box, carrying it to the entrance while she carried two boxes, “ What’s happening at 9?”

Your cousin was about to say something when a group of men and women were walking towards you all. You were so confused on who they were because your family skin didn’t look like any of them, yet they’re here smiling at your cousin like they’re family. As you were standing there in a daze— occasionally sucking on your cherry sucker with glossy strawberry lip gloss wrapped around the sucker and the half of the stick.

You didn’t even notice that they got closer and were all standing before you staring at you in awe while you looked up at the sky, stuck like a robot. You blinked when you heard the whispers and gasp with a puzzled look on your face, “ Oh oh, hi hi, I spaced out and wasn’t paying attention to you all. My name is { your name}, nice to meet you all.” You flashed a smile and Armin almost fell for you right there. They all could tell you were a city girl and the accent proved it. They would also know because they’re all from the city too, not yours though.

Eren eyed you up and down with a toothpick hanging out his mouth. He had to get you under him because there was no way you were taking by the way you were dressing. You had on a red and white gingham top that tied in the front pushing up your boobs even more with your pudgy stomach showing— slightly protruding over your v waist, blue Jean short shorts that almost showed your ass if you bent down. Your face was so gorgeous, chubby cheeks when you smile and pretty lips to top it off, he couldn’t wait to know more about you. You were the perfect girl they all were looking for, the excitement and for some, the rush— just wait until the older men and women of the group caught sight of you. Right now it was just him, Armin, Jean, Reiner, Mikasa, Annie, Floch, Pieck, Colt , Connie, Sasha, Porco, Historia, and Ymir .

They all introduced themselves to you and your legs were almost shaking from their voices, especially the women. Eyeing each of them as they were now headed to the truck. You saw things you liked about them, for now. Eren has arm tattoos that made him even more attractive and long hair that you wanted to run your fingers through, Armin looks like the nerd you had back home just more handsome with his lil cowboy boots on, Mikasa had a red scarf wrapped around her neck with overalls on. She looked so cute. Annie had on pants that showed off her thighs really well and eyes that sealed you in, Sasha was obviously a foodie because she’s been smacking on another bag of fruit snacks since they’ve walked up. She was a beauty. A real one.

Ymir and Historia were attached each other with matching colors on, which made them look adorable. One had on jeans and a shirt with combat boots while the other one had her hair down in a middle part with a cute overall dress and tank top under it. Their boots even matched. Yeah they were indeed a couple, but you still had thoughts.

Flock’s hair was a little disturbing but his eyes were beautiful; he has potential. Now Reiner was big and beefy with a cowboy hat planted on top of his head and you were getting more attracted to him when he turned around to go inside the house— his chest was the first thing you saw. May those two buttons never come back together with their little holes because whew does he look so good! Jean was someone you never thought you would keep your eyes on consistently. You liked that he was taller than everyone here and he carried himself like he’s a leader, you love a man who owns the power of authority. You don’t know why, you just do.

Porco was good looking as well and you could tell he was hard to everyone else but gentle to people he liked. A beautiful boy indeed. Colt was shy but talkative to his peers he’s been around, he was a cutie. Now pieck was someone you wanted first, she’s so pretty and mesmerizing. So beautiful that you didn’t even realize that she was in front of you bending down to pick up the box you set down in front of you. You watched her get up and throw a little smile your way, “ You can’t be spacing out like this a lot, pretty girl. Don’t want you to get hurt in the future. So, can you help me carry this last box inside, it’s in the truck.” You laughed before walking ahead of her to the truck whilst she watched your ass jiggle as you walked in front of her. You were definitely gonna be the new talk around town now.

Indeed you were by 9 pm, you were done with everything— unpacking, showing you around your new home led by your cousin as the rest stayed just to talk more with you. Afterwards , they all asked to hang out with you at the bar a few minutes away from where you stay and so you did go. Greatest mistake on your part because from there on out, you were the talk of the town.

✧˖° Eren Yeager + Zeke Yeager, Yelena with grisha lurking + in Eren’s living room

The first time you met Zeke and Yelena was at Pipsy’s Bar— the one you went to when you first moved here. You didn’t really talk with either of them because you stayed close to your cousin and Eren’s crew. However, just because you didn’t talk with them doesn’t mean you weren’t the topic of the conversation they had at their own table.

Just as Zeke asked Yelena to look into who you were, his widened at you getting body shots on the pool table by his little brother. The way your body shook underneath Eren’s as he licked down your boobs to your stomach made his dick hard and yelena wet. They both wanted you and had to get a chance to talk to you one way or another

Today was their lucky day, especially Yelena’s because she was supposed to be somewhere else today, but Zeke asked to hang out at his house. They were on the couch and their hormones heightened as you walked through the door of their farmhouse with your baby-pink polka dot strapless tube top with a white shirt skirt on. Your heels compliment your outfit and legs so well. Yeah, today was gonna be a good day today

Friday afternoon was something you wanted for a long time. Your mini skirt was bunched up your stomach, panties long gone. With the twist of your dark nipples in between Eren’s fingers, he moved inside of your pussy with desperation of your hot and slippery pussy. He was so breathy underneath you. His chest glistened as he pant out your name in a hush tone . You on the other hand was too busy trying to please Zeke with your mouth around his coke can thick tip. Zeke groaned when you locked your jaw around his pink tip, “ Stop - uh- stop fucking looking at me with those doll like eyes, Angel. Makes me wanna’ take you away from everyone and grow my own farm filled with as many animals as you want and during that time our babies will walk around with their shoes off exploring our farm.”

Eren grunted out as you clenched around his heavy cock, “ Fuck no! She’s mine, Zeke. Get your own slut. Yelena’s, umph shit! She’s right there.” Eren leaned forward to take your nipples into his mouth, needing to shut his own ass up before he ruined this moment by arguing with his pinhead ass brother. Yelena was too busy fingering herself to her tongue exploring your ass cheeks— all the way down to your convulsing asshole. It looked proper and good to not put her tongue inside. In the process of eating your ass, her large hands were spreading you open, so Eren’s big balls and her tongue can now move freely.

Zeke put his hands on your chubby cheek with a low smirk on his face, his glasses long gone off his face letting you see what exactly his eyes are saying when they look at you. Your mouth was getting tired of hollowing around Zeke’s tip and at the same time your body shook against Eren’s body and Yelena’s mouth. You were about to lift your mouth off of the older brother’s cock to moan, but your moans were soon dancing along Zeke’s thick dick. His tip hit the back of your throat, making diamond tears fill up your eyes, they eventually traveled down your eyes causing your mascara to drip down your face. Zeke cooed at you with a little grunt and hum— moving inside of you with a sharp snap of his hips, “ Ah Yes, the face of a whore. The face I love seeing on many. Ughh! So fucking pretty taking all three of us at the same time.”

Eren hissed when you squeezed around his dick causing him to almost knock his knees together out of pleasure. He reached to grab your plushy love handles, holding them in his rough hand, “ Fuck, baby! Fuck me back like you’re doing.” And then he massages your love handles in between his long fingers that had cold rings on them. “ Thought I didn’t feel the little roll of your hips and thick thighs clamping around my hips. Think again. Now give me this pussy I’ve longed for. Fuck~”, Eren said as his rings cooled down your sweaty and hot love handles.

Their dirty talking was getting to you so bad. Yelena was now standing up after detaching her lips from your puckering hole with just a long string of saliva— she was behind you with a finger probing your ass and sloppy kisses on your back, “ Gonna’ let me use this ass of your sweetheart… nah, I think I might just open you up for the others, my debt to them.” You couldn’t even focus on her sultry voice uttering those foreshadow ass words because your orgasm hit you like a tidal wave, ears popping and body shaking from their overstimulation on all three of your holes. Zeke groaned and came into your mouth at the same time as Eren cumming inside the condom— breaking it in the process. Some of his cum leaked into your pussy and you couldn’t do anything but squirm on him and Grind on Yelena’s finger. You swallowed Zeke’s nut with a few coughs prior to wiping off your mouth and chin.

Eren was still snapping his hips into you slowly just when his pretty emerald, green eyes fell upon you— he was truly enticed by you. Meanwhile, your head was thrown back on Yelena’s chest allowing you to moan out loud— nothing but pleasure coming out your mouth. “ Ahhh~ please, please. It feels so good, rennie, Zekey, lena’. Feels s’good. Mmm .” Your voice was so loud after popping Zeke’s semi-limp dick out of your mouth that Grisha, who stood on the second floor banister staring intensely at the three of you with lust filled eyes, heard everything from the fucking start. He wanted you, now. You were exquisite in his eyes, far too exquisite to make him of all people interested, dangerous even. He so wanted to jerk off, but he’ll just replay the ring camera set up in his living room over, maybe he and Carla could have alone time with you, she’s been asking for a threesome for a while. His sons were so dumb to not even know he was home or maybe they didn’t care. Grisha walked off humming to himself, he’ll let his fellow friends and wife know about you.

✧˖° Armin, Jean, and Connie + back of Jean’s pickup truck

Word got around the small town faster than the plague. Whispers were heard here and there and you had no clue it was all about sweet little you. You were too busy sucking on the pink lollipop that was in your mouth while watching the sheep’s make noise and walk around your big spacious backyard, the only thing that’s separating you from them is the wooden field gate. You took in the fresh air while smiling to yourself. This was your ‘you’ time. Nothing could interrupt this.

Except for a laugh Connie bucked out— walking into the backyard as your parents were yelling out that they’re leaving to visit your grandpa, whom you visited last week with sore legs, thanks to those three. How humiliating they left you. Your view of the green grassland was invaded by Jean Kirtstein with his hands on his hips.

Armin walked to your little lake in the yard petting and talking to the animals having their daily snack on the grass. As for Connie he was too busy admiring your look, your fashion sense screamed Bimbo and he adored it. He always snuck glances at you whenever you weren’t looking or he was goofing off with his friends. He was interested in you, that’s why he wanted to come but Jean and Armin decide to come as well fucking up his plan.

He was admiring your pink Diesel T- Angie shirt that showed off the print of your boobs perfectly to the tight jeans you wore and down to your pink cowgirl boots. Up until Jean grabbed your hand and led you to his big pickup truck, driving off with Connie and Connie on the side of you. They wanted to take you on the ride, away from your house to have their alone time with you.

Indeed they’re plan was a success because now you were in the back of Jean’s pick up truck getting plowed into from the behind by Connie’s cock— around 7.5 inches and thick. Jean took your mouth as he laid down in front of you whilst Armin took pictures of this interaction with your used sucker in his mouth. He was glad that he came with them after being on his farm catering to his father’s chicken coup. He needed a break and you were the perfect person to help him relax. He recorded the way your lips sucked in Jean’s lengthy cock in your mouth with a shuddered breath as he watched. You were fucking Insatiable, almost everyone in the small town thought so.

“ Fucking hell, She’s sucking me like it’s her last taste of ramen noddles, shit~.”, Jean rasped out as he moved your hair out of his vision from seeing you. Connie has your pink heart-shaped Moschino glasses on his eyes as he grabs your ass cheeks in his hands as he hits you from the back. Connie reached to Armin handing him your shoes that was on its way coming off from getting fuck on the truck’s tailgate, “ Here, seems like the slut of the hour just can’t keep up with us after all.”, He snickered before slapping your ass, “ her shoe came off. Now watch and see how she reacts when I do this. Jean keep fucking her face like that, sounds so slutty. Make sure she can’t breathe.”

Your cunt squeezed around Connie— a reaction to his dirty words. You popped Jean’s dick out your wet mouth and looked back at Connie with low fucked-out eyes, “ Please, mmph, keep fucking me like this, I want Armin too. Please Armin, wanna see your cock, wan’ it in my ass because of how pretty it is.” Connie folded right then and there. Yeah he was gonna get you to breed you for that shit. Armin sucked in a breath as he set his phone up on the inside of the truck before looking out to the opening of the dirt road both ways.

And so they did what you asked with a few taunts from Connie and persuasion from Jean for Armin to join without looking out for anybody— I mean after all this is a dead end. You were now all fully on the truck fucking like rabid bunnies. Armin whimpers we’re so pretty, you were kinda glad that Jean is fucking your mouth without any room left to breathe because you were going to cum to the sight of Connie’s pretty red face below you. You felt so full and they felt so good.

Jean yanked your hair to his dick holding you there with a loud moan erupting from his throat, “ My sweet sweet girl, fu-uhhh~” you tried to push your head off his dick, but he patted your head and whispered, “ a little bit longer bunny.” Jean’s cum leaked out of your mouth and mixed with your spit that was lathering his dick caused Armin to snap. Armin came inside of your ass with a loud cry, “ So perfect for me, Honey. So damn perfect.” At the moment of clenching around his cock with your tight hole. Anal was not easy but Armin made it easy for you by prepping you with his spit, lube out of Jean’s truck, and his fingers. He was the perfect person to break your anal virginity.

Connie came into his condom with a loud groan and chants of your name. Armin laughed at the shakes and final thrusts he did, “ Looks like you couldn’t handle her, Connie.” Connie rolled his eyes with a hard lip bite in the process of both of them starting to fuck slowly into you again to let you catch your second orgasm, you didn’t even know you had the first one. Jean pulled out your mouth leaning to hold your cheeks squeezing them together to make more mess of your big cheeks squeezed— covered with spit, cum, and sweat, “ You’ve done so well, my pretty, chubby bunny. Cum for daddy, bunny. Cum for all of us.” You snapped when he mentioned the one word that always got you off.

Your eyes couldn’t see that it was dark outside because your vision was white as you came in Connie’s dick causing him to jump and whine from the tightening around his cock, “ Fucking vixen you are.” They all laughed while you came back to reality, now seeing that it’s dark as hell outside and the only source of light was the flashlight Connie reached to turn on during the time he was digging inside of you. This was the best decision you parents could’ve made because since that move you’ve been getting pleasure. You may not even go back to the city college and just find one down here, who knows.

✧˖° Onyankopon + your kitchen

Onyankopon caught your eyes as soon as he stepped into your pupil's sight. He was so fine and you craved him. Reminds you of your ex from the way he smiled at you. He was a horse trainer and you were gonna get him to train you to ride horses. You don’t even necessarily want to learn, you just want him to speak a lot because his voice was so deep and sexy. And so you asked your dad can you ask him to train you as he was pulling the crops with his ugly yellow gloves.

You already knew the answer because you always got what you wanted from him and your mother. So, you decided to pick out an outfit and do your hair. The outfit was a off shoulder shirt with pink ribbons on the arms and top of it with pink shorts and black and pink cowgirl boots. Your hair was in your hairstyle but in a ponytail with a big pink ribbon to hold it together.

And so onyankopon taught you about how to be calm around horses to not piss them off. Oysnkopon was trying so hard not to look at your ass and body jiggle as you rode the horse listening to every word he says while making purposeful mistakes.

Afterwards you asked the famous question, “ Why are you called a cowboy then, if you ride horses, shouldn’t you be called a horse boy or something? I’m confused”. Onyankopon stood there contemplating on how he should answer this because it was a good and stupid question.

He never answered your stupid question, just showed you why you can only call him an horse boy as he now had your baby pink and yellow panties pushed to the side whilst fucking you into your kitchen island. His long, thick fingers pressed into your big thighs; holding them up and apart, “ Such a pretty pussy you got, such a shame you kept this to yourself all the times I came to this house since y’all - augh!- moved in.” You were a whimpering mess because of how big and deep— kissing your cervix a few times causing you to wince in pain and pleasure. He had you speechless and you hated it because you were always ready to reply to anyone if your mouth wasn’t occupied.

You and onyankopon watched out for your dad, who was far away from your house— at the garden your grandfather started. Your mom was at her new job she got, so it was just you in the house. Onyankopon yanked your ponytail back as he paused his movements, “ Don’t space out on me, now. Can’t and won’t have that. Need all ya’ attention, baby doll. Look me in the eyes as I take this fat pussy of yours, ya hear me?” You nodded, feeling your ponytail loosen from his grip. You wanted to throw your head back, but he told you to keep your eyes on his, even through your blurry vision. “ Please—” you choked out due to the increase of his pace as he looked down at your greedy kissy taking in his cock like it was eating his cock up.

His deep voice grunted in echo all over the kitchen, “ Please what? Baby doll. Gotta say it, not gonna understand you if you aren’t speaking right.” Onyankopon slowly dragged his dick in and out of your pussy— you felt like you were gonna break into sobs. “Full. Sentences. Ahhh shit! Pretty girl” he snapped his hips into yours punctuating every word he said— you never got dick with this much teasing.

You looked down to follow the movements of his cock moving in and out of your tight gummy walls with a vicious lip bite, whimpers following. You reached down to play with your clit in clockwise format, lifting your head to make eye contact with him, “ Please fuck me hard, Daddy. Fuck me like I’m yours. I can’t— please~” onyankopon smiled as he lifted his cowboy hat off the counter placing it on your head, “ As you wish, doll.” Oyankopon fucked you as he pressed his body against yours feeling the warmth of your body against his, your skin was so soft against his but your nails against his naked back was so harsh but felt good, somehow.

You were sure that one of your press-on nails popped off from how hard you were gripping onto his back as he quickened his pace. “ Fuck I know you feel me right ere’, right here. Your cute lil tummy is so damn cute just like your fucking cheeks, wanna’ bite em’.” He touched your stomach and kissed you in your mouth— swapping spit and flipping each other's tongues as he held your body against his. He trailed his kisses all over your face as he fucked into your sweet little pussy.

“ Ahh, Ony, I think m’ cummin’ mmm cummin’.” You kept saying his name in whimpers and that drove him to fuck you even hard. He didn’t stop even if you came around his dick creating a white ring around his dick. “ Oh God.”, you yelled as you climaxed against him and he came inside of you. He bit your cheek with a deep and long groan when he came into your warm pussy making her even more warm with his hot cum flowing inside. Fuck, he didn’t wear a condom! He didn’t care but you did. Onyankopon chuckled to himself inside his head because he was the first person who got to cum inside of you. Instead of his neighbors, it was him. He feels honored.

✧˖° Mikasa, Annie, Sasha, Ymir, and Historia + your room

Your dad wanted to introduce you to picking strawberries and washing them off from the expanding strawberry field behind your house next to the garden. He just didn’t have time to teach you because teaching you means that he’ll have to take all day teaching you how to even clean off strawberries, plus he knew you hated getting dirt or anything underneath your nails. So when Erwin Smith, the man he always spoke with before he even moved here, suggested the girls teach you all about strawberries since it’s three of their jobs to do on his farm.

When they did teach you, Ymir wasn’t letting up on commenting how stupid you are when you asked if we’re going to eat them off the plants or give them to the animals, historia told her to back off you and giggled when your confused pout displayed on your face. Mikasa’s was closed off but very fond of how you looked in that short little skirt you wore. She thought you knew what you were doing wearing something like this to pick dirty strawberries off the plant stems.

Sasha was the fun one and the most welcoming to you teaching you after Historia because this was her job, she even encouraged you to take a bite out of a dirty strawberry as a joke and you were happily about to do so because you always ate the strawberries in the container, only cleaning it off with water. That’s until Annie grabbed your wrist. Now, Annie was a scary one, but you knew underneath that scary aura she possessed— was a woman who needed comfort. And you were happy to give it to her, a sleepover is the best comfort for any girl.

