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venus-haze · 9 months

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You're My Best Friend (Homelander x Reader)

Summary: Homelander was a test tube baby, raised in isolation in a cold, clinical lab. But that doesn’t inspire America, does it? Vought tasks you with creating the idyllic backstory for its hero, and what starts as a limited comic run spirals out of control when Homelander himself demands your help in making the story a reality.

Note: Gender neutral reader, but no other descriptors are used. Based on a request by @crash-and-cure as well as a bastardization of one of the sweetest love songs ever written (sorry, John Deacon!) This got kinda meta? Do not interact if you’re under 18 or post thinspo/ED content.

Word count: 2k

Warnings: Emotional manipulation, I guess some gaslighting on Homelander’s part? Do not interact if you’re under 18.

When Vought hired you to create their long-awaited Homelander origin comic series, you were thrilled—until they gave you so little information about his childhood to work with, you weren’t even sure you could come up with one comic, let alone the ten they requested. The details about his childhood were minimal, not even a full printed page—a loving mom and dad, played baseball, did well in school, strong sense of justice from a young age, his friends called him “Johnny.” Your requests to meet with Homelander so you could get some stories from the man himself were constantly denied.

You almost considered dropping the project, until you decided to throw caution to the wind and pull from your own childhood and set it in good ol’ generic suburbia. Some of the storylines were based on your own experiences or things that had happened to people you’d grown up with, though you changed enough names and details to not link it to anyone in particular. Except yourself, of course. Using a pseudonym professionally meant you felt no need to change your own name in the comics. Sure, making your cooler fictionalized self Homelander’s childhood best friend was a bit self-indulgent, but no one would know, really.

To your relief, the editors at Vought loved your ideas, making minor changes before bringing the storylines to their comic artists to bring it to life. The result was Finding Homelander: A Boy’s Journey To Be a Hero. The issues flew off shelves when they were first released, ironically praised for their relatability and authenticity. Vought extended your contract, asking you to produce the cartoon adaptation and another ten issues.

Still, in all of that, you’d never met Homelander. A representative from Vought emailed you to let you know to tune in to his interview on a talk show one day, saying that he’d be talking more about the cartoon project on it. You recognized the host, Tracey, always chipper and having some extravagant giveaway for her audience members. Daytime TV was never your thing, though.

“I think what resonates with so many people is how relatable your childhood is,” Tracey said, holding up a copy of Finding Homelander issue #3, where he saved ‘you’ from getting hit in the face with a baseball at one of his games, catching it with ease. It’d been the happy ending to a short storyline of him struggling to find his place on the team and you encouraging him to not give up. “You and Y/N were pretty close, do you still keep in touch?”

“You know, Tracey, not as much as I’d like, unfortunately. Adulthood can be so busy, you need to cherish those childhood memories,” Homelander said. “I did give them a call when the comics first came out, and wow, the laughs we had over those old antics of ours. Talk about a walk down memory lane!”

You guessed the bullshitting was all part of the promotional circuit for Homelander. Knowing this childhood of his was your own fabrication, you couldn’t help but wonder what else about him was fake. Maybe he wanted to maintain his privacy, you could certainly understand that. You couldn’t shake the voice in the back of your mind that said it wasn’t so simple, that the narrative Vought pushed was a cover to hide something in Homelander’s past.

“Now, I’ve heard rumors of a cartoon show based on the comics in the making, is this true?”

“It is! I’m excited for this project, getting back to my ‘roots’ so to speak. I’ll be voicing myself, of course, but it’s funny you’d bring up Y/N, because they’ve agreed to voice themself, too.”

“How fun!” Tracey exclaimed over the roar of the talk show crowd’s applause and cheers. “I guess this is the hopeless romantic in me, but I hope this reconnection leads to something a little more. I’m just a sucker for childhood sweethearts!”

Homelander laughed along with the host’s giggles, “Well, you never know.”

You balked at the television, mouth agape. Surely he couldn’t be talking about you. ‘Y/N’ could be anyone with your same features. Vought had probably hired a professional voice actor for the role and were pushing the authenticity angle. The whole situation felt odd.

When you checked your work email again on your phone, you nearly dropped it on the floor.

SUBJECT: Meeting with Homelander This Week

The email contained a list of days and times throughout the week wherein Homelander would be free, apparently wanting to meet you to thank you for the success of the comic series and discuss upcoming work. Yeah. That last part you sure as hell wanted to discuss too. You responded with the soonest time available, in a meeting room in Vought Tower the following evening. As soon as you hit ‘send’, you wondered what exactly you were getting yourself into.

Anticipation filled your gut as you went about your day leading up to meeting the supe himself. What would he be like, really be like? Was there even a version of Homelander that wasn’t hopelessly manufactured for the masses? You knew then that his upbringing was a lie, and thus stood the probability that so much else was, too.

When you stepped into that meeting room, you hadn’t been expecting his face to light up at the sight of you.

“Homelander, hi, it’s great to—“

“No need to be so formal, Y/N! You can call me Johnny, just like old times,” he said cheerfully, in on a joke you clearly hadn’t been aware of.

“Sorry, Johnny,” you said, playing along. “It’s great to see you again.”

He pulled you in for an unexpected hug that you returned. “Figured we should catch up before things really start getting crazy, don’t you think?”

You nodded, your nose brushing against him as you did so. Just as your lips parted to offer an apology, he smiled, shooing away the assistant who’d accompanied him out of the room.

He sat down, motioning for you to do the same.

“Gotta say, I’m a fan of your work,” he said.

“Thank you,” you said. “I’m not sure I understand exactly what’s going on, though.”

“What’s there to understand? I’m not allowed to know more about my best friend