You never experienced a sleepover like the one you were indulging in right now, maybe with Hitch but that was planned. Getting mocked while your ass collides with Historia’s small heart-shaped ass on the 10 inch long double sided tan dildo Ymir brought in her night bag was something that was not planned. You wondered how she even got her hands on this. “ oh, look at the fucking size difference, my my my you two are the most perfect sluts to try this thing on.” Ymir stood in front of a panting, red faced Historia as she taunted her with a small smirk on her face. Annie stood in front of you with sharp blue eyes looking down at your pretty face, “ You look so pretty like this, it’s unbelievable how fast you succumb to the few words that one over there and I.” She pointed at Mikasa, who was rubbing her clit with her pretty fingers. “ Annie continued, “Such a shameful slut letting us talk you into this just by pointing out how your fat pussy showed through them lace Polka dot panties of yours.”

Annie ended her statement by holding the now ripped panties in her hands, twirling them prior to bending down and engulfing your shivering lips onto her mouth. The kiss was so tasty and sloppy, fuck, you wanted more. Why didn’t she give you more? You stopped moving to deepen the kiss between you and Annie just for Historia to bounce herself against you— your moans falling perfectly into Annie’s mouth as you swapped tongues. You heard little squeals from beside you and behind you. Afterwards you felt a body slide under you and Historia— breaking the kiss to stare down at who’s underneath you, you instantly smiled because Ymir’s cunt was on full display for you as she flicked her tongue on Historia’s count with no mercy.

Moaning at the feeling of a finger entering inside you soon matching pace with the dildo moving back and forth into you and Historia. Sasha giggled in your ear as her white bra appeared on the side of you, “ So wet, can’t wait to taste you on my lips when you sit that pretty ass on my face, I’m craving something to drink right now… something sweet like juice and candy mixed together. You’re the right person for that right, { reader}?” You couldn’t focus because of the overstimulation of your pussy and the stares you got from Annie and Mikasa, who now stands in front of you beside Annie. They watched your eyes peer up at them before Mikasa landed a perfect slap on your face at the same time as Annie landing two in both of your hanging tits.

Mikasa grabbed your jaw and bent down to hold eye contact with you, “ Answer her! Don’t leave any of us waiting for an answer again.” Her voice was so smooth and made your entire body shake or was it the fluffy carpet you all were standing or kneeling on, “ Yesss— yes please taste me after this. I need all of you, Ohh~” your wetness was colliding with Historia’s and she couldn’t take it. Her moans were so pretty to everyone but yours was sexy.

Annie slipped on one of your 8 inch strap-on’s, rubbing it on your mouth, “ Open up for me. Want to see how much of me you could take. Wan’ stuff you full of my cock. Naughtily sluts like you deserve this face fuck I’m going to give you.” Mikasa let out a little chuckle at her words before grabbing Sasha’s hand to lay with her on your bed. You heard the sound of two people aggressively kissing and stared at the two of them making out: Mikasa with Sasha between her legs. Not long after, Mikasa trailed kisses down Sasha’s jawline as she locked eyes with you, “ Fuck her good, Annie or I’ll do it myself. Don’t let her waste a drop of spit or gag, she’s taken bigger cocks than that, so she should know how to do it. I’m sure of it.”

Historia moaned out yours and Ymir’s name, luckily Ymir covered her mouth, “ Ahh, m’cummin’— cummin’ so my-Ahh.” Her moans were muffled by her hand and that made you want to bounce your ass faster to overstimulate her. You wanted to chase you own orgasm and Annie saw that, so she grabbed your head and fucked into it like it was a pocket pussy men use. The electricity she felt from getting head from you in your didldo was on another level. “ Don’t talk to me like I don’t know what I’m doing Mikasa.” She stared Mikasa down in advance to peering down at you, taking all of her cock between your glossy two-tone lips. “Holy fuck, she sounds so fucking pretty, taking this cock like the whore she is. Such a shame, you’re a whore for everyone who shows little interest in you, how pitiful.” Her words had some truth to it, therefore you wanted to shut her up by reaching past the straps of the strap-on to her pussy— sticking two fingers inside of her making her let out a shuddering moan.

You were all feeling pleasure because you didn’t even notice that Ymir had a thick pink string from an egg vibrator hanging out her pussy but the others did. Every last one of you were on cloud nine, especially Sasha and Mikasa now scissoring on your bed as you played with Annie pussy. Her face fucking was harsh but it made you squirt against Ymir’s stomach that spurred Ymir to cum from the pressure of water on her lower belly. Nothing but sultry and slutty moans were heard in your room. You were surprised that your parents didn’t come knocking from the little squeals and screams you all produced.

✧˖° Erwin Smith, Nile Dok, and Mike( Miche) Zacharias + Miche’s bar

After a week from the previous sexual encounters, you decided to take a ride to the famous bar that was about 20 minutes away from here. You needed to feel the wind blowing in between your boobs and upon your legs. Feel the wind on your face as you chew on 3 pieces of bubblegum. It was almost getting dark when you arrived at the bar, you thought it would've been packed with people.

Only three men were in there and you were about to walk back out when Miche grabbed your hand, stopping you from going. His voice did wonders to your pussy. Being a fucking nympho is a fucking curse because you folded as soon as you heard his deep voice. He smirked at you as he breathed in deeply, nodding his head like it was a signal to the other two older men sitting down.

Once he got you to sit down and have a drink with them. They’ll introduce themselves as the leaders of the town, you honestly didn’t care for what they had to say after that because the word authority and older was dancing inside of your head as you stared at them with big pretty eyes circling in on each one of them. You were sizing them up. Sizing them up to fuck them.

Afterwards, Erwin would probably be the one who trailed you home to make sure you got home, explaining how he was just “ looking out for a civilian and his fellow friend daughter”

You are so glad you decided to stay and size them up because you were bouncing on Miche’s big dick in the booth next to the dirty window. When you first saw his dick, you gasped as you stared at it. It was so pretty, curved to the right with two thick veins running down his cock and a pink, thick tip. He also had a cigarette and cologne musk to him, your favorite on old men like him. Your arms hugged his back as he lifted you up and down his dick using his big hands whilst talking with Erwin and Nile. He multitasked and he was great at it because he still hit the right places deep inside of your wet, starving pussy, “ So this is the girl, everyone’s been speaking about? Gotta say she’s exactly my, Mmgh!, type.” They were speaking about you like you weren’t even there getting your pussy destroyed by Miche and that turned you on even more.

Erwin chuckled as he dabbed his cigarette on the ashtray just to bring it to his dried glossy lips, inhaling and exhaling it, “ ‘Isn’t she just so pretty?’ That was Armin’s words as he showed the video of a girl sucking Jean’s cock to me when I asked what they all were discussing. Who would’ve known that she would be the same girl in the video. Luck is on our side Mike and Nile because she is indeed a beauty.” The reason he had dried up lip gloss on his lips was because of your ‘Cherry Bomb’ lip gloss you wore when you made out with him and his friends moments before Miche placed you into his lap to fuck you.

Your moans and screams were muffled into Miche’s neck due to the increased movements of his hips snapping up as his nails broke more of the ass part on your white bow stockings, ultimately revealing your pretty panties that had a small bow on the bak. Your panties were pulled to the side as his cock thrust into you. Nile tried so desperately not to look since his wife was back home with his kids. His wife cheated on him yet he still stayed. Yeah that wife. He had to stay loyal but he couldn’t when your big ass recoiled when miche hit deep inside of you. “ Fuck, she’s something, alright.” Nile didn’t wanna admit it, but he wanted to watch you break underneath him.

And he did when he fucked you agaisnt the table in front of them. His dick was a monster right next to Miche’s— tan with a dark pink tip, hairy because you could feel some of the hairs against your ass as he pushed into your pussy, and long with a little girth to him. You couldn’t take him after getting your pussy beat by Miche. Now, your neck was held in his strong hands while he pushed into your soaking pussy. Your nails gripping the table in front of you, “ Kahhh, I can’t.. I can’t take it, please slow down.” You didn’t want him to slow down at all because this was the third best fuck you’ve had. Nile let out a deep, long groan, fucking you even faster, “ Look at her tremble under me, Erwin. Can you say she’ll do the same for you? I don’t thin— fuck!~ stop squeezing me so damn hard, baby girl.”

Erwin lifted the corner of his lips as he watched your tits flop inside your bra, he couldn’t wait to have you, “ Don’t speak too soon, Nile. Marie was trembling underneath m-” his tone was doing something to your soul and you were about to collapse under Nile’s right arm that was around your tummy. Nile didn’t like what he said and took it out on your poor bruised pussy and you loved it especially when your head was pinned onto the table and Erwin was in your line of sight— brushing the sweat off your forehead with a napkin. Nile snarled as he spoke to Erwin, “ Fuck you, Erwin. Fuck, she’s gonna make me, uhhhh~.” He was so vocal as he came inside of you, his cum mixing with Miche’s cum. Miche was so tired that he didn’t even bother to focus on their bickering moment, his eyes were glued to your body. He was fascinated by you. Everyone was. The moment you stepped inside his bar was the moment he knew you were gonna be screaming and cumming on his cock after the little talk you had.

When it was Erwin’s turn in between your legs, he fucked you with your face turned to Miche and Nile who was now panting like a dog outside without any water on a hot summer day. You were cockwarming him and spilling your cum and the other two men cum all over his cock, “ Don’t move now, Darling. Older men are talking, down here we show respect to our elders.” His eyes were on yours as he held two fingers under your chin tilting it up for you to hold eye contact with him, he soon took his focus off you to return it to the men across and on the side of you. You felt humiliation all over and that only turned you on even more, especially when he took a sip of his drink with a cooling “ aah” following, “ They taught that to us in the city, so why wouldn’t they teach that to her generation?”

They answered him and participated in your degradation and when you would try to say something or move, Erwin would perform powerful thrusts, immediately you’ll moan or cry out of pain and pleasure because after all he was the biggest one out of all of them— he was uncut with a wide girth to his already long dick, his smell was alluring to you because he smelled so natural with a twinge of Booze and cigarettes. You heard two names before your orgasm hit you like a ton of bricks, yet you couldn’t make out the names clearly. It’s not like you know them or will be able to meet them. Right?

✧˖° Levi Ackerman and Hange Zoe + barn house

The moment you met Hange was when she was milking the cows for your dad as a deal with your mom. You didn’t know how they met, but you would assume your mom and dad knew every last person here because they were already planning to move down here before they told you, which upset you to the max. Truth be told, you should’ve figured it out earlier but your mind was filled with sex, fun, and zero responsibilities.

So when you finally decide to go out three days later after your father fussed at you for being out so late, you went to your father’s barn yard that sat on the side of a little river with different fishes inside them. You sat on the hay petting the baby goat in your arms. Hange came in with a bucket of milk, stopping when they saw you with your cute baby yellow and pink dress on, they raised their eyebrow at your yellow bunny ears displayed on your head. They never saw anyone dress or look around like you, not too many chubby people that can dress in this town. Theyinstantly got excited, practically running over there to greet you.

They asked you questions about your choice of style in a town like this and while you answered they couldn’t help but to pay attention to the way your hello kitty necklace and star shaped diamond necklace fell between your high sat boobs. Levi noticed who you were right when he entered the barn disturbing your one sided conversation with the person named Hange. His voice was rough and he was straight forward especially when he asked “ Why dress like a common whore in a barn? Who allowed this?” You didn’t and couldn’t take offense because he was so close to you and eye level to your boobs. You found that funny but wouldn’t say.

Levi was not supposed to have this much interest in you but he did, specifically when he asked a question about why there was a pink bow on top of the alpaca’s ears and insulted you after when you said it looked “cutesy”. He wanted to pluck his ear off from how excited and stupid you sound and looked, but he didn’t. It’s clear you just did what you wanted. So, He decided that you’ll be “fixed” with a good lesson. He couldn’t care less if Hange decides to sit through this lesson. You need discipline and he was the right person to do it.

Your moans were muffled by Hange’s pussy covering your mouth as they sat on your face. Your moans from Levi rubbing his fat tip up and down the opening of your hungry, fat pussy, “ That’s right, shut her mouth all the way up, got tired of hearing her talk about a bunch of nonsense.” He purposely bumped his tip into your clit trying hard not to moan at the feeling of your wetness on his dick. Hange looked back with a laugh as they saw Levi bit his lip as he slid inside of your pussy, “ Looks like you’re enjoying yourself, Levi. Maybe you liked hearing her voice more than you thought you did, huh? Levi?”

Levi was about to say a smart remark when you suddenly latched onto his dick with a vicious grip causing him to let out a low whimper, red sprouted onto his face in shame and embarrassment. Luckily, Hange was too busy enjoying herself with your tongue inside of her, “ Ahh, yes { reader}! You’re doing so good for mommy.” Levi cursed at how tight you clamped on him from her little nickname— slapping your clit as a response, “ Your pussy feels so good, so don’t ruin the moment by breaking my dick with all that useless clenching.” Truth: Levi actually loved the way your pussy took him in. The grip was insane to him since he knew you took Erwin, Miche, and Nile before. They were bigger than him in length, not girth though. He only knows because of the orgies they hosted. They never fucked without condoms so why were you special? Hmm.

Levi bent down to bite your nipple as Hange gripped your coils rocking back and forth with a loud moan. They were both enjoying you and you were enjoying yourself a little too much. Almost breaking at how deep he was fucking you. Hange yanked your head back— your face was in their line of sight and you looked so pretty with their juices covering your cheeks and mouth. They let out a happy laugh, “ Levi you should see how slutty her face looks right now.” They paused and hovered over your chest a bit to let you breathe. “ Don’t need to see that when I have the prettiest thing on her body in front of me, her pussy is swallowing me up Hange so don’t talk because you’re gonna ruin my hard on.”

Hange gasped and was about to reply back to him with a sarcastic remark, stopping when they heard a loud moan and slaps increasing rapidly. “ Ha-Ann~, please keep fucking me like this mister Levi, make me yours. Ouhhh.” Levi let a small smirk display in his red and sweat drenched face in victory, “ Got you right where I want now, pretty girl…” he gripped your stretch mark stomach underneath his little, thick fingers, “ Now in order to keep hitting that spot you want, you have to vow you’re gonna be a good girl after this and stop decorating your father’s barn and barn animals with that pink girly shit.”

Your body was shaking and your words were slipping out of your mouth in stutters when you tried to respond, but his long strokes inside of your velvet walls was enough to make you lose basis of the statement he just said to you. Hange tapped your face with three taps, “ Hey, Hey, my little butterfly, don’t tap out now, are you gonna obey what Levi said.” The table bench underneath you all felt like it was about to collapse from the shaking you and Levi were creating, so you quickly answered levi in a loud, “ Yes, just— ahhnn fuck me harder, please sir.. pl-pleasee mommy!!” Levi threw his head back to get his hair out of eyes and locked eyes with Hange, whose neck was turned to him, nodding his head. I’m his mind, he wondered when Furlan and Isabel is coming to town because he knew they would fuck and love on you just as much as he and Hange are doing.

Once Hange moved their pussy back to your mouth, you were in heaven because they tasted so good. Your slurping was music to both of their ears, so Levi rewarded you by placing his head in between your pretty boobs, fucking you faster in the mating press position. His balls were slapping the opening of your other hole and his arms were tightly around your abdomen. He loved the feeling of your stomach and tit moving up and down against his body. You were remarkable. The table shook underneath you three and you were so glad that this was drilled into the ground outside in the back of the barn because if it wasn’t this would’ve been fell. Levi dick was hitting the right spot inside of you, which made your loud moans get Hange off. The strength of your tongue circling around their clit prior to moving inside of their wet pussy was amazing.

All while this was happening, you all didn’t notice a tall shadow in the woods behind the barn watching you all with a small smirk on his face. You were a dumb silly girl who was easy to manipulate and he was going to have much fun with you later on. His nephew may have had you first, but he’ll fuck you better because he need you to know that there is bigger and better out here for you. Plus, he hated your grandfather and now your father, so he was glad he found out that you were his daughter. Only time will tell.

✧˖° Kenny Ackerman + at the lake beach party in the woods

The younger crew that you previously met on the first night invited you out for a party at the private lake beach of Napeville. You have never been to one of these types of swimming parties, mainly because you wouldn’t dare touch the water because of how dirty it is and because you have never been in the woods like this. You blamed your parents for this because now you have to go through the woods just to get to a party Reiner was co-throwing with Connie.

At first, your parents didn’t want you to go since you were on duty-calls for sneaking off to fuck Levi and Hange, they obviously didn’t know that was the reason. Reiner convinced them and said he was going to “ look out for you and help you finish your duties tomorrow. You didn’t know why your parents suddenly trusted Reiner, but they let you go before telling you to watch out for a man named “ Kenny the ripper”. You paid no mind as you walked to your room.

One thing you looked forward to was looking cute at the party. You had the perfect skirts and bikini to wear. Your bikini was a size smaller than your actual size and you and everyone loved it. You would think you would be shy with a body like yours, but you weren’t because you and the others thought you were the sexiest person at the party especially with your little back rolls and tummy out.

Your swimsuit did you justice and Kenny thought the same when he lurked around watching you holding the red cup in your hands, never once stepping near the water. He needed to get close and he didn’t have a way right now, so imagine his surprise when you made it easier for him to fuck you while walking through the woods to get to your car for an extra towel for Mikasa.

On the way back to Mikasa, you ran into the chest of Kenny Ackerman, a man your parents told you to stay away from just recently too. You couldn’t be stupid enough to insult the older man with a smart remark of how old he is and how you heard that old people have bad eyesight right? You couldn’t be stupid enough to smile when he gave you a backwards compliment on how the pretty gingham wedges you were walking in the woods with is a stupid and cute choice for you, right? You also couldn’t be stupid enough to let him hold you by the neck against a thick tree, only to react with a bite of your plump lip, right? Well you were indeed stupid enough to do all of those things in the act of also getting off to how strong the older man was, wanting a piece of him in the end.

Reasons why you were tied at the hands with your bikini bra and Kenny bottoming inside of you against a tree. Your bouncing tits littered with dark stretch marks hurt as they bounced back and forth against the tree and your moans were muffled by your bikini bottoms, so you were completely naked with only his cowboy hat on your head. Kenny let out a low maniacal laugh at the desperation your eyes plead as they looked back at you, “ My my my, sweet pea, such a dumb little thing aren’t cha’? Didn’t the little shit teach you not to do anymore dumb shit anymore or was it girly shit? Hell if I know, I just know I’m gonna fuck you like the fuckdoll you are.” He tried not to let out a loud moan as he watched your ass bounce back on his big cock, he was bigger than Levi and Erwin put together, you hated it because it didn’t necessarily fit in all the way— your pussy was only taking him just above his pelvis.

“ Gonna tell your old man that his daughter is a town’s whore and shouldn’t be allowed to be here. Maybe then that poor excuse of a father will grant me half of his farm land once I send the pictures to his phone, eh?… Shit, keep squeezing me like that, sweet pea, and I’m gonna breed this fat little cunt— fill it to the brim and send you home with the next Ackerman generation inside of you.”, Kenny says with a powerful thrust inside of your pussy. The slapping sounds and your muffled pleas were echoed throughout the little area in the woods. Your pussy was something else to him. She warmed his dick up mighty good and he couldn’t help but to admire you. You were definitely a beauty so maybe he shall stick to his original plan.

“Mmgh- mmmm- pldhpse.”, you felt like your eyes were stuck in the back of your head from how hard he was pounding you from behind and against a tree at that. Trees were yucky and splintery to you, in the back of your mind you hoped that the wood wouldn't magically appear in your stomach and tits. He bit your ear when he dropped his pants to the ground, instantly groping one of your tits with his right hand and playing with your pussy with his left hand. “ Come on, my pretty pea, set up a little get together with myself and the old fuck of a father, a great fuck greater than the one you have right now is guaranteed as the prize.”

Kenny slowed down his pace before stopping and pulling out of you with his cock touching the back of your thighs. He took the bikini piece balled up in your mouth out to let you breathe and talk properly. You didn’t get what he was asking and thought he was an old friend that your family knew, “ yes— please, please, please, I’ll get you that meeting, fuck me Mr., I need— I need your dick inside me. No mercy on my pretty little cunt.” Kenny stared at you wide eyed when you turned around to lock eyes with him. Holy Shit! You were such a needy little whore. He was going to have fun with you. He met a couple of women that were needy for his cock, but not like this.

The next thing you know, your feet was dangling in the air—on the side of his naked waist during the time of his arms underneath your thighs, holding you up as he fucked into you like a mad dog in heat. You were surprised that he could pick you without cracking any bones or hurting his back or arms. He did hunt animals and people, but you didn’t need to worry your pretty head about that. But his cock felt like it was punching your stomach in and out, “ ha-nnn~ s’good, it’s sooo good. Gonna cum all over your meaty cock. Fuck!” Your moans were filling his ears and he loved every word that came out of your mouth, so he sped up his pace, your heels long gone and his pants dropped to his ankles so now you both were fucking like the vampires in the woods on true blood. So deep into each other that you couldn’t think or hear, otherwise you would’ve heard your name being called by Mikasa and Eren.

“ Shh, what’s that I hear, little pea? I hear your friends getting closer, but you don’t seem to care, do you? You stupid little girl, you don’t care that your friends will see you fucking the one man they were told to watch out for? Ah, I got it, your- fucking hell you’re clamping down on me like you never want me to pull out. Such a bad girl you are, huh? Yeah, s’fucking naughty!”, Kenny’s words were getting to you more than the close shouts from Mikasa and Eren. You couldn’t even figure out which direction they were coming from because now Kenny was dipping and moving his hips in a rhythm you couldn’t even decipher in music class if you cared for it. Fuck, he was what you needed. Kenny's big hands gripped your ass in his hands, mounding them as he pounded inside of your soaking pussy that was ready to squirt all over his cock. He loved the way you held onto him tightly in fear of him dropping you. You were a piece of work that was sure. Considering how hard and fast he’s going, this would be your first time squirting and it’s sad that it was by the one person you were told to stay away from. When he introduced himself to you after making you squirt and cream onto his cock, all at the same time, You knew you practically signed over your father’s life and land of crops for big mean Kenny Ackerman. You were so fucked, yet you didn’t even noticed or care because you were too fucked out to know that he was the man to fear.

✧˖° Reiner, Porco, and Pieck + Reiner’s room in his ranch

Reiner couldn’t sleep unless he gets a chance with you, but why hadn’t you even looked his way. It's been weeks since his lake-beach party and he couldn’t get you out his head, hell he couldn’t even get the strawberry or other candy/fruit scent out of his mind as well. He knew of the others fucking you and still wanted you, so when you suddenly stood laughing next to Pieck with a big, blue lollipop in your mouth, he couldn’t help himself to fantasize that that blue sucker was his cock instead. He couldn’t help but to look over at Pieck and now Porco eyeing you sucking on the sucker with pure fondness in their postures and eyes. He had a plan.

Luckily for him, Pieck was one step ahead of him when she asked you to go to lunch with them. As she wrapped her arms around your shoulders, she brought her fingers to your shirt that said the words “ Dumb Bimbo in Charge” with rhinestone letters. Reiner and Porco knew what she was doing by making you explain what your shirt meant just for them to not pay attention to shit you were saying. Hell, you didn’t even know what it means because you were too dumb to get it, you just thought it was cute. Too focus on how excitedly your boobs bounced as you tried to explain what your shirt meant to you.

Only when you asked the question “ Do you wanna know what Blue lemonade tastes like?” They paid attention and Porco was surprised to see your eyes on him and Reiner, especially Reiner. Gulping and nodding to your question cause you to suddenly dip your blue sucker in your lemonade— putting it back in your mouth sucking harshly. Eventually pulling it out of your mouth whilst bringing Reiner’s face close to yours kissing him. Pock and Pieck were jealous and from that moment on you all decided to visit Reiner parents ranch they left to him.

Your body felt pleasure from all over as you lay under Pieck in a 69 position, taking Porco’s cock inside of her hot pussy during the time of you taking Reiner’s cock inside of your pussy. His moans were so whiny as he moved in and out of your drenched pussy with a thumb inside of your puckering hole, “ She’s so- ahhunn- she’s so eager to take me in, Porco.” You indeed were eager to take him in as the wet sounds of yours and Pieck’s pussy rippled in the room you all were in. Porco grunted as Pieck squeezed against his cock, “ Shit Pieck, Reiner shut the hell up, m’tryna get off here and all I hear is your whiny- annoying ass voice.” Reiner didn’t respond to Porco’s comment due to feeling your pussy convulse around his dick.

You, on the other hand, was in love with the way Reiner cock took up so much space inside of your pussy, filling you just right. Tears were brought to your eyes as you started feeling Reiner’s balls slapping against your hole from how deep he was inside of you, “ Mm’guh, s’deep, I can’t breathe, mmmm.” Reiner smirked as Porco eyes widened at how lewd you were talking about Reiner’s dick beating your pussy in. He couldn’t let Reiner win this, so he stuck two fingers in your mouth since your face was facing him as he dug deep into a moaning Pieck, “ Suck, bitch. After you’re done, suck my girl’s clit as I fuck her. That’s what you’re good for right, Ymir told us all about how skilled your pussy eating is.” You coughed and drooled on his thick fingers as they hit the pack of your throat.

Reiner hissed shapely at your clenching on his cock, landing a harsh smack on your thighs with his right hand, “ Seems your pussy took a liking to my cock, doll face. Wonder if she could take the shape of my cock even better than she is right now? Shit~ yeah, yeah, just like that. So fucking tight. Oh~” Pieck was so out of touch with this world that she jumped when she felt a hand slap her clit from below, she then proceeds to stroke a finger over your slit— taking in how sticky her hands are becoming. her moans only grew louder when she felt a calming suck on her clit from you, “ Pieck’s dripping— mmmgh! dripping so much Porco. She’s doing so good for us.”

Porco eyes rolled to the back of his head as you licked from Piecks pussy to the part of his cock that wasn’t inside of Pieck. Reiner didn’t take kindly to you lifting yourself up to do that. In response, he slammed inside of you, gripping your love handles harshly as he pounded inside of your pussy, “ Stop trying to run, doll face, can’t have you slipping from me to please that fucker.” It was like a different man came out as he pounded into your now bruised pussy. You couldn’t keep up with the licking of Pieck’s cunt because of the power thrust Reiner was doing to your body. “ yes, yes, yeshhh!” Your moans were shut off by Porco snatching your hair up to Pieck’s saturated pussy taking in his cock with a grip you could visibly see.

Reiner and Porco’s chest were glistening with cold sweat as they fucked you and Pieck with meaning. You were on the verge of cumming and wanted to try to hold it, but Pieck latched her luscious lips on your clit, sucking and curling her tongue around you eagerly. Your screams were muffled as it vibrated Pieck’s pussy causing her to squirt on your face and Porco’s cock. Porco couldn’t believe he was living his dream right now, “ Fuck~ I guess you are worthy little something huh, so fucking sexy.” He rubbed your head during the time of you swirling your tongue on Pieck’s slightly tan pussy. Soon after, Porco gripped Pieck’s hips as he slowly overstimulated her pussy like Reiner was doing your creaming pussy, “ doing so good for me, Pieck. A fucking good girl, now make her squirt f’me, P’.”

Pieck begins to licking more rapidly with her moans vibrating your clit. Reiners pounding only added to your pleasure and soon you were soaking and creaming around his cock and on Pieck’s face. Her eyes closed as you squirted on it, taking in the taste of your juices as well. Reiner’s hand gripped harshly on the headboard of the bed you all were on and with a loud yell of your name he came inside of you with no hesitation. You were so glad that you went to the clinic for a check up and got on birth control, otherwise you would’ve been done for. Kids were not on your list but it was on Reiner’s list as he came inside of you seeing nothing except for hazy imaginary snowflakes as he looked at the ceiling. His chest on Pieck’s head as he breathed into her hair, only jumping up from how shook your body was and Porco’s scream as he came into Pieck’s pussy.

Pieck’s moans were so fucking cute to you. You would love to do this again with the three of them, only next time you wanted Porco for yourself. Reiner was perfect, yet you still wanted more. More was in Porco especially with the way he locked eyes with you when you looked up at him through low eyes. His chest raised up and down with the eyes of a person who wanted whatever was in front of them like a kid seeing their favorite plushy and wanting it. Reiner bent down to kissed your thigh whispering a raspy “ thank you” and you squeezed around his limp cock still inside of you. Nothing but a grunt was heard when you did that. He hoped what he heard from your dad wasn’t true. He didn’t want you to leave to go stay with a relative in the city, just to go to college. It’s a college here, a small one, but he hopes it’ll do. It’s also 30 miles away so why couldn’t you stay? Stay.

✧˖° Keith Shadis and Eren Kruger + Theo Magath + at a dinner party inside of your parents house

Your father and mother told you that they were having a dinner party with the residents of this town, mostly the higher ups and they told you to dress appropriately. They were wary of your definition of appropriate so they had to specify it two times for you to get it. And when you asked if you have to attend, the look on your mothers face told you your answer. You are their daughter and you’re gonna have to take over after your parents die. Generational farming was not for you. You’re definitely gonna be the one to end that curse.

The list of people that showed up was huge, luckily your house was huge enough for them. Everyone you had sex with was here probably, not that you care. They just better keep it quiet. The noise downstairs was filled with nothing but plates and untensils clattering with loud laughs and talks. You heard a portion of the older man you fucked until the topic of Kenny Ackerman came up.

You wanted to eavesdrop so bad, but thought otherwise because you wanted to finger yourself to the last encounter with the said man. With your head against your fluffy pink silk pillow and hands locked in the handcuffs you brought, you fingered yourself to the memories inside of your head of every person you fucked. You couldn’t help yourself and couldn’t stop fingering yourself as the noise drowned out. You didn’t even stop fingering yourself when Eren Kruger walked into your room, mislaying your room for the bathroom.

Kruger eyes were wide when he walked in on you knuckle deep inside of your pussy moaning multiple men names, some of them was friends of his like Erwin, Levi, Ackerman, Zeke, Hange, etc. he made the conclusion that you were the little fox his colleagues were spending weeks talking about like they were in love with you. God. You looked so pretty with your mouth formed in a little O as you struggled to get off due to your pink handcuffs on your wrist. He closed the door not so quietly causing you to gasp out at the sudden noise. Your eyes widened when you saw who it was. The man who came here three weeks ago to talk with your dad; he was with two other men though.

His grey eyes peeled into you before he spoke to you in a deep gruff voice, “ So you’re the infamous, { reader}. Such a beauty you are…” he stood there, eyeing you slowly closing your legs with your fingers now placed on your pretty stomach, over the fabric of your pretty white dress. Your thighs were what he wanted to be suffocated in and that’s exactly why he came closer to you. You tried to move back to sit up, but he shook his head and immediately you stopped moving like you were in a trance, “ Can I help you out, princess? Want to make you feel good and much better. Allow me to make you feel good, princess.”

You stared at him getting on his knees in his black trousers. You were eyeing the door, slithering your eyes back to him with a meek nod of your head. You were never shy but he had the aura to make you do so. Kruger didn’t waste any time pulling off your panties underneath your dress you were supposed to make your way down the stairs with, “ so pretty.” His deep voice caused you to clench at air and he chuckled with his head still under your dress. He licked a strip of your fat pussy, your body shuddering in response followed by a little whine, “ fuck, please continue.” Kruger obeyed you and took long and slow licks up and down your pussy. Older men and women have proven to be better at everything because you’ve never gripped the sheets just from three licks of your pussy.

Kruger enjoyed the taste of your pussy, wanting to suck that pretty, puffy clit. He sucked your clit with meaning causing you to raise up a little to bunch your dress up over your plump tummy revealing his pretty eyes already on you. His facial structure made him highly attractive outstandingly when he moved his tongue in a slow circle around your clit. You two were lost in each other’s eyes that when the door opened and closed you couldn’t hear it. Your head tilted back at how good he was eating your pussy, “ Just like that, mmm, Mr. Kruger I want more.” Girls in their 20s wasn’t his type because they’re so whiny and much younger than him, yet he couldn’t help groaning into your pussy at your whines.

A hand suddenly grabbed your chin, squeezing your cheeks together. Your eyes widened in high alert when you saw the sunken eyes of a man you were afraid of ever since he came here giving you a mean stare: Keith shadis was a man you genuinely feared and respected enough to want. Kruger hummed against your Pussy prior to speaking once he detached from you with a string of saliva and juice following, “ See you made it, shadis. Didn’t expect you to come in and join, consider me impressed.” Keith's eyes hardened at Kruger, turning to you before he captured your lips with a bruising, hard kiss. Your hips bucked into the air from the hot, steaming kiss you shared with the tall 6’6 man, they were both so tall and big. Keith broke from the kiss with a little peck on your chin and lips, “ Couldn’t let you have all the fun, haven’t had this much fun since 95’. Wouldn’t miss it, although her mouth looks a little bored, a little conniving whore like her needs a cock in her mouth to satisfy her. Who knows? She might even have an oral fixation and if she doesn’t, I’ll create it for her to have.”

Keith pushed you back on the bed, taking his shoes off to climb onto the bed with his knees on the side of your head— messing up your hair a little bit. He unbuckled his pants and his dick popped out slapping you on the forehead, he was uncircumcised yet still had a huge cock you wanted down your throat. You grabbed his cock at the same time Kruger pushed his tongue inside of your pussy, “ Augh-mmmph.” As soon as you opened your mouth, Keith shoved his cock down your throat, fucking your throat fast with a vicious grip on your hairstyle you got. It hurts so good. Theo opened the door and slide inside to watch with a cigar hanging out his mouth. His eyes was focused on how well you took Keith’s dick inside of your mouth. He looked down at his trousers and shifted. Keith and Kruger knew he was there but you didn’t. How could you when Keith’s groans and Kruger’s slurping was heard along with your muffled moans from the dick sucking you were happily doing.

Keith was in heaven once your tongue slid I’ve this veins and Kruger was in heaven when your pussy drowned his face in your juices. Theo Magath was just a bystander and man did he want to join— he’ll wait out his turn. While you were about to get fucked out by three older men, your family was downstairs with the men and women you already gave yourself to. Such a slut and your parents had no idea what you’ve been doing and what you’re doing right now. You heard them calling you downstairs, though you were too busy being used by all three men upstairs in your recent decorative room. After all, you are the Farmer’s daughter that turned into the town’s Slut. Therefore, you are now the Town’s Slut and you’re not going anywhere else any time soon.

Tagging: @shunsuist @honeybleed @simpingfor-wakasa @happygoluckyalexis @mastermindenoshimaalicia @nutheadgeenat ( if you wanted to be tagged), @angelshub @bontens-angel and anyone else who wants to be tagged in.

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halcyone-of-the-sea · 3 months

Text

FROM FAR DISTANT WATERS

PAIRING: Merman!John Price x F!Artist!Reader

SYNOPSIS: There’s something in the water - you're going to figure out what it is, and why it chose to save you.

WORDCOUNT: 16.8k

WARNINGS: Blood, murder, death/near death, assault, injury, gore, mystery, mentions of suicide, angst, protective!John, pining, sickness, etc.

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

The little boat rocks as it slips through the expansive water, a thin hanging of mist in the air. The curtain-like film it leaves makes it nearly impossible to see the dark rocks of the shore a far distance away, and the dip and push of the oars through the chilled waves leaves splashing droplets connecting to your cheeks. You touch the flesh delicately, brushing away the spray as your eyes slide over dark, lapping water—deeper than anything.

In your lap, sitting below the high waist of your skirt, was your sketchbook; the tweed material was all the rage these days, though you never focused much on that. The thick item kept out the chill of the, very, early morning, and that was all you cared about, though, it seemed you lacked the foresight to pack a proper coat. A large woolen shawl sat over your shoulders, hiding the plain white blouse but not its cuffs; not the slight poof of the bottom part of the sleeves.

Your numb fingers fiddle with the pencil in your hands, your open sketchbook filled with page after page of images ranging from the common sea-bird to great ships and shorelines.

“I still have to ask why you feel the need to tag along,” is the voice that breaks the silence, and you blink away from the cloud of condensation from your exhalation. Your ear twitches, but only a small flick of a smile pulls your lips at the older man’s garbled words. “So cold my damn hands are going to fall off. Why am I always the one bloody working the oars?”

Otto Whitworth was a man far into his later years—one who entertained your fascination with the raging waters and the need to immortalize them on paper; that draw to the sights and sounds. Graying, covered now in a large coat and his boots, with the long fishing rod knocking around by your feet, he grumbles more than he speaks sentences, content with only the pipe in his breast pocket and the promise of fresh fish for breakfast.

“Oh, it’s not so bad,” you chuckle, glancing over at his wrinkled face—the glare of dark eyes set into a deep browline that’s more for show of annoyance than genuine emotion. “Gets the blood pumping harder, Mr. Whitworth.” Your vision slides to the shadows of the black rocks, and your pencil finds your palm before the sound of it meeting parchment echoes over the nothingness. “Isn’t it lovely? Listen to the Gannets.”

“Don’t need my blood pumpin’ harder,” the old man grinds out, scoffing. “Gonna make my fuckin’ heart stop, Girl…” Otto sighs, shaking his head as you chuckle. He growls under his breath. “And, no, I’m not listening to the birds—they’ll be trying to steal my fish soon enough. Greedy bastards.”

Your eyes roll in their sockets, pencil shading in the rough shapes of misty rocks, your face cold but still eager for something. There was a type of magic to this place—to Southern England and the small coast town you had settled in nearly a year ago: Redthorpe.

It seemed your talent for the arts was appreciated here, you had a shop to your name and friendly compliments from the locals every time the door was pulled open. People here liked the attention to detail in a place where they had most likely lived for a good ninety percent of their lives.

You tilt your head at the paper as Otto lets the oars drop back into the water, grasping for his fishing rod that you kindly move closer with your foot.

The man takes up the item and sets the line, whipping back the pole and snapping it forward with a wizz and a grunt—a cracking of old bones.

“Now hush,” Otto sighs, settling back.

You send a silent look upward, and at the same time as he does, you say out loud in a soft voice.

“You’ll scare away the fish with all that blabber.”

A heavy glare is leveled at you, but you raise a hand innocently and laugh under your breath.

“I’m as silent as the fish, Mr. Whitworth.”

“Cheeky Bird,” Otto sighs loudly, shifting in his seat until he faces the water, eyes glinting. “You’re too wild for this place, then, eh?”

“For most places,” you breathe, smiling as you study the rocks again before going back to your work. It’s only after there were the wiggling bodies of three fish set into a fisher’s basket that the oars are taken back up and the silent water is again forced back by ripples.

Pencil finding the middle of the spine, you close your sketchbook, the routine is as simple as it always is. Otto will complain about having you at his dock, he’ll begrudgingly invite you in and cook three fish: one for him, the second for his cat, Harriet—older than England itself and missing most teeth; as blind as a bat—and then, finally, you. After that you’re back in your shop finishing up your piece of the misty shoreline, working until the candle burns through both ends and the oil paints are swirling colors as your eyes bug. Bed, and finally, repeat.

A splash of water makes you blink quickly, your head jerking over at the slide of movement from the corner of your vision. Eyes wide, you swear a fin had cut the surface of the water like a knife through butter.

Your body moves closer to the side of the boat immediately, leaning over eagerly.

“Hey!” Otto barks, steadying himself as the vessel shakes back and forth. Your eyes shimmer, a smile overtaking your lips. “Watch yourself—you’ll send me overboard!”

“Did you see that?” Your eyes dart over the water. “I think I saw a fin.”

“You got excited over a fish?” The older man’s voice is unimpressed, hissing in the crackling of age. “Hell, I got three in the basket if you’re that bloody impressed.”

“Shh,” you wave one of your hands, unblinking. “It was bigger than a fish, Otto!”

Your ears twitch to his scoff, his hands grasping the oars harder before he shoves the boat forward. Body looming, the intense pull of adventure dims the longer nothing happens, and after a minute or two of dead mist and water, you hum under your breath like a fool and sit back.

“Lost it,” your numb lips murmur, breath puffing out softly. “Damn.” You shake your head as the wooden dock gets closer, more boats tied and shifting with the waves. “It was strange,” you admit. “Like a deep navy color—with specs of silver along the spine.”

Otto pauses, his hands tight over the oars. He blinks over at you, face for the first time showing an emotion other than annoyance. You barely notice before the sheen of crafted blankness is back.

You smile down the length of the boat, curiosity plain to see. “Do you know of any animal like that around here?”

“No,” Otto grunts out quickly, and your excitement dims sharply, blinking through shock.

Your brows furrow after the silence falls stiffly—the boat had never been uncomfortable to you, the atmosphere quiet, of course, but always easy to charter. Now the air was…muddy. Something had changed as fast as a fish being yanked out of water.

Fingers twitching, you sit back slowly onto the plank, pulling your sketchbook the tiniest bit closer to your abdomen. Face open, Otto continues to row and the entire ride is silent until the boat is docked and tied to the pole by calloused hands. Your digits grasp your shawl and wrap the fabric harder, shifting down to hide your chin into the wool as you shiver.

“...Need help?” You ask, eyes still shifting back to the water like always.

There’s something now that makes your attention drift like the waves themselves—and it wasn’t only the shadows of the rise and fall, it was Otto’s strange behavior. The man wasn’t one to just say one word and nothing more. He could bounce off you like it was a game; you often thought he enjoyed your company just so he could insult someone. Jokingly, of course. It was the companionship he craved, it was why he always let you on his boat in the mornings.

Otto lived alone. You never asked about it.

“Don’t need any help,” he grumbles out, tying off the last knot to the pole and stepping back with a smirk of satisfaction. “M’not in the grave yet, Girl. Been working the boats since I was out my mum’s womb.”

“Feel sorry for her.” Your mutter meets the air as light streaks through the mist. Breathing hot air into your free hand, you rub it over your arm repeatedly and sigh, fingers of the other limb tightening over your book. Absentmindedly, your head turns back to the open water one last time, for one last glimpse of anything you want to commit to memory while you paint—

The fin is back.

“Otto!” Feet swiftly dart to the end of the dock, you stop only an inch away as your skirt whips over. “It’s back! Look!”

A hand grasps your wrist and yanks you away.

Gasping sharply, you stumble until the harsh bark of, “Get back!” echoes across the dock just as it does through your ears.

“Whoa!” You’re quickly let go of, a shadow shielding you from the view of the water as you scramble to make sure your sketchbook won’t slip from your hold. Head jerking to stare in shock at the middle of Otto’s curved spine, your heart stutters in confusion and a bit of hesitation befitting one who was just manhandled. Standing up straight again, your tight face pulls in, the pound of your heart telling you something is wrong.

Glancing past a still frozen Otto, the water is utterly devoid of life again—only ripples to show there had ever really been something there at all.

“You go back to the ocean,” Otto yells, spittle flying from his mouth, fishing boots stomping against the wood as he moves forward a step, pointing. “Go back to the bloody hole you swam out of! There’s nothing for you here! Nothing!”

You watch, struck dumb.

“...Mr. Whitworth?” Your lips mutter out, eyebrows shifting from the waves to the man—utterly confused down to your chilled bones. Who was he talking to?

Perhaps time had caught up to him—was he mistakenly taking the rocks for people? The waves for whispers? All you had seen was a fish’s fin, nothing more, nothing less.

“Otto,” you call again, concerned. You should get the man inside; get him warm and let him cook his breakfast. “Let’s just go.” Your eyes blink lightly, fingers twitching over your book. “Alright…? My eyes must have been playing tricks on me, it’s nothing important.”

His form waddles past you, more in tune to his sea legs than the ones on land, and under his breath, you hear him snarl out a low, “You’ll not take her like you did Eleanor. Mark my words, I’ll be stringing you up by the tail first.”

Withered hand connecting with your shawl’s edge, you’re dragged back with more force than you’d anticipate Otto still having, but you go with him nonetheless.

Looking at the water, there’s nothing to see beyond the stretch of nothingness.

—

You dare to ask when you’re pushing the fish bones over to the side of your plate, slipping some mashed-up scraps to Harriet who lays in your lap purring. The rough scrape of a tongue licks your fingers, and deep gray fur caresses your palm.

“Who were you talking to back there?” Your voice carries over the small hut that Otto calls his own, the sounds of the water meeting the rocks plainly heard seeing as his property was as close to the cliffs as you could get without going over them. “I never took you for someone to believe in spirits.” The joke was a small jab, but even your own amusement was dim in the situation. Your hand puts down the fork and moves to rest along Harriet’s back, lightly petting the old cat as her half-missing tail flicks in satisfaction.

The man’s back over at the sink tightens.

“You watch yourself near the waters, Girl,” Otto grunts, dark eyes glancing over his shoulder. “By God, you watch yourself. There’s things out there—terrible things.”

“What kinds of ‘terrible things,’ Otto?” Your head tilts, sketchbook resting still on the table, your gaze flickering to it. Terrible had a nice ring to it. But something else was swirling in your gut now, a hesitation of a special sort that only comes out with the unknown paths of life.

What could make a man born and bred on the waters so reserved when speaking about them? Your interest had been piqued—your curiosity unsated until you were given a clear answer. You’d only been here a year, that wasn’t enough time to know the secrets of Redthorpe; to be let into those deeper circles.

Otto licks his cracked lips, the wrinkles of his face leaving behind something akin to a scrunched dog’s visage—worn by time and improper care from the damage of the sun. He’d been at work on his boat for decades, and while you took his advice with a grain of salt usually, this time he carried himself differently: you wanted to know why.

He glares with no venom, taking out the scrubbed pan from the soapy water and barking, “What’s it with the younger generation and their bloody pushing? Listen to what I’m telling you and take it as it is, Girl. You don’t go on the water,” he blinks, face grim, “unless I’m the one ferryin’ you through it, eh? That’s the end of it. I’ll say no more.”

Frowning heavily, you sigh under your breath and shake your head. Letting your eyes slip down to Harriet, you scratch under her chin and stare into her milky eyes as she lets out a little chirp.

“So much for answers,” your lips mutter.

But a fire had been lit in your breast now—a low simmering pull like a rope had been tied to your wrist, drawing you closer and closer to the rocky shore, to a boat tied on the dock which you knew was steadily rocking to the deep, dark waves of this isolated place.

To a navy-colored fin in the water, and a shape far larger than any you’d seen before.

Blinking to look out the window of Otto’s home, your eyes find the ocean, and the longing that you’d always had for it grows ten times larger as your sketchbook begs to be filled.

—

It was only fate, you guessed, that you had come to Redthorpe—a tiny, unimportant dot on the map—when the way of life you’d chosen had led you astray. This place was a way to start over. Fix yourself. You’d picked the least-known town in all of Europe, and that was exactly what you wanted.

One trait, though, that could never be squashed from your psyche was the lust for the unknown. It was an obsessive lover; a toxic hand on the back of your neck that dragged you back over and over, until there was only yourself to blame for the repetition of disappointment.

It was the reason you found yourself on the shore two days after you sighted the dark fin that cut the water.

Your lace-up boots were atop a large boulder, shifting as your body turned from left to right, eyes patiently dragging the expanse of nothing. Waves lap only inches below, spraying up to get absorbed into your skirt, shawl whipping with the wind. The breeze is stuck with the sounds of birds, the very beings darting above your head, playing their games with varying cries that sound like throaty groaning.

Bending, your arms wrap your waist, lips flickering. You were cold, limb-numbingly so, but even if you saw nothing today, or tomorrow, the push and pull of the ocean was enough—the call of the birds, the hypnotic sway of water. Calling to you, even if it had no lips to do so.

Taking down a lung-shaking inhale, you chuckle, sketchbook sitting in the small purse around your shoulder.

“What am I doing?” You ask yourself, shaking your head. “It was just a big fish—that old man was just being paranoid, anyways.” Eyes caressing the line where water meets the sky, your smile pulls your chilled cheeks. “There’s nothing out here worth my time. I need to finish my work.”

Leaning back, you rub your hands up and down your biceps, nonetheless enjoying your time despite the burning of something in the back of your head. A knowledge that the fin was nothing documented before? A hope of discovery? A need for adventure? Oh, who can really say—what can be known are only three things:

One, the weather was getting worse, two, the water was getting wilder, and, three, you had forgotten the way the rock you were standing on had shifted when you stepped up to it. Shuffling, your boots connect to the right corner, and your hands extend to keep your balance as you hiss a low breath, purse beginning to slip.

There’s a gruff call from the water.

“Careful, then.”

Your head snaps up to the sound of a man’s voice, and you startle sharply, gasping as your foot slips. A quick cry is all you get out before you’re suddenly plummeting downwards headfirst into the frigid water.

The feeling of liquid is all-consuming as it seeps into your nostrils and ears, all sound muffled entirely beyond the roar of it leaving you so stupendously—a flare, and then nothing. Eyes bugging, limbs slashing through the waves, the chill hits you in the chest with the force of a stone, smashing through your ribs to weigh you down with concrete stuck in your lungs. It was entirely a bodily reaction to gasp.

Through the blue and the bubbles, you start to drown.

Fingers twitching, you claw at nothing as the darkness settles its hands over your panicked eyes, not for a moment thinking about who had called to you in the first place—or who was poking a head out of the water before you’d gone over. Obviously, it was a trick of your senses; no one could survive being out in water like this.

You certainly weren’t going to.

Legs slashing, something is darting in the corner of your eye before your vision fails, but the rapid fear in your heart masks the hand gripping at your shirt’s collar. It hides even the feeling of strong arms until the point where you’re yanked upwards with little effort as one curls your waist. It doesn't hide, however, the way you vomit up water as you’re heaved to the rocky shore moments later.

Choking, you hack up salt that burns your esophagus until your lunch quickly follows—all spilled with little care for your hands caught in the crossfire. Spine arching as if a cat, air can’t come sweeter as it is drawn in rapidly; nearly hyperventilating on the ocean-smooth stones as your clothes are utterly ruined.

Panting, gasping, shivering violently, your head pulls itself weakly upward. It doesn’t take long for your mind to scream at you, and your head snaps behind you in a panic.

But there’s nothing but the raging water and the splash of a large navy-colored tail as big as your entire body disappearing back into the depths.

Your fear can only stay for so long before the threat of a frigid death becomes more and more probable. In your race back up the cliff face to your shop, your purse is completely forgotten, trapped on the top of that shaky rock where it had fallen from your shoulder before the great plunge.

Your shawl is seen floating out to the open water before it’s grasped from below and suddenly plucked—vanishing without a single trace.

—

The fire rages with the inferno of a million suns, and it’s not nearly hot enough. Wrapped in every blanket, sheet, and warm item available, you still can’t stop shivering hours later. A teacup was stuck in your hands, the liquid sloshing over the edges to slip over your quivering fingers and absorb into the cocoon of heat.

Breathing through your shaky lungs, you keep the rim of the cup to your lips, eyes wide and horrified. In the still moments after you’d stripped and tried to stop the onset of sickness that you could already feel coming, there was a flash of realization from your strange and fantastical ordeal.

There had been a man.

The sensation of hands around your waist—the gruff voice that had spooked you so violently. A man. In the water. Every time you blink, you see a shadowed image, a tiny glimpse as you’d turned to the sound of human speech above the shriek of birds.

Short brown hair and narrowed blue eyes set into sockets of pale skin. A bearded face, mustache…square jaw…

“What in God’s name?” You stutter in question over your tea, shaking your head. “That isn’t possible.”

Outside your shop, the wind screams, pushing against your exterior shutters as night sets in. A storm was coming; there’d be no other adventures for you. Sipping your drink, you shiver again, curling in tighter to yourself as wood crackles. The light dances over your easels and side tables, piled high with jars of brushes and pallets—bottles of linseed oil and liquin, labeled with little pieces of hanging paper at the necks.

There are paintings in the tens—in the twenties—hanging on the walls and set to the corners, all blue and gray; misty and clear. The water is a staple in all of them, and the cliffs as well. Perfect imitations of this place, as if you could reach a hand through the canvas and enter a mirrored world. Great ships are in some of them, or little fishing boats, with the birds overhead. Sometimes, it’s only the water itself, and to you, those were perhaps the best of your work.

There was a beauty in the nothingness. A mystery. Who knows what’s under that thin surface? Well…apparently, it wasn’t human.

You swallow down saliva and your lips thin.

The thing in the water wasn’t… unattractive, you had to admit. Beyond the waterlogged hair and dripping beard, a large nose sat—full cheeks with an odd mole over them. The more you thought about the brief flash of a visage, the more you grew to hang onto it, strangely. And that navy tail? It had been incredibly unique.

Spiney, nearly—four thin bones going down on both sides, branching out from the tail starting with the shortest that was perhaps only as long as your hand until the final was as lengthy as your entire arm. There was webbing between each spine to help the thing through the water quickly, it spread to the end of the barb until it sunk back in a ‘U’ movement, before once more arching out again to connect with the next spine. Small gasps in the caudal fin calling to either battles or a natural state of being—for show in it…his?...species.

Could you even assign it a human gender?

You close your eyes tightly in your shop, trying to will the image away from yourself. “What in the hell is going on?” Your voice is scratchy and low.

Yet, the undeniable truth was that the fish-man had saved you. It couldn’t be overlooked. Not by you, who now can sit in front of this very fire because of it. Like a moth to the flame, the surge of cautious confusion is burning your wings.

Deep blue eyes like the ocean. A navy tail. A gruff, hard voice.

You open your eyes and glare into the fireplace.

“What has this place been hiding in the water? And why did it bloody save my life right after it nearly ended it?”

More importantly…you had to think of a way to get your sketchbook back without getting on its bad side.

With a heavy chest, and more than a little fear in your heart, it was resolved to do something about all of this tomorrow. There was no use leaving the shop now. Glancing at the shaking window, you could hear the ocean rampaging over the cliffs; hear the slam of the rain hitting the roof like pounding feet.

But that voice played in your ears like a gramophone's bleated chorus.

You shiver again, not from the cold.

Careful, then.

—

There was no question if you’d gotten sick because of your impromptu bath in the ocean—the evidence was in your salt-covered shirt and the stockings that were still drying on the hearth.

Pressing a handkerchief to your mouth as you cough haggardly. You’re bundled in a nice fur dress coat, walking along the street with a skipping heart, a simple cloche hat over your head to protect you from the elements; dark blue in color.

The irony was not lost this morning when the hue had a striking familiarity to a fish-like tail, but it hadn’t stayed in your hand. A small drizzle slapped the fabric, and you were thankful you had brought the hat and coat along with you on the move from the big city.

You weakly smile and nod to the locals you consider friends—at the very least acquaintances. But before long, you’re at the place you feel you need to be to gain answers, too nervous to go back to the shore immediately.

The library.

Something Otto had said came back to you last night, in the throws of insomnia. The two sentences he’d called out on the docks that day—You’ll not take her like you did Eleanor. Mark my words, I’ll be stringing you up by the tail first.

Eleanor? Who was that and how did it correlate to the beast in the water that wears a man's face? Maybe, the local records would tell you the answer—there had to be something about this person, ‘Eleanor,’ in them, right?

If not, there was only one option left, and that was going down to the shore and getting the results first hand…you’d rather exhaust all of your resources on solid land first.

Slipping into the library with a deep breath and a cough in your throat, you sigh and nod slightly. Time to get to work.

“Oh,” the librarian looks up from her desk, standing as you shuffle over. “Hello, Dear,” she breathes through a chuckle, eyebrows pulling in softly. “My, you look a bit under the weather, don’t you? Would you like me to get some tea going…?”

“No, thank you,” you wave an easy hand. “I’m here on a bit of an errand, actually, and I was wondering if you could help me with something? I need to ask about your records.”

“Records?” The woman’s face shifts to confusion, her body slipping out to stand next to yours, you bring back up your handkerchief and sneeze into it, groaning. “What kind were you thinking, then?”

After you can push away the sheen of sickness to your eyes you take a breath and clear your throat of the stuffiness. “Births and work records? Addresses?” You make a small noise in the back of your mouth. “I guess I don’t know…anything that might help me?”

The librarian chuckles a bit, amused. “How about you tell me what it is you’re looking into, and I’ll try and grab any public knowledge that I can find. We’ll work together, then.”

Weight is loosened from your shoulders and you nod appreciatively. “Deal.”

“Go on then,” she walks over to a shelf on the far side of the room, standing as her fingers run the spines. “Occupation I can start with, Dear?”

“Well…” you pause, shuffling after as your head looks from one sizable book to another. “No, unfortunately. Only a first name.”

“You’re lucky Redthorpe is small,” the woman laughs. “Otherwise I would have told you you’re lacking your senses with only something like that to go off of.”

“Eleanor,” you comment, licking your lips and staring at a spine labeled ‘1890-1900 financial records - Redthorpe’. “E-L-E-A-N-O-R, or at least that’s the common spelling, I believe.”

The librarian’s body is stone-still. Comparable to the immovable rocks of the shore as the waves bash against them; the raging of the wind. When you glance over, confused at the silence that infects the building, you’re reduced to a meek hesitation at the blank eyes that dig into your face.

“...Or…maybe it’s N-O-R-E?”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t help you,” is the hurried answer, and then the woman moves past with fast feet, heels clicking over the hardwood rapidly. “There hasn’t been an Eleanor in Redthrope. You’re mistaken.”

“Wait,” you follow, stuttering. “I don’t understand, there has to have been—Otto was talking about her not days ago!”

“You’re mistaken,” is the repeated, firm answer, the librarian’s body swirling to face you again, pointing a finger at you. “Go back to your shop. Mr. Whitworth is old, he sees things that aren’t there. Don’t take what he says to heart—”

“I saw it!” You bark, fed up. Your mind was sick of these games being played, left out of the loop like you hadn’t formed a relationship with the people of this town.

The woman’s mouth locked shut with a clack of teeth, something darting over her expression…fear?

She backs up slowly. “I…I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dear.”

Your lips twist, a threatening sneeze in the back of your nose. “I’m done with the word games! It dragged me out of the water like a sack of flour and tossed me to shore! It saved me!” Her hands are held in front of her as you stalk closer, trying to brush what you’re telling her aside as she struggles to string words.

“It…it wouldn’t do that—that’s not how it acts. You’re just imagining things; you’re under the weather!”

“Who’s Eleanor?” You huff, stubborn as you cross your arms in front of you. “And what in the hell is a man with the tail of a fish doing living just below these cliffs?”

Wide eyes meet glaring ones, and the librarian’s lips move up and down in a panic.

“I…” she begins, feet tapping the floor nervously as the rafters creak above the both of you. “I can’t talk about it. It’s not something to be said out loud—especially so close to the water.”

You bark incredulously, “There’s a bloody monster that lives down in—!”

A hand is snapped over your mouth and you startle, blinking through the twitch of your body.

“Shh!” The librarian panics, shaking her head, with flaring eyes. “Stop it or you’ll end up being dragged down to the ocean floor like Eleanor was!” You tense behind the hold, shoulders pulled in. It’s a quick spit of whispered words like a fast breeze. “Do you want your body showing up on the rocks?! Stay away from it!”

Your heart pounds in your chest, vision darting back and forth before she finally lets you go in a quick jerk of her body. The woman backs up, quivering as her eyes go to the window, nearly panting from fear.

She looks back at you, blinks, and mutters out a quiet, “If you’ve already seen it, it wants you. Don’t go back to the water,” before she rushes into the back room and slams the door shut with the slipping of the lock.

Left standing in the open library, the shelves sit stationary as if sentinels to your raw distress—this had only left you with more questions and a handful of jumbled answers.

“Careful, then.”

You shake your head harshly and pivot to leave the library in a stupor, shoving your chin back down into your coat’s collar as the wind slaps your face once more. The call of the ocean is like a knife to the back of your neck.

—

Call you whatever name in the book, but you wanted your sketchbook back.

No one in town was giving you anything that was of use, and Otto was tighter-lipped than a lockbox. There was only so much you could do—could speculate—before the need for your belongings was too strong to ignore. It took two more days of pacing your shop before it was decided.

Taking up the heavy cast-iron pan above your fireplace, you slip the thing into your coat, shove on your hat with a defiant grunt, and force the front door open. It’s a ten-minute walk to the shore, and all the way there, dread fills you up like soup until you’re bloated with it by the time your boots hit black rocks. Yet, there’s a point where a woman’s courage outweighs the sense of caution, and today was currently that day.

Taking a deep breath to steady your nerves, you grab your skirt and hike it up, placing your boot carefully on the first of the larger stones leading out to where you’d been previously.

“Don’t look at the water,” you mutter quietly as you move, not shuffling forward until you know the rock isn’t going to topple this way or that. “Don’t even think about it.”

But that tail…that face…

With a growl under your breath, you grind your teeth and continue on.

The weather today was much more agreeable, but cold. It was always chilled in Redthorpe—dreary as if the clouds never left far above. You didn’t mind, and in your coat pocket, the reassuring weight of your pan left you much warmer than you’d like to admit.

The heat of protection, so to speak.

“Even a fish-man can die, I’d wager,” you utter, grunting as you ascend a larger rock, palm slapping the wet stone before you heavy upwards, slamming your boot to the top much like a schoolboy as your skirt bunches. “If I hit him hard enough in the skull. I wonder though,” you sneeze, shuddering, “if he even bleeds? If I crack his head open…will blood seep out, or salt water?”

You shiver, and it’s not from the cold. “Fucking hell, you do like making it harder on yourself, don’t you.”

Lightly panting, you brush down your coat on the top of the rock and turn to look at the boulder where you’d fallen previously, blinking. Pausing, your eyes find not only your sketchbook sitting there…but also your shawl.

Struggling for a moment to try and justify your actions, you swiftly look over the surface of the water, seeing the gentle push and pull of waves. No fin. No tail.

You aren’t sure if the feeling in your chest is joy or disappointment.

Licking your lips, you take a large breath before your face turns grim.

“Grab it and run,” your voice echoes in your own head, heart pounding with adrenaline the more steps you take to the boulder, water sloshing at the sides. You had thought perhaps that the rain—the storm—would render all of your lost belongings null, but as you bent and snatched your items to you, shawl hanging from your arm, you were pleasantly surprised. It was all dry; impossibly so.

Amid your shock, your slack jaw, and the weight of your pan in your coat, your shaky fingers open your book with bated breath.

Everything was in pristine condition, if not only slightly curled at the corners due to…your eyebrows pull in, expression struggling to take on the emotion of anything other than pure awe.

“Fingerprints?”

Eyes slipping from one page to the next, flipping them only to see the press and pull of a long gone thumb, shiting the paper to gaze at the back, where a forefinger would have been. A hand laced in water had been turning the pages, just as you do now—and, yet, there wasn’t an inch that was damaged; nothing smeared.

Shoulders loosening from their tensed position, your wide stare is utterly transfixed as your digits rub the material softly, feet shifting.

Lowering your sketchbook, your small huff of amazed laughter, mind running.

He’d been going through your drawings—he’d somehow protected these items from the rain and salt. How? Why? But another question wrapped its hands in your skull.

Did he like them?

Shuffling the book into the crook of your arm, you carefully wrap your shawl over the material to further keep it safe, not able to find your purse, though the only thing it ever held was your sketchbook in the first place; it wasn’t too important.

Rising your head again, you gaze openly outward, lips opening and closing in a small stutter. Was he out there, this strange creature with a strong face and those deep eyes? That navy tail, looking like a beautiful imitation of kelp…was it just under where you now study the waves?

So many questions, so few answers.

You clear your throat, holding your items tighter. There’s magnetism in your blood, and it sits on your tongue like salt.

“Thank you!” Your voice calls high, joining the chorus of birds far above on the cliffs. Eyes skating the rocks, the shore, the ocean, everything. Call you prideful, but perhaps the best way to gain your favor is to know that someone, whatever bit strange and fantastical, had enjoyed your work to the smallest degree.

The way your eyes spark is still embarrassing, though, but it comes naturally after the heat that simmers over your face.

“Truly,” you shout to the wind. “You have no idea how much this means! If you’re listening, I’d like to extend my gratitude…” Your face is beaming, and you can convince yourself that all of your fear over this is gone, even if that would just plainly be untrue. “My artwork is everything to me, I do hope you enjoyed it!”

A creature so easily curious about your skills wouldn’t drag you to the bottom of the ocean…right?

Hell, he’d already had a chance to do that—a perfect one—and yet, here you are. What the Librarian had said had to be false, it made no sense otherwise.

Seeing nothing, and knowing that you were needed back at your shop, you chuckle under your breath and back up swiftly, walking the distance back to the surrounding rocks and slipping off softly. Grunting under your breath, your boots hit the stone, and you carefully begin back-tracking.

“You’re good at it,” you halt in a fraction of a second. “The images. Where’d you learn to do that?”

It’s a long moment before you turn with a cautious tilt to your head, and find the very same visage as you had a glimpse of days ago. You fight a fast inhale, but your straightening spine tells all the story it needs to. Like a fool, you lose the words in your mouth, as if trying to catch a bird of prey with a butterfly net.

A strong face is poking out of the water only a mere five feet away.

Your eyes slip to the soaked beard, the peak of bare shoulders—broad, of course—and the prying orbs that you feel will never leave; he wades there, arms under the dark water only a flash of pale skin before they’re gone again.

“I…” you lick your lips, blinking through the moment of animalistic panic. You were on land, there was nothing to fear. The sight was still something to be remembered, though. “I was self-taught, Sir.”

Blue eyes blink, serious face only made more so by the twitching of his large nose, which water drips from periodically. Droplets stay stuck to his dark lashes, and you’re near bursting with questions.

But silence persists long after your sentence filters out to nothing.

“You pulled me from the water,” you state slowly. “And I don’t even know your name.”

The man looks you up and down, not arrogant, no, but in a way that is comparable to how you did the same to him. Studying you as if your body was strange to him. The realization almost made you laugh—perhaps it was strange to him.

You want to see that tail of his again. Your fingers itch to sketch its likeness and commit it to muscle memory.

“I scared you,” he grumbles, sighing. “It wasn’t my intention to send you over.” Eyes still stay stuck. “My own fault.”

“I won’t deny you there,” you huff, gaze shifting away for a moment before filtering back. A slash of amusement curls in the thing’s eyes, and he hums. “Forgive me,” your breath wafts out over the air, face going what you can assume to be sheepish. It astounds you, though, that the conversation comes easily. “But I haven’t the faintest bloody clue as to what to call you.”

“John,” is the reply. Accent like gravel. He doesn’t waste his breath, seems.

“John?” You lick your lips, legs shuffling over the stone. The name leaves you holding back a loud laugh. “Well, I suppose I could have guessed that, then. I’ve met more than enough ‘Johns’ so far.”

“Funny, are you?” The response, however dry, is tinged with something you can’t name.

“I try,” you nod jokingly, motioning with a hand. “Just didn’t expect a man with a fishtail to act so….human. Certainly not be named like one, either.”

“Hm,” John grunts, blinking slowly. A hand slips above the water, and you watch it flex and drag to itch at the back of his neck, hair over the arm slick to the flesh. Your face heats, and your eyes dip to see the small shadow under the water almost graze the surface, rippling the waves intimately, as if tail and liquid were of the same sound mind.

It wasn’t out of the question to say you longed for a glimpse.

What would it feel like to touch it?

“You live here?” Your voice is hoarse before you clear it quickly. “Right below the cliffs?”

“You’re the woman that goes out in the boat,” John firmly interjects, and you blink, taken aback.

“Yes, that’s me.” You explain, pulling at the lip of your hat to force it down further over your head. “Otto goes fishing in the mornings—I like to sketch the shore. He isn’t the worst company, of course. He’s kind enough to let me along with him.”

But you won’t be kept down. There’s magical curiosity in your chest now.

“Your tail,” you take a step forward, boots being licked by icy water. John’s eyes widen a smidge, not expecting you to actively move closer. His head tilts as if a bird, confusion brimming though he hides it expertly. You imagined he considered you a bit mad. “Forgive me, Sir, but I must know,” your uttered rambles make his hidden lip twitch, a little twist to your expression that shows wonder. “Is it attached to you, or do you slip out of it like a pair of pants? O-or even like wearing a stage costume? Oh, it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”

John can’t find the words for a moment, only able to watch and assess as he always did in times like these. You were…different, he supposed. But he knew that the moment you had shifted your body over the side of that old man’s boat—looking for a glimpse of something unknown. He could see it in your eyes.

The water calls to you. It lives in your veins already, waiting. More salt and seaweed than earth and grass. Sand, rock, gulls, they all cry in the back of your mind, and your fingers itch to catalog them into immortality in a way that John was fascinated over—the skill of parchment and memorization. Mastery over detail.

He doesn't know why he’s speaking to you, truly. He’d done his penance; saved your life. But he knows he doesn’t dislike it, and that in and of itself needed to be understood. John couldn’t leave his analytical brain lacking an answer to a question as big as that—a woman of all things? A human one?

Blue eyes can’t seem to slip from yours, as you await a gruff reply.

“No.” You blink, pulling back a smidge when John’s voice is low and graited. “Go back to your home. It’s late.”

“Hey, wait—!”

But he’s already gone under the waves, and you’re left with a waterlogged boot, a cast iron pan, and the two items that had survived because of a grizzly creature's compassion. Your lungs heave, and the cloud of condensation rises into a gray sky.

You stay there far longer than you’d like to admit.

—

You struggled, slipped, and climbed your way back to that point on the rocks every other day, and yet, there was nothing more to be seen of the man with the tail. You knew he was out there, felt it in your bones, and still…you were left here staring out at far-off boats and half-hopes. Wondering. Waiting.

In the days that passed, you would explore the shore further, going in nooks and deep bends that extended into the cliffs during low tide, cringing away from the slippery fingers of kelp stuck to the walls. Dead fish, mucus-lined snails—you had made the important decision of leaving your sketchbook at home, the pages already filled with the perfect reflection of a man’s face peeking above the water.

Taking off your hat, you huff on a similar day to those others, this time slipping inside a cave with a direct connection to the ocean. There wasn’t any wind in here—and you sigh in relief as your breeze-bitten cheeks can finally get a rest. You didn’t know what you expected to find doing all this fruitless searching, but it didn’t erase the fact that you enjoyed it; looking for a glimpse of something out of the ordinary.

Brushing your hat of sand and other such items, your head swivels softly, a delicate smile on your face as water drips from the rock ceiling, stalactites like broken fingers reaching for the ground. A pool of sorts takes up most of this place, the thing extending to the ocean through a medium-sized opening in the stone.

You turn in a half-circle.

“Beautiful,” your lips murmur, voice echoing.

Walking forward, every so often your body stoops to carefully grasp shells and smoothed shards of colored glass, beaten down by waves and reduced to harmless trinkets. Continuing, you care little about your boots or your coat, only for the pull in your chest that tells you to keep going until your legs are weak and weary—shaking from a day long spent in selfish adventure.

When you find the pile of rings, sitting in soft kelp, you nearly walk right past them until the glint of metal takes you by surprise. Pausing, your pulse warms as your eyes slash to the side, getting sucked in as easily as cookies to a child.

Only hesitating a second, you slowly walk until you’re inches away, seeing different styles and gems like starlight sitting as if unaware of their raw beauty.

“What are you doing in here…?” You ask yourself, your own voice responding from the walls as it bounces.

Picking up one of pure gold, you shift the band to stare openly at an emerald nearly the size of your knuckle set into it. Lips parting, it’s as if your breath is stolen by a quiet thief. But the sudden arrival of splashing snaps you out of your stupor quite quickly.

Dropping the ring immediately back into the pile, your hand jerks to your chest as an increasingly common face shows itself once more from the water.

You clear your throat, face burning as John raises a slow brow, glancing at the stash of rings silently.

“One day you’re going to make me keel over,” your voice berates, pointedly avoiding his blues. So the items were his.

“A thief as well as an artist?” John asks after a moment, tilting his skull as his body drifts closer to the rocky side of the pool. The next sentence is no question, only a statement. “You’ve been looking for me.”

You take a long breath, sighing, before you shove your hat into your coat’s pocket, glaring lightly. “You left so abruptly, I never got to ask my questions. Quite rude of you to keep a lady waiting, John.”

As you say his name, he glances over, but not before his sizable hands slap to the side of the rock and he hoists himself up with a single push of his forearms. The man grunts, lips pulling, before you’re left breathless.

Eyes stuck on the upper half of his body, the water dripping down the hair-layered bulge of visible muscle, your wide vision skates from one point to another, flesh on fire the more you stay mute. But the tail—that was something you could never describe.

The beginning was all you could see; scales of dark navy and a spread of muddled silver-like dots, nearly impossible to make out except at this distance. They began at the top of where hips should be, the scales, smaller and blending into the skin easily, only becoming larger the more the tail extended down; the appendage was far larger than legs would be, that you can tell easily. You can’t see all of it, as perhaps a little less than half still sits swaying in the water…but even this was enough for now.

This moment would be stuck in your sketchbook for all of eternity.

It’s only after your jaw is slackened that you realize John has been watching you the entire time.

Forcing it shut with a tiny clack of teeth, you try to regain any composure you can. The being’s beard curls in a smirk, cheek pushing to show the lines near his eyes.

“If someone’s avoiding you, Sunshine,” he grunts out, voice low. From the corner of his eye, he watches as his hand rises to itch at his beard. “They usually don’t want to have a conversation.”

“I think it’s fair,” you huff. “You can’t just disappear when I have so many unanswered questions.”

John blinks, attention not moving for even a second. Your own is less than firm, fighting to not dart down to openly study every dip and bend of his bones. He was so…stoic. Gruff. But there were moments of amusement—even annoyed interest.

“I don’t have time to fuckin’ entertain others,” he thins his lips.

Your arms crossed, face dripping into seriousness. “And what else is so much more important, then?” You raise a brow. “Scaring other women into the water?”

He huffs under his breath. “It was an accident—wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t so jumpy, eh?”

“It’s not like I expect to see fishmen pop out of the water,” you defend.

“Mer-man, Love,” he licks his lips, sighing, as his eyes shift to glance at the opening of the cave. Your face bleeds into a slight expression of satisfaction, arms over your chest tightening as your feet rock back on their heels.

“Well,” you chuckle. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

An emotionless glare is all you receive.

It was no surprise that you ended up blurting out inquiry after inquiry—what does having a tail feel like? How do you breathe underwater, or do you only hold your breath like a human? Do you have gills somewhere, or lungs? What other creatures are out there like you?

You have no idea what time it ends up being, and you have no intention of stopping soon. It’s a pleasant surprise, then, that John answers all of your quick words with full answers; giving slow, but not condescending explanations.

A few times there had been tiny chuckles, and the little conversations amounted to you sitting on a rock right near the water, only feet away from where the tail drifts in the waves; John’s hands keeping his upper half straight as his palms meet slippery stone.

“And the rings?” You breathlessly wonder, attention darting to the pile. “Do you find them out there? Keep them?”

John tilts his head in an affirmation. “Shipwrecks. There’ll be hundreds of them—I’m not one to keep many belongings, but the bloody things were nicely made.” He sighs. “Seemed a waste to leave them down there.”

You huff a sound of amusement. “I see. Fascinating.”

In the small pause, your eyes once more study the cave, seeing little breaks in the walls where cubby-like indents are. In them, your focus drifts from one glimmering object to another, all previously missed by you when you’d first entered.

You blink. “You live here?”

“Affirmative,” John stares. His body shifts, tail flickering as your focus snaps back to it, almost lost in the way the ends so nimbly slice the water. Like wispy fabric. Your eyes soften like molten metal. You look back at him and find his eyes already locked to yours.

Breath caught in your throat, you chuckle meekly to dispel your embarrassment. John’s face minutely relaxes, stern brow loosening.

“And…” you lick your lips, knowing it was time to leave. The sun no longer shines through the crack in the rock. “If I were to come back, would I be able to find you here?”

There’s a flash of that same indecipherable emotion as before over his bushy face.

The man was anything but small—everything to the swell of his tail; body hair for, what you assume, is to keep out the constant chill of the water. You’d never imagined that you’d find it all so attractive down to the navy scales that shimmered above the push of his side. That healthy layer of meat was eliciting far more of a physical reaction than you’d care to admit to anyone, let alone a priest of any religion during a confession.

Perhaps that fall into the water really had killed you.

“I’ll be here,” John responds lowly, gravel in his throat.

Swallowing down saliva, you push back the ravenous smile that threatens you.

“...Okay.”

—

And this affair became such a constant, that most of the people in town had begun asking about you as you snuck to the waters. Otto was largely concerned, but would not say anything more for some unseen fear—nor the Librarian, who avoided your eyes any chance she got.

Dragged to the ocean floor. Body on the rocks.

The sheen of discovery could be a powerful vice, and for those first two months, you never asked John about the woman named Eleanor or who she might be—what correlation she had to beasts of the water. Then again, you didn’t have to ask. He managed to get around to it himself.

Your eyes blankly stare at the page of your sketchbook, the merman’s rough shape chicken-scratched with small lines into the parchment, and your pencil stays still to it, immobile. From across the cave, John’s face tightens as his eyelids narrow. You’d been quiet today, he had noticed. Usually so bright with your words, the walls had barely echoed with the symphony of your speech, and, more importantly, John’s ears hadn’t twitched to it.

He had become fond of your company, he admitted to himself. A strange human woman with her fur coat and hat, the little sketchbook that held such wonderful imitations of life. John was anything but dull—he knew you drew him, and he entertained the activity. In fact, the thought at one point or another may have made the brute of a man blush a bit. So, when you were as still as the stone you sat on, he had concerns.

He liked it when you spoke, even if it was only a tease. And the tightness of his chest when you don’t look his way is enough to leave his tail twitching in confusion as it sits in the water.

“You’re quiet today,” he starts, frowning.

Your fingers jerk, sending a line over your paper as you blink, looking up as your heart skips a beat. Glancing at John’s face, the thoughts inside of your head slip until you can understand what he said.

“I’m sorry,” you sigh, and the man’s face pulls. “You can speak if you want. I'm just a little distracted.”

“I didn’t mean it like that, Love, yeah?” John grunts, hands shifting over the stone. He looks you up and down, tail sitting still below him. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened,” your lips mumble, and you shake your head. “It’s one of my questions again.” You pause, closing your book. “A difficult one.”

John’s lips flicker. “Well, we’ve been at this for ages. Can’t see how this one is more difficult than the others.” He nods softly, voice a low and somewhat smooth mutter. “Go on.”

“I don’t know if I can,” you huff, standing and placing your sketchbook in the driest part of the cave before walking closer. Bending right in front of John, your face is tight. The man likes it like this—having you closer. He can feel the heat roll off you, and his eyes flutter even when nothing on his face gives away the pull he senses in his chest.

John hums and swallows stiffly.

“Why not?” His head tilts, and he clears his throat to get rid of the raspy scrape of his vocals. “Something going on up there?”

Up there.

The Merman had asked about Redthorpe, as well as the rest of the people who lived there. The atmosphere, the way of life. Your meetings were more of an exchange of information and stolen glances than anything else, the other none the wiser to this magnetic attraction. It was a delicate thing, knowing that there was something more and yet unable to fully express the way it makes you feel. Neither of you knows what to call it.

“More so in here,” you smile tinily, pointing at your head as your cheeks grow hot.

“Then speak to me,” John frowns, trying a low smirk. “Think we both know I’m a good listener then, Love. There’s time,” he glances at the entrance. “Won’t be near dark for a few more hours—don’t want you climbing at night.”

“Awe,” you breathe, beaming suddenly with that glint back in your eyes. John hides the sagging of his shoulders, only offering a hum under his breath as he looks over at you. His kelp-like fins twitch, and he wonders what it would feel like to have you touch them. It was obvious you wanted to.

Not yet.

“Hurry up, Sunshine,” John grinds out, that accent all the more sandy.

There’s a small grunt and a shuffle, and, soon, a warm body is plotting itself next to his own, arm touching his, and a pair of bare feet slipping into the pool. Blue eyes widen in surprise, head darting to where your form rests so simply—so near the crook of his shoulder that he could reach over and draw you to him if he so wanted.

Your feet shift as the hem of your skirt gets soggy with water, and John barks out a firm, “You’re going to get cold.”

“It’s not as cold here as it is out there,” you shrug to him, smiling with a side-eye. “Besides, I’m right next to you—you’ll keep me warm, won’t you, John?”

“Fucking hell,” he puffs out, shaking his head as he rips it forward once more, clenching his jaw. Your scent seeps into his nose, and when your leg slips along the side of his scales under the water, he all but goes a blank-faced scarlet.

You hide a chuckle, shivering at the chill but more so at the unimaginably smooth sensation of John’s tail over your flesh. Your legs move through the water to cross at the ankles, your right hand resting to directly touch John’s left. With every pump of your blood, his own mirrors.

Yet, your mood sobers, and the joy leaks.

“There’s a woman that no one speaks about in Redthrope,” you begin, and John settles to listen, brows furrowing in concentration as your skin sits so well next to his own. “Eleanor.”

The man pauses abruptly, and you keep talking.

“And for some reason,” you sigh out a low breath, turning to look at John and his still face; emotionless. “Everyone seems to blame you for whatever happened to her. I don’t know if she’s missing, or…”

Your words trail off, insinuation clear.

Not noticing any chance on John’s face, you lightly bump him with your elbow, expression going concerned. “Hey, are you alright?” Your opposite hand raises, moving out between the two of you. “I didn’t mean to insinuate anything, I would just really appreciate anything you might know about it.” Eyes imploring, your heart pours itself. “I don’t think you’d do something like that.”

John blinks slowly, finally opening his mouth. “What makes you say that?”

“If you were some murderous creature,” you shrug, “I don’t think you would have tried to pull me out of the ocean in the first place.” Lashes caressing your cheeks, you smile. “Am I wrong?”

“No,” the man huffs, quirking a brow. “No, you’re not wrong.”

“Knew it,” you whisper, eyes crinkling as you side-eye him.

John chuckles, half rolling his eyes as he leans to your ear as he grumbles. “Gettin’ cheeky, are you?”

If you were a bird, you’d be preening your feathers, eyelids narrowed. “Perhaps, John.”

It is a wonder, then, that the two of you don’t lock lips that very instant—long fins curling around legs and shoulders stuck together, pinkies unconsciously sitting atop the others as if pieces of parchment. Blue eyes shift smoothly to your lips, but before you can register that they have, John’s head is already moving back and his spine is straight.

The man flattens his lips, tilting his skull.

“I knew of a woman named Eleanor—she would come down with her husband, Noah, and they would walk along the shore. Got close to this place a few times.” Dark brows tighten. “Found her body in the water after a storm about two years ago; brought it back to the rocks so someone could retrieve it.” Your face loosens as the information settles in. John makes a noise in his chest. “Interesting that I’d be roped into it, but it’s understandable. Always someone to blame, eh?”

“I don’t blame you,” you whisper. “That must have been horrible.”

Blue slips over to you silently, and it’s a long moment before John only hums under his breath, blinking away softly.

“Scared me when you fell in.” Listening, your heart clenches in your ribs. To think about what must have been going through his head at that instant was sad to you, and even worse so when you know he would have blamed himself if you might have ended up seriously hurt.

“Well,” you lean into him, face on fire, “it was a good thing you were there to drag me out, then. A little water never hurt anyone, so long as a handsome merman is there to take them back to shore.”

John huffs out a laugh. “Handsome?”

“Oh, very,” you joke. “The tail is a bonus.” Your expression lightens, eyes glinting. “Since when did you know that navy is my favorite color?”

The feeling of the cold water is only a back-drop to the way John’s fins twitch against your bare legs intimately, and you chuckle as the beard can only hide so much red skin.

“Bugger off,” he grunts.

You’ve never heard a smile so clearly before in your life.

—

Your paintings were selling far better than they ever had, and you had to thank the new muse of them for that fact.

John’s appearance in your work had started small—a glimpse of a fin, the presence of a shadow in the water—and had steadily grown. Now, hidden like a present, there was the image of some fishtailed man somewhere in all of them, a steady injection of magic into the veins of cerulean blue and ivory black. It showed you that fewer people knew about John than you had previously thought.

Initially, you had imagined that everyone knew and the reason you didn’t was because you were relatively new here, but no. Most had been enamored by your work when they found the ‘strange fish-man’ in one, pointing and chucking to themselves, talking about how adorable it was. No one was shocked, no one sent looks.

By the end of the week, you had been convinced that it had been narrowed down to Otto and the Librarian—

The bell of your shop dings.

Looking up from your easel, you smile and stand automatically, thinking about closing soon so you can go and see John. Nowadays, even the thought of him makes your blood pump heavy.

“How can I help you today, Sir?” Your brushes find the side table you had set up, locking eyes with a tall, thin man in his late thirties. He wears a suit, and in his breast pocket, there’s the gleam of a gold chain attached to a pocket watch.

“I’m here to ask about a detail in your paintings, Miss.” He’s well-spoken as well, and you’re shocked to know you haven't met him yet if he lived in Redthorpe—he doesn’t seem familiar at all.

“Of course,” you nod, perplexed. “I’m sorry, I think I missed your name.”

“Noah Moore,” is the even response. Noah is already walking around, bending to look into some of your work which hangs on the wall. “My neighbor brought home one of your pieces; I found I liked it very much. Had even considered commissioning.”

Noah? You blink slowly, watching. Wasn’t that Eleanor’s husband?

“Thank you,” your lips move, thinning. “That’s very high praise, Mr. Moore.”

“This creature,” Noah stands, and dark eyes set on you. For some reason, the hair along your arms stands on end. “The man with a fish tail. Have you seen him?”

Your instant reaction is to lie, and that in and of itself is a telltale sign that something is wrong. Noah makes the alarm in the back of your head go off for no reason other than the way he’s trying to pry with that unblinking gaze of his. The rich apparel; the attitude. He isn’t right.

“Seen him?” Chuckles echo off the walls. “Who? The beast? No, Sir, that…thing…is just something I made up.” You wave a hand, but back up a step, trying to create distance. Your hip lightly bumps the side table, and your materials jerk. Gasping under your breath, your head snaps down, catching your brush before it can fall. “Oh my, clumsy me.” you laugh stiffly. “Apologies, Sir, but that’s the truth. I wanted to create something that all of Redthrope might enjoy; a local legend of sorts, see.”

Your eyes had siphoned back with a dread in your heart. The man mutely stares, a deep frown pulling his lips. As if the conversation had never happened, after a long stretch of tension, Noah smiles widely.

“Ah,” he huffs, “of course. It was silly of me to ask.” Dark eyes are emotionless, and the pull of his eyelids is not there. Spine so tight it could snap in half, and your fingers curl around the brush before you place it down stiffly. “Though,” Mr. Moore clicks his tongue, taking one step closer.

Your eyes widen, but you say nothing. Your mind flashes to John, and there’s a longing for the ocean so strong, it seems a good idea to you, to rush out the door right now and sprint for it; hurl yourself to the waves, if need be. He’d find you—you know he would.

“Though,” Noah continues, tilting his head. “There is a striking resemblance to a creature I recall seeing from the cliffs, the day my wife’s body was found at the rocks.”

Backing up another step, your muscles ache with how you hold them like a shield to your organs.

“As far as I know, only two others were searching at my side that day. And in it I am certain,” he hums, “you weren’t even here.”

Otto and the librarian, you think quickly, mind a mess of information and fear. It’s why they’re so spooked. They think John actually killed Eleanor and left her—they saw him bring her body to shore.

It’s a lack of foresight on your part, that the next bark is more of a reaction to the panic than proper knowledge, cracking under pressure.

“John would never kill an innocent woman!”

It’s as if a switch goes off, and, suddenly, there’s a ruthless hand grabbing at your throat. Yelping, you stagger back and snap your fingers to Noah’s wrist, clawing until there’s blood under your nails; air is sucked in with a wheeze. In the back of your head, there’s wild screaming, and you can’t tell if it’s the pounding of your blood or the internal sensation of primal fear.

Raging eyes shove themselves right in front of yours, faces so close you can feel Noah’s hot breath moving over your burning face. You try to cough but find you can’t as one of your hands struggles to slap to the side table—searching fruitlessly.

“John?” Noah sneers, holding tighter. “The thing has a name?”

Your easel clatters to the ground, back being shoved right into it. Mouth opening and closing, the cut of oxygen reduces your mind to acting purely off instinct—breaking down like glass to fracture to only one thing: survival.

“It was perfect,” Mr. Moore growls, eyes ablaze. “I had it all planned out, only to be ruined by a freak of nature at the last moment!”

Your nails gouge the wood, dragging, searching, slapping. Anything—anything at all to help as your boots scrape from under you. You can’t even comprehend the words being said; all of it is a blur as blackness peels the side of your vision.

Tears splatter down your cheeks.

“Two years, and then you had to come along and fucking speak to it! What did it tell you? Eh? What did it see that night?”

Your hand curls the glass bottle where you store your brushes and without another thought, you slam the side of it to Noah’s head.

Shouting, the man releases you in an instant, glass leaving long lines of blood splattering out to sprinkle your face as it shatters, collapsing into itself. Connecting to the ground, your hacking can only take place for under two seconds before your boots scramble for purchase, stumbling and flailing at least once; lungs gasping.

Shoulder connecting with the side of the door frame as you bang it open, an enraged scream follows you into the rainy afternoon, the rumble of deadly thunder far overhead.

Running, you don’t know how to stop, and it’s even harder to catch your breath by the time you’re down to the rocks, looking over your shoulder as if Noah would be right behind you. He wasn’t—but the fear was enough to keep you going until you were bathed in sweat and barely strong enough to fall into the entrance of John’s cave, fingers cut up and raw from grappling over stone.

There’s a quick call of your name from across the enclosed space, but your ears are ringing too loud to hear—whipping around to stare at the entrance as you struggle back on your hands, legs shaking.

“Love!”

Your eyes slash to the side, and through the quivering of your lashes, through the blur of tears, you lock onto the desperate slash of grayish-blue that’s a near-perfect reflection of the ocean itself. Painting, the realization comes a moment too late, as pale fingers touch your cheek and you flinch back with a deep pain in your neck.

Pulsing veins echo along your entire body, but there, at the point of where hands had wrapped your flesh, it burned with a horrible fire that made thin noise escape your lips.

“Hey,” John breathes, having dragged himself at a moment’s notice across the floor of the cave. “Hey,” he repeats slower, eyes slashing you up and down for any sign of injury.

His hand is outstretched, but he doesn’t try to touch you again seeing how you’d jerked away. The man’s heart had stopped at that—his concern shooting up similar to how he felt when you’d raced through the entrance as if a fire was on your heels. A near panic at the fear on your face, leaving his body on high alert; eyes skating the surrounding quickly.

But the splatters of blood on your face were something to reduce him to an enraged beast.

“What is going on,” he tries to keep the rough anger from his tone, attempting to leave it soft and smooth. There’s only so much he can do, though, as you shake and pant.

Your body gradually slows itself, attention seeping back to allow you to take control of your limbs. The first thing you see clearly is John’s outstretched hand, and, then, the clench of his jaw—the eyes that follow every teardrop down the flesh of your cheek.

Openly gazing, when John sees you’re back, his blues slip to a softened caress.

“Love,” he mutters, face tight.

You shove yourself into his arms and let off a sob that echoes louder than any laughter could. Curling into his chest, water seeps into your shirt, but the all-expansive hand that keeps you close is worth every clothesline you would have to hang.

“Shh,” John breathes, knowing that he’d get an explanation when he calmed you down, even if his mind was breaking itself to try and understand. “I’m right here, Sunshine. Breathe, then…I’m right here, yeah?”

His nose pushes itself into your scalp as your head hides away, quivering body curled like a cat around a fish—no air between the two of you, chests running across the others. So little space, and yet this breathlessness was one you could welcome time and time again.

John watches, eyes always open as he glares into your hair, grip tightening the longer you cry; a feeling so potent brimming in his chest, he would be a fool to ignore it.

You were more precious to him than any ring, than any trinket he could stash away and forget about. The way his heart bent to yours was stronger than any storm.

Breathing down your scent, John sighed, kissed the top of your head, and lightly rocked you back and forth.

He’d wait as long as it took.

—

When it became apparent you couldn’t speak beyond broken little coughs and wheezes, John was quick to bring you to the water of the pool.

Now, perhaps hours later, you sit with the burn and fatigue of crying eyes, sniffling as you shove away the stain of red on your cheeks.

“Careful,” John lightly comments, grasping your hand and pulling it away. His own replaces it, wet from the water he now wades in to help. “Let me get it, eh?”

Your eyes stay stuck to his nose as fingers push away the crimson of blood easily, firm but still utterly delicate.

“I’m not glass,” you croak, one hand near your throat.

Blue eyes blink at you. “Never said you were,” he grunts, frowning, and you see his Adam’s Apple bob. “Don’t like seeing you with blood on your face, Love.”

Like it had never happened, the fingers return, and a moment later, he grumbles out, “And stop talking—you’ll make it worse.”

You hadn’t explained, not yet, but by the utter rage you see John trying to hide from you, you know he understands how you might have gotten the swelling now present on your neck. His heart had been visibly pumping the entire time you’d been here; you could hear it when he was holding you, a relentless, thump-thump-bump, thump-thump-bump in your ear.

The brunette had been clenching his jaw more as well, grunting as if a boar after every sentence, a nervous habit, perhaps. He was trying to mask it for you, but you weren’t blind.

John pauses his cleaning, glancing at your throat.

He studies your face after he hums under his breath, having to dart his gaze away for a moment.

“...Can I?” You pause, swallowing as the burn persists.

Nodding after a minute of slow contemplation, cold hands shift to press carefully—not tightening, not holding you there—resting to give relief. You only tense a little, but as the seconds draw, John watches you sag forward with a large sigh through your nose.

He lets a small sliver of calm enter him.

“Easy,” John whispers, blinking. He keeps the chill of his hands at your neck, fins shifting the water to keep him still. “When you’re ready, explain it to me, eh?” His head tilts, voice a low tease. “Glass or not.”

Your lips twitch, and the way your eyes melt could only be compared to safety. You open your lips, and John mutters lowly as your fingers brush over his own, “Quietly, now. Can hear just fine—don’t push yourself.”

Blue flickers to your touch, fingertips trailing his knuckles as the man grunts, attention fluttering back.

All you say is one name.

“Noah.”

There’s a moment of confusion on John’s face, skin wrinkling, before the understanding settles swiftly—he wasn’t a fool. From there, his expression changes ten times over; that rage, then fear for you, confusion, and stubbornness. It’s of little surprise to you that a man so loyal was reduced to a dog.

A dog with scales, that is.

Your body is still running hot—your heart still pumping, though the adrenaline has left with all of its stimulation. You’re tired, yes, that much is obvious. But you want John to hold you again.

When you shift your body, the man’s eyes widen, and he blinks quickly in shock as your legs then slip into the waves inch by inch.

A noise exits the back of his throat, and John’s mouth moves in serious question. “What are you doing? Fucking hell, would you just stay still and let me have a look at you—”

Arms grapple around his waist, and a warm head burrows into his neck.

You rest against him, body suspended in the water of the deep pool, a merman’s tail swishing to shove you the tiniest bit closer unconsciously. John’s chest bounces with every emotion, but all he does is stop you from sinking by holding you. Your eyes close at the dig of his hands, and, letting the water move the both of you, the smooth scales along your legs feel as if the finest silk. A thumb caressing up and down your spine; breath at the top of your head.

You both say nothing, and it’s a long while before either of you takes any action to leave.

—

When your words could be strung together and not broken every other sentence, you explained all of it, and the hunch you’d strung together in the meantime.

You fiddle with one of John’s rings—the emerald one—as you glance up and speak softly, voice still delicate. The pain still blossomed, but some things needed to be explained.

“I think he killed his wife.”

By the way John stops massaging the flesh of your neck, letting you rest your head in the crook of where his tail begins and skin ends, you knew he already pieced that together a while ago. Your clothes were still heavy with water, and a puddle had formed around the both of you on the rocks.

“Hm,” is all John says, fixing the position of his lips as he looks away.

He shakes his head, growling out, “You’re not going back up there. Not while he’s still walking the streets.”

You frown, but John glares without any venom. “It wasn’t a question, Love.”

“What will you do,” you whisper, voice hoarse. A brow quirks. “Run after me, John?”

The man stares, not taking it as lightly as you. “If I have to.”

Your breath hitches, hands resting numbly over the ring as John’s fingers once again continue their touching—as if he can rub away the swelling; the damage of the veins.

“You don’t have legs,” you utter, having to pause in the middle of the sentence to breathe deeply.

“I’ll crawl,” he grunts.

“The rocks are sharp.”

His face is immobile. “Then I’ll bleed.”

Your mind memorized the stubbornness of his expression—the pull of the crow’s feet beside his eyes. There wasn’t an ounce of a joke in John’s eyes; no lie. Watching him, your face is loose with wonder, and water drips from your temple to connect with those dark navy scales, glinting with the light from the outside sun growing low.

The ring in your hands is frozen, stopping its turning as your pulse soars.

John licks the corner of his mouth, glancing at the item of gold and green.

“Keep it,” he mutters, tilting his head to the ring. “More of a use to you.”

Larger fingers capture yours, and in one deft motion, the elegant item is slipped onto your digit, sitting comfortably as if made just for you.

John shrugs. “The rest of ‘em, too, if you want the damn things.” His blues card over the view of your hand, and imagines fingers filled with every bit of gold and silver obtainable to him, brought up from the ocean just to sit pretty atop your flesh. Necklaces, bracelets, belts, and accessories; the things he’d seen from far distant waters.

Oh, but they’d pale in comparison to how you would wear them.

A muse to a song. A painter to a portrait.

A women to the water.

He’d seen your latest sketches—you’d brought them down to him here—and when you were exploring this cave, he had taken a peak. Unlike him, yes, but there was a pull to it, that parchment bound by leather. He’d not seen anything like it, and as he had watched you work on occasion, he was entranced as he’d listened to you explain it. You’d told him that you could even manipulate color, and that had left his eyes widening in awe.

You were incredible, and when he saw his own likeness littering page after page, John had been unable to take his eyes off of you. A silent appreciation—a voiceless devotion. He’d never been…captured like this, so to speak. A mirror image. Details he didn’t even know himself, and yet there they were.

Beauty marks across his cheeks and nose, the scars that littered his flesh that he’d all but forgotten about, the list was endless.

But he looks at you now, and he can understand why there’s a draw to immortalize the mortal.

His fingers stay at yours, and they brush skin as they dip along your hand, falling to your wrist. You stare up into his eyes, he stares down into yours. There’s little air to be taken in between the two of you.

“John,” you utter, blue gaze stuck to your lips.

He hums, tilting his head, his body looming over yours like a shadow. By the time his face is so near to yours, you don’t want to fight it, you don’t want to think about the strangeness of this predicament you’ve found yourself in—a creature living in the cliffs, handsome and half-inhuman.

When smooth lips brush over yours, and your eyelashes begin to flutter, the shouts from outside break whatever spell had just started weaving itself.

Head snapping up, John’s body tenses as you push upward quickly. Attention slashing to the cave entrance, it’s not long before you realize what’s going on with a sharp breath and a leap to your pulse.

The smash of something connecting to rocks echoes like a feral killing song. Yells. Yowls.

“John,” you say hurriedly, flinching from the pain in your throat. Your eyes dart to his tension-ridden form, his arms wrapping above your body. “You need to run,” you choke out. “Go! Quickly!”

You only get a glance, and the clench of his jaw is as stubborn as it always is. Your brain already knows it’s fruitless. He won’t leave you here alone.

“They’ll kill you!” Your hands push at his chest, finger grasping at the bristle of hair to try and shove at an iron will.

“Stay under me,” John mutters, voice low and nothing more than a chilled order. Yet, even he knows there’s little that he’d be able to do. His eyes flashed to every trinket and bauble he had collected, the new ones he’d yet to show to you, but there was few in the way of weapons. A dagger or two from a trench, a sword from under a ship—a spearhead. All too far away and rusted for it to even matter.

There was a sharp feeling in John’s chest. A need. An oath that he gave to himself the moment he’d seen the way your little stick could breathe his image onto a sheet made of fibers.

He was to watch over you whenever you were in his sights, and that had extended itself to gliding through the water as he watched you climb and grunt your way to his cave; a careful eye that he had no need to tell you about. That was just how he was.

“John!” You try to bark again, growing desperate.

Yet, it was already too late, and the merman hadn’t shifted even an inch before Noah, Otto, and the Librarian burst through the entrance like bats from hell. They hold all manner of weapons, though the more you blink in a panic, the less afraid of them you seem, at the very least, the older man and the woman.

Otto held a cut-up and dented club, nothing more than something you’d keep for a home invasion beside the bed—the Librarian, a heavy book that seemed to contain every bit of information available to the world, so large it strained in her hands. Noah, though, was a different story.

He had a sharp, long knife and eyes that could cut flesh by themselves.

Half of Mr. Moore’s face was sliced up, cuts leaking blood to the ground—skin hanging and an eye completely poked with glass; shards in its gentle makeup.

You swallow saliva and stutter through a shaking breath, and John’s glare could burn cities as he feels it reverberating against him.

“There!” Noah shouts, balking closer. “See! I knew it was here—seducing the next woman to take to the ocean!”

Your wide eyes try to take it all in, hands slapping the ground sending droplets of collected water flying. John’s face hones in, digging in like how the glass from your brush container had into Noah’s visage, and, somehow, you think that dead stare can cause more damage. Grasping the merman’s waist, you attempt and silently urge him to go.

“Girl!” Otto calls quickly, eyes darting from you to John and back. Even if you could yell, you’re not sure you would. You wouldn’t even know what to say. “Get away from it!”

“I’d put that down,” John grunts to Noah, disregarding the old man and the librarian entirely. He clenches his jaw. “‘Fore you end up hurting yourself. Leave.”

“Otto,” you start, glancing at the woman beside your friend who looked like she was about to pass out when John had started to speak. The man in question’s face pulls, wrinkles thinning. “You have to listen to me, please, it’s not how Mr. Moore told you—”

“It speaks!” Noah barks, pointing his knife harder at John. “Freak of nature, it already has its hold on her.”

“Oh my,” the Librarian gasps. “Noah, it’s horrible—look at the tail.”

Your eyes flare with rage as John doesn’t react.

“Hey!” You shout, but instantly slap your free hand to your throat, coughing raggedly until your spine hunches. The merman brings you closer, but you’re already pushing until you’re on your feet, stumbling for a moment as John gives you a sharp look.

“You watch your bloody mouth,” you grid out, glaring, whipping your hands to get rid of the water droplets. Noah licks his lips as John grabs onto the back of your knee, fingers resting firmly. Sending a look down to him, your shoulders loosen at the expression he levels. You can almost hear the words.

Steady. Keep your head on.

Though, a slash of silent pride made your heart stutter a small bit.

Your eyes glint. “Drop your weapons,” your sentence is crackling but nonetheless sharp. “Leave. John is innocent—he told me all of it.” You turn to Otto. “Mr. Moore attacked me in my shop, I smashed a glass container into his head so he would release me.” Otto tenses, club getting strangled by his fingers.

“Noah killed Eleanor,” you breathe, John’s grip pulling a bit tighter as if sensing something you have yet to see. Noah shifts quickly, boots squeaking along the rock as he growls.

“Absurd—!”

“He pushed her over the rocks and blamed John when he saw him bringing back her body,” you interrupt as fast as you can, pain bouncing off your throat. “You all saw it on the shore, the lie was simple enough for a man like him. Saying she drowned to a creature.”

It didn’t surprise you that John was quiet, that he was studying more the stance of men instead of talking or trying to defend himself. While he could be hard-headed and stiff, he was never dull—he never missed ques. So when Noah launched himself at you, Otto and the Librarian more confused and concerned than anything, there was only a heavy push on the back of your knee that left you buckling with a gasp, and then the explosion of water as John sent you both quickly to the water.

Hands whipping to snare around the merman’s shoulders, you’re only able to get a quick breath in before you’re completely enveloped in water, with John’s hand setting itself over your mouth just in case. The sudden rush is comparable to a heavy wind, yet far more cold and nearly like a slap to the back of your spine.

You both disappear into the deep with a spray, Noah’s muffled yells of terror seen far above near the surface, arms captured by the Librarian and Otto—held at his sides. There’s a flash of those dark eyes, horrible things, and then John’s fins hide the rest as they slash through the water.

When you both resurface, retreating far back near the watery entrance of the cave, John keeps you firmly behind him, your arms around his waist as you gasp for air. He keeps his head slightly turned to the side—always having you in the corner of his vision. Above the spread of his shoulders, you peek softly, legs suspended below.

“Lier!” Noah screams, face contorted. “She’s lying!”

You look at Otto and see the grim way he’s already looking back, struggling to keep the younger individual from breaking free. He was sensical, but stubborn in his ways. Otto had a choice just as the librarian did—believe a woman who’d been here a year or someone they’d known nearly their entire lives.

“Noah,” Otto grunts, gritting his teeth. “Breathe, boy! Stop spitting, let her speak—”

The knife in Noah’s hands slashes the air, and suddenly there’s a yell from the librarian and a spray of blood.

“Otto!” You scream, fingers flinching.

The old man stumbles, hoarsely crying out as he grasps at his neck. Your eyes widen, mouth ajar as John pushes his hand into your head, shoving it into the back of his hair as he watches blankly, eyes glinting with a deadly hate.

“Don’t move,” he utters quickly, sternly, to you as your breath breaks, mouth slack to stare at nothing. Scales skate your legs, great kelp-like fins curling your ankle. “Keep still. Focus on my words, Love.” Under his breath is a tight, “Fuck!”

John speaks above the gargling—the spillage of blood to stone. He mutters through the screams of the Librarian as Noah slips trying to run to the entrance, scrambling with bulging eyes.

“Don’t look,” John says to you lowly, shifting his body as he keeps your face hidden away and let him hold you like a corpse to the earth. The sounds…oh, the sounds were horrible.

But the man holding you tries very hard to hide them.

Your body quivers violently as the slam of a body hits the ground, the frantic calling of the woman still here with the both of you; the loud calls from the fleeing murder outside the walls.

“That’s it,” John’s fast lips are on the top of your head, muttering and trying to make his voice as even as possible. “That’s it, then. Doing good, don’t move until I say so, alright?”

When you don’t answer, only shoving your visage deeper into his neck, his spine-breaking-hold squeezes once, and his pounding heart bounces opposite yours. You don’t have to say you know him to understand that he’s only holding onto a thread of good manners, and that was certainly only for our own sake.

Otto was dead.

John leads you out, the gold and emerald of your ring glinting in the moonlight as he holds your body to his, the powerful make of his tail doing the work as it shines in the water. He leaves you outside, where the still running form of Noah is visible, yet the only person noticing is John himself. Your hands are so shaky that it would be impossible to hold your sketchbook, let alone a pencil.

John takes one of them as Mr. Moore gets too close to the shoreline, slipping and getting his foot caught in between two stones. He panics, yelling loudly, as water is lapping up to his knee.

“Hey, hey, you hear me?” John asks, uncaring to the man, as he sets you down softly on a flat rock shelf. Fingers move to sit at your chin, and, through tight sniffles, you make delicate eye contact. He blinks, trying a tight smile—a flash nothing more. “There she is. Good...I need you to listen one last time, yeah? Just like before; don’t look until I say so.” Your face creases lightly, blinking through a haze of senses and horror. Otto was dead.

The man that brought you out on his boat—the man that cooked you fish and acted as if a guardian to you. His cat, who would take care of her? It seemed a silly thought given the circumstances, but you can’t stop your mind from running. The house, the boat, the cat. The blood.

“There’s nothing out here that can hurt you,” John grunts, grasping your hands and holding them, letting calluses and scars speak. “So long as I’m here, I won’t let it.”

He nearly growls out the words. In one movement, he puts your hand to his heart, and your brain latches onto the rhythm as your own rampages in your ears.

Noah is still screaming, but now it’s for help.

John’s voice lowers as he utters, “Hey,” the man licks his lips, eyes dancing to the side every once and a while. You stare, swallowing down bile. He says as fluidly as possible, keeping constant locked gazes.

“Stay here. I won’t be long.”

Fingers glide down your neck again, feeling that swelling, and just as you register the kiss that’s leveled to your hand, to that gifted ring, John’s already away; his tail slipping over your flesh, fins gripping, writhing with their film.

Yet, you have no trouble following his advice.

The rising screams from Mr. Moore are numb to you, and the following wave of water that swallows him is only accented by the hand that grapples for his neck.

John always seemed the one for revenge.

—

With the Librarian's newfound cooperation, the story became simple.

Mr. Moore, distraught over the death of his wife, had finally lost it all when down on the beach with Otto, yourself, and the local Librarian—attacking and killing the old man in response to being so near to where he and his wife always traveled to. Afterward, he’d walked into the sea and had taken his own life.

The authorities weren’t going to dispute it.

You sold Otto's house a week after his death, seeing as he’d named you the sole inheritor of his estate and belongings. There was no need for two properties, and sitting in that small place was akin to torture. After all, he’d been doing what he thought was right, and dying for a lie is nothing short of cruel to those left behind who knew the truth.

Harriet stays in the shop with you, where she’ll probably live out the rest of her nine lives peacefully. She’s quite fond of the fireplace.

Most days, people find you near the water, and it’s something that wasn’t going to change even after Noah’s body was found in the rocks—freakishly close to where Eleanor’s had been. Some were calling it poetic and you’d have to agree…but for different reasons.

“You shouldn’t be giving me all of these,” you huff months later, sitting on the rock looking out over the water. A large collection of John’s trinkets is piled high in a wrapping of seaweed, shining bright as you mess with your pencil, leaning to stare at him.

John’s lips flicker into a smirk. He hums, content to watch you, from where he rests not an inch away. You lean into him, sighing, as the innumerable glinting rings on your fingers shimmer.

“Want to,” he grumbles.

Rolling your eyes, you look back down to your book, three of four replicas of the man’s scale pattern sitting, shaded and duplicated—lifelike. His tail sways with the water, half of it lost below.

Your hands reach for them now, the scales closest to you, and you lightly poke and prod as John grunts above you, silent but willing in a way that speaks volumes. He’d let no one else touch him like this for the rest of his life—the softness of your fingers and the care on your face more precious than gold. You revered that tail of his; as if it gave over magic like a wishing well.

Shivering, John’s breath hitches as your exploring moves, pushing lightly at where the top of his hips would be.

Your talent was fascinating to him, just as you were. If you wanted to ‘paint’ him, he’d allow you to do all the studies needed. Not only to give you a distraction….but because he can’t bear to be away from you anymore. It makes him nervous, and that in itself is an incredible feat.

“Where do you come from, John,” your question moves the air, and the man moves to pull your jacket higher up your body to stave off the chill. You glance at him, smiling, before your attention returns to your drawings. Sketching more, John resets his lips and tries not to stare at your face. It was getting harder to deny that pull.

That near kiss.

“No answer, Love.” You stare as he quirks a lip, voice lowering. “I won’t be going back to distant waters anytime soon.”

John glances down at your sketchbook, seeing every scratch and bend of care. The both of you were strange creatures, perhaps. Unique—made for one another despite the obvious.

He nods his head to it softly. The water laps at your boots from below, but you care little before John shifts your feet carefully further up with a push from his tail. You chuckle at him breathily, face heating.

“Getting water on you, Love,” he breathes. “New painting soon?” John asks when the silence settles once more, with you shifting your legs to sit under you. He still isn’t sure what painting entails, but you had told him that you would show him soon, so he knows to be patient. But yearning for anything regarding you is ingrained into his mind now—instinct.

“Mhm,” you smile softly, sending a look at your paper and the images. A huff escapes your mouth. “I think I’ll make this one a portrait.”

John blinks, tilting his head slightly. “Portrait? Why’s that?”

Your lips find his, moving back up in an instant.

For a second, the man’s surprised eyes pull back; only lowering as he hums moments later, fingers curling up under your chin as he sags. Lids flutter closed, and his tail twitches lightly.

“I have a subject that’s caught my eye.” You mutter into his flesh when you pull back, face burning as deep blues sear your mind, turning it into mush. Your skin tingles as chilled digits trail your chin, dripping water down your healed throat.

John watches, lips parted, as you continue on.

“And I’d be a fool if I let him swim off.”

The both of you were going to be perfectly fine.

TAGS:

@sheviro-blog, @ivebeentrashsince2001, @mrshesh, @berryjuicyy, @romantic-homicide, @kmi-02, @neelehksttr, @littlemisstrouble, @copperchromewriting, @coelhho-brannco, @pumpkinwitchcrusade, @fictional-men-have-my-heart, @sleepyqueerenergy, @cumikering, @everything-was-dark, @marmie-noir, @anna-banana27, @iamcautiouslyoptimistic, @irenelunarsworld, @rvjaa, @sarcanti, @aeneanc, @not-so-closeted-lesbian, @mutuallimbenclosure, @emily-who-killed-a-man, @gildedpoenies, @glitterypirateduck, @writeforfandoms, @kohsk3nico, @peteymcskeet, @caramlizedtomatoes, @yoursweetobsession, @quesowakanda, @chthonian-spectre, @so-no-feint, @ray-rook, @extracrunchymilk, @doggydale, @frazie99, @develised, @1-800-no-users-left, @nuncubus, @aldis-nuts, @clear-your-mind-and-dream, @noonanaz, @cosmicpro, @stinkaton, @waves-against-a-cliff, @idocarealot

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ao3-shenanigans · 3 months

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I hope you don't mind me having a little rant here:

I don't want to get into "good ol' times" mindset, especially, since I'm not even fandom old (like, I'm only in my mid 20s), but I miss old fandom culture. Or rather: I miss how unhinged and unapologetic it was. All these funny disclaimers (like "nothing belongs to me, if [franchise] belonged to me, [ship] would be making out all the time"), authors arguing with characters, people squeeing in the comments, "don't like don't read" and "ship and let ship" being the default, general weirdness being the default – this all was so awesome. And the interactivity. Like, I have a feeling, that in old fandom interacting with each other, especially the creators, was much more common. And don't get me wrong, I am thankful for every single comment I get on my works, but I still can't shake the feeling, that commenting is not as popular as it used to be, especially if one isn't already an established writer/artist/etc. in the fandom.

Yeah, there are things, that got better with time – I absolutely love the current emphasis on tagging – but I still miss a lot of things.

I don't know, if anyone feels like that too. Maybe it's just nostalgia speaking, I dunno.

Anyway, thank you for listening to me. I hope everyone has a great day! 💜💜💜

Yes! I miss some of that too!

I consider myself pretty young in terms of fandom but I started reading on Fanfiction.net which is where a lot of “old fandom” content was posted; it was quite odd interacting mostly with inactive accounts like discovering the ruins of a once great kingdom/hj

There was a lot of “I don’t own this media: PLEASE DONT SUE ME!!!!!!” And definitely wrangling the characters into interacting with the authors notes, Oh my gosh- the citrus scale??? With no context that was quite the surprise!

I do miss that energy- it was a wild and lawless time but by Holy did you people party

#thanks for sharing #i definitely get it #there things from both eras I really liked #ao3 #fanfiction #archive of our own #fanfic #fandom #fanfic.net #ao3 shenanigans ask #fandom history #💜

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httpsserene · 7 months

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i've been looking for weeks and months but can't find a single x male reader fic/au/etc... could u spare sum for the boys too😭🤲

ɪ ᴄᴀʀᴇ ᴡ/ ᴍᴠ33

📖ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: max is over at daniel’s where they're supposed to be doing whatever best buds do. but somehow, the topic of his father comes up, and it brings max to a…realization of sorts. it also causes the two of you to argue, and for several discoveries to be made in the early morning hours; some of the depressing-kind, and some of the heartwarming-and-life-changing-kind. 📖ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢ: angst and fluff (hurt/comfort). argument. jos verstappen's a+ parenting. no beta we die like alphatauri's engines. 📖ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 4k words 📖ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ: max verstappen x male!reader (race not specified) 📖ɢᴇɴʀᴇ: oneshot 📖ꜱᴏᴜɴᴅᴛʀᴀᴄᴋ: ivy • frank ocean

ᴘʀᴇꜰᴀᴄᴇ: i *usually* don’t write for male readers (as a cis woman idk i think it’s sus? idk, but maybe it’s not since i do support and love mxm ships, so maybe that’s hypocritical?)....but since it is my first request and max’s birthday (when i started writing this) i figured i could spare sum for da boys :)))) i scrolled through the tag and most of it was f1 x platonic!male!reader which is lowkey depressing, the boys deserve to simp wholeheartedly with us girlies ✊🏽 i hope “the boys” enjoy this and it makes the f1 x male!reader life a lil better! (you also didn’t specify who you wanted, so i went with max bc of his birthday) big shout out to the best kitties in the world, jimmy and sassy, for being great sports in this fic ☠️ they were wonderful setting devices! this is not an accurate description of max’s relationship with his father. we all don’t know what’s going on there, but it did become a wonderful plot point. so, it’ll probably be the only thing jos the boss is good for besides being max’s sperm-donor 🙂.

want to be added to my taglist? or my f1 kinktober taglist? send me a message !

prompts from @forestryprompts and @dumplingsjinson

it’s 3:23 AM, and you’re brutally jarred out of your sleep by your phone ringing. you’re disoriented–still in that sleepy “where the fuck am i” stage–and don’t quite catch the first phone call. a few seconds pass by without another call, and you’re convinced you hallucinated. usually, there’s only two reasons for you to be disturbed in the middle of the night. number one, when sassy “accidentally” presses all ten pounds of her body weight into your spleen with one paw; and number two; when max returns from partying, a late flight, or streaming. glancing around, you guess sassy is the bengal curled up on max’s side of the bed, gravitating to where his scent is the strongest as max is over at daniel’s; missing her favorite parent. and you guess that jimmy’s the heat source curled against your feet under the duvet, as that’s his favorite spot to sleep and his favorite place to prey on your toes. you lay straight back, head resting on your pillow and shrug, dismissing it as a problem for the morning.

then another call starts ringing through. now, you’re awake enough to start processing the important information. you always set your phone on dnd when going to bed, and there’s only a few numbers that are set to bypass it during sleep. this ringtone in particular, identifies the caller as max, which is peculiar. max doesn’t disturb your sleep unless absolutely necessary, he already feels guilty enough for doing so when traveling. with that thought, you reach for the phone with a reaction time you’d only relate to your boyfriend’s occupation.

you breathe out, “maxy, baby? are you okay? did something happen?”

a panicked and slightly desperate giggle slips out of the receiver, “heyyyy, it’s daniel, actually–”

“daniel?” you softly exclaim, sitting up in bed, worriedly continuing, “where’s max? did something happen? is he okay–”

“well,” daniel starts, “i wouldn’t say he’s ‘okay’, so to speak–”

“oh my god! what does that mean, daniel? i’m coming over right now give me like, fifteen minutes–” you say rushedly, already leaping out of the bed. jimmy yowls in shock of being disturbed, panically darting out of the duvet, and sassy shoots up–airplane ears activated and all.

daniel cuts you off, “NO! uh, no! i’m actually already on the way back to yours with him right now! he’s like- kinda drunk- tipsy i guess, one would say uh- but–”

“are you driving, daniel? if-if you’ve drank you should’ve let him sleep over, or called me to come get him if he’s being a menace!”

“no, uh-” daniel starts whispering, “we’re in an uber. ma- i mean- your boyfriend is kind of out of it, and not in a drunk way.”

“what the fuck,” you bite out, switching to hold the phone to your ear with your shoulder, as you pull on a pair of sweatpants (max’s) over your boxers, “does that mean, daniel?!”

“so, like,” daniel whispers even quieter, “hypothetically, we started talking about ma- sorry, his- wonderful childhood, and i guess me saying that seeing his father stabbing a mechanic with a fork isn't a normal thing to experience, kind of sent him into a spiral.”

“oh, fuck” you pause, while pulling one of max’s championship hoodies on.

“yeah, that’s pretty much what i’d say,” daniel sighs, “but, then um, he tried to like rationalize it to me? like, he’d bring up different crazy memories, and i’d be like ‘no, mate, that’s not normal either,’ and everytime he’d bring up a positive interaction with his dad, he realized it correlated to how well he performed, and he kind of um-shut down.”

“oh. fuck.” you repeat. sassy, in a rare show of solidarity, winds between your legs and mews gently at you as if she’s letting you know that she’s here. “um, well,” you say, running a stressed hand through your hair, “you should be on max’s list to come up to the apartment, but i’ll call down to give them a heads up. text me when you get here, please?”

“will do,” daniel perks up, “i’m sorry by the way. i should’ve left it alone, or distracted him away from the topic. but you know how he gets, probably better than me.”

now it’s your turn to let a depressing chuckle escape, “probably not, dan. i’ve known him for fourteen years and dated him for five of those, and he hasn’t done more than agree that his dad ‘isn’t perfect’” you wave your hand through the air, brushing the train of thought away, “anyways, i can get the spare room ready for you, so you don’t have to uber back?”

daniel nervously laughs, “forgive me for saying this, but i don’t really want to be present for whatever conversation is going to happen. or have to pretend like i’m unaware of anything. max would do his best to avoid me for as long as he can if he knew i was around, and i don’t want to risk that…after what happened when i left red bull.”

“yeah, you’re right. don’t forget to text me when you get here,” you state.

daniel’s text comes through when you’ve just gathered the ibuprofen and water bottles. you thumbs-up the message, and go to sit in the living room to wait for a knock on the door. you plop down on the couch and your leg bounces anxiously. jimmy gracefully hops up into your lap, and he must be an emotional support cat because he sits down on that leg, and leans into your torso butting his head into your chest asking for pets. you indulge him, a shaky laugh erupting, “thanks, jimmy,” and you lean down to press a few kisses to his cheeks. silence overcomes the room, and then three knocks break the still air in the apartment, and both you and jimmy jump off the couch and race to the entryway. you push jimmy behind you with a foot as you open the door, knowing damn well he’ll sneak into the hallway if given a chance.

max stumbles through the doorway first. his eyes are bloodshot with a cold and unseeing look glazed over them, red-rimmed and looking so distraught at tonight’s realization, that your heart aches for him. you wish you could take his pain away, or at least carry some of it for him. his hair is sticking out in different directions like he was anxiously tugging at it, but the most surprising observation is the tear tracks on his cheeks. max doesn’t cry, like at all.

well, that’s not exactly true. he’s one of the men that says crying is “strong” and not a sign of weakness when you cry and even encourages you to cry it out on his chest. but, when it’s himself, he refuses to cry until everything gets too much. he’ll come up to you and sit or stand pressed right up against you, grabs at and plays with your hand to let you know that he needs comfort, before he looks at you and softly asks with a cracking voice if he can have a hug. you always set aside what you’re doing as quickly as you can, because you’re not going to let an opportunity of caring for max in a rare vulnerable time pass, and pull him into your chest. even though he’s broader than you, he appears to shrink himself within your arms, and presses his face into your shoulder while he cries. his tears are always silent, but his body is loud; he shakes, and his hands grab at whatever you’re wearing in fists like he’s afraid that you’d slip out of his grasp.

anyways, you’ve never known him to really cry with other people. with a soft, “max…” you reach out to him, but he brushes right past your hand and goes straight for the bedroom. jimmy trots after him, and sassy falls into step from whatever pocket she was hiding in. you freeze, shocked at his behavior while also understanding, he’s had a life-changing realization that he’s never allowed himself to address. you feel guilty that you're jealous of the fact that he had it with daniel.

daniel clears his throat, still standing outside the doorway, “...you know he doesn’t mean to ignore you like that, right?”

you nod, “when did he start crying?”

“he held it together until we got into the uber, i think. he was turned towards the window the whole time and refused to look at me. i didn’t notice he cried until we got out.”

“are you sure you don’t want to stay the night? it’s late, dan. or at least let me get you the uber back” you offer again with a questioning look.

daniel refuses both options, “nah, don’t worry about it. i’ll make max take me to lunch one day to pay me back. i’d say good luck but that seems redundant. be gentle with him, alright?”

you sigh, “i’ll be gentle, dan. can’t say the same for him,” daniel’s face saddens more, “get home safe alright, dan? text me when you get there.”

“of, course,” daniel nods, “goodnight.”

you watch him walk into the elevator before closing the door. you turn the lock, and step forward until you can rest your forehead onto the cool wood. eventually, you push off the door and turn around to grab the water and ibuprofen from the settee and make your way to the bedroom. max is sitting at the foot of the bed, elbows on his knees and his head resting in his hands.

pausing, you place the water and meds on the nightstand first, then you sit next to him and lightly place your hand on his upper back, attempting to rub between his shoulder blades to provide comfort. max shrugs your hand off. you pause, blinking a few times trying to discover the best course of action. you decide to ignore the second blatant dismissal of the night, and pull his hand off his face and push him to sit up straight. you forcefully straddle his lap, ignoring his grumbles, and grab his face, thumbs resting on his cheeks and directing him to look straight at you.

“max, you’ve got to communicate with me here. i was terrified, when daniel called me! you refuse to talk about your dad with me, which is fine, okay? but you have to talk to somebody. whether it’s me, daniel, a therapist, christian, or even fucking helmut marko—you need to talk to someone. you’ve repressed this shit your whole life, and when whatever film you had over your eyes when looking at your father slipped away, you shut down completely? that can’t happen again! i don’t want it to happen again…daniel sounded completely fucking terrified—like he was afraid he broke you or something. and if you’re scaring me right now with how-h-how out of it you look, i can’t imagine what it was like for him,” you finish, taking a few deep breaths. max doesn’t say anything, just stares at you blankly.

you make a distressed groan, both hands releasing max’s face to rub at your eyes and drag down your cheeks. doing so, you continue talking, “max. you don’t even have to talk, baby, not to me at least. i don’t care if you journal, if you meditate, if you go goddamn axe throwing; but, you need to see a professional. cause, how your brain is coping, and how you’re rationalizing it isn’t good. you aren’t the problem, nothing you could’ve done differently would have made your dad change; you are not the problem, max, he is. okay? i’ve known you for fourteen years, and not once have i pressured the topic after you said that ‘you’re fine,’ but, you have to at least promise me that you’ll start doing something.”

max parts his lips, thinking about what to say, as you fully sit on his lap. you look at him with wide eyes filled with worry—with care— and you’re anxiously playing with the hairs on the nape of your neck.

“i don’t want to talk about it.”

“that’s not an option,” you state, with a furrowed brow, “can you at least tell me what caused the breakdown?”

and, that’s what gets get’s max going. his cheeks flush, and his eyes darken, and he starts talking with a firmer voice.

“it wasn’t a breakdown, first of all. i was just overwhelmed and overreacting. it’s nothing serious, like you’re pretending it is. i don’t need this—this false worry, showing up all of sudden when you know how the relationship between my father and i has been for all of the time we’ve known each other.”

you pull away, retreating off his lap and stand in front of him with your arms crossed over your chest.

“false worry?? that’s what you think this is,” you start with an exasperated tone, “max, ‘for all the time we’ve known each other’ all you’ve done is deflect from my questions about you two, or tell me that everything is fine when it’s clearly not! and i gave you the space you wanted, because i was afraid that you’d stop talking to me, that you’d stop trusting me. but now, as your boyfriend, i can’t let it go unaddressed anymore!”

“you already did for fourteen years! it shouldn’t be that difficult for you to keep ignoring it.”

“because you asked me to, max! you didn’t want to talk about it then, and you need to talk about it now! i don’t give a fuck if you don’t want to share it with me, but it needs to be with somebody!”

“i already told you I didn’t want to talk about it, yet you keep insisting!”

“that’s because i fucking care about you!”

“well, did i ask for you to care about me?”

you’re stunned silent. the room is filled with heavy breaths from the two of you. this might be the most serious argument you’ve had, in awhile, or ever.

it’s the third blatant dismissal of the night, and you’re calling it quits, daniel did tell you to be gentle, and if you keep going like this you’re word choice will become less gentle.

“you’re right,” you exhale, relaxing your clenched jaw, “you didn’t ask for me to care. and you shouldn’t have to ask for anybody to care. and, for some ‘unbelievable’ reason, i do happen to actually care,” you finish, your words dripping with exhaustion and defeat.

you walk around to the side of the bed, grabbing a pillow off the top and point at the nightstand, “the ibuprofen and water are for you. at least, finish one bottle before you go to bed, please.” you start walking towards the closet.

“wait,” max calls out, finally standing up with a confused look in his eyes, “why’d you grab a pillow?”

you grab a blanket out of the closet, and sigh, “i’m sleeping on the couch.”

“what? no-no you’re not,” max stutters out, disbelieving.

“uh, yes i am.”

“what, no! no, schatje, i’m sorry, please come to bed,” max utters out, looking absolutely heartbroken.

“i’m going to sleep on the couch, max,” you repeat, “if i go to bed, i won’t be able to not talk about it, and we’re clearly going to talk in circles about it. both of us are tired, frustrated, and mad, and we’re going to end up even angrier, so i’m going to sleep on the couch.”

max, crossing the room quickly, grabs at your waist with his large hands, and pleads, “if you’ve made up your mind about it, you can at least take the bed, i’ll sleep on the couch, schat.”

you, grab his hands off your waist, having to fight him a little bit for it (you may be a man, but your man is a professional athlete, you’ll be outmatched any day) and press them into his chest, “you’re still pretty drunk, max. i’ll let you take the bed so you can be comfortable, you seem like you’re going to have a pretty bad hangover, i can smell the alcohol on you still.”

max looks upset, but eventually concedes. you press your lips to his cheek, “i’ll see you in the morning, babe. then, with clearer minds we can talk, ‘kay?”

sassy baps jimmy on the face before nuzzling in between max’s legs, while jimmy makes to follow you out as you shut the door gently.

situating yourself on the couch, you squeeze your eyes shut. usually you’d be hugging max’s arm to your chest but tonight, jimmy is benevolent enough to leave his usual spot at your feet to fill in for max. even with the comfort the bengal’s purring body provides, you know you’re only in for a fitful night of sleep.

you wake up a few hours later, your body not able to keep you under for long you guess, as the early morning sun has barely started lightening the room. you take a minute to get your bearings, not used to waking up on the couch (in the past when you have accidentally fallen asleep on the couch, you magically wake up in bed laying on top of your boyfriend, how weird), and jimmy is no longer laying with you. he’s with max, who’s sitting on his floor below you, with his back facing you.

you rub at your eyes and whisper, “max?” he startles, and turns around to face you. his eyes have fresh bags underneath, his hair is still slightly damp from a shower, and you can tell he hasn’t gotten any sleep. even though you got a couple hours of shut-eye, the matching bags under your eyes prove that your sleep was restless.

“hey,” he whispers back sheepishly, “i know you told me to go to bed, but i couldn’t fall asleep. i only came out here a few minutes ago though, and i was just going to wait until you woke up in the morning.”

you sit up straight, and pull max onto the couch with you, “max, what? you could’ve at least layed down on the other couch, and not sit on the–”

max cuts you off.

“i just…couldn’t go to bed alone tonight, okay? i still feel raw–i think is the word for it. i’m exhausted and cried out, and the only person who can make me feel better is you right now. so i was just going to sit here, and be next to you, without disturbing you like you wanted, because being in your general vicinity already makes me feel better, even if you're mad at me.”

your mouth is left gaping, and you feel guilty now, your chest aches. leaving max at a time where he was vulnerable, even if you were right down the hallway–

“and, don’t feel bad about your decision to sleep out here. you decided that space was the best course of action for you, and you are probably right, because i was ready to argue with you,” max continues rambling, “honestly, you sleeping out here made me realize that i never want you to be angry with me like that, ever again. at first, i was scared that if i opened up about my relationship with my dad you would think i’m weak, or that you'd judge me for it, or that you’d leave me. but when i was in the shower earlier, i got really…scared.”

he pauses, taking a few deep breaths and you don’t make to interrupt him.

“i got scared because i thought you left me right now. that you lied to me about sleeping on the couch, and you were actually planning to leave. and, obviously you did not, you are still here right now but, it made me realize that i do need to talk to you. and that the reason i thought you were leaving was because of how i thought i scared you away with my issues. but i realize now, that the way i’ll scare you away is by not talking about my issues,” he turns to look at you with an earnest expression.

“so, if you are okay with it, i will talk to you. about everything, even though it may take me some time to work up the courage. i am uncomfortable with talking to a…professional, but i will, if you truly think it will help me. but i do not want to risk the chance that my refusal to communicate costs me a lifetime with you,” he ends.”

you stare at him blankly, and max begins to fidget at your silence. you lean forward and pull him into a hug, tears gathering in your eyes. he nestles his head in the crook of your neck, and presses gentle kisses into your skin.

“max, all i want is for you to talk to me about it. i want to share the burden you feel, and understand you better than the back of my hand. most of all, i hope having somebody who understands you to that depth makes you feel lighter, and validates your emotions.”

max says something, but it’s muffled by your body.

“what was that, baby?”

max pulls away to look at you with bashful eyes and pinkened cheeks, “you know i can’t imagine my life without you.”

“likewise,” you respond, just as meek.

“no, really. i've fallen in love with you,” he continues.

“max, you told me you loved me years ago,” you say laughingly.

“no, like, i’ve fallen in love with you again. everytime i think i can’t fall any deeper, you manage to prove me wrong,” he says intensely.

you pout at him, hands coming up to feel at your heated cheeks, “oh, max! stop, you’re going to make me cry. that’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me. i fall in love with you again, everytime you finish a race, and come home to me. that you chose me as the man you want to see after a tiring race weekend, regardless of the outcome.

max smiles all teeth, “there’s no other person i want to share my highs and lows with. well, hopefully more highs than lows. i have the ring for you already, but i at least need to win eight championships before i retire so you’re able to marry a record-breaking champion. i am proposing to you this year though, i cannot wait any longer.”

you stare at him unseeing for a minute, and he looks awfully confused for a man who just announced his plans to give you his last name.

“max,” you start shakingly, “what do you mean you already have the ring?”

max’s carefree expression drops, and becomes pale, “what are you talking about? i never said anything about a ring–”

“you literally just did?! the part before you said you were proposing to me this year, and before becoming an eight-time world–”

max claps, cutting you off while standing up. he offers you his hand, “alright! we should go to bed now, right? together, yes that’s a great idea.”

taglist: @saintslewis @cherry2stems

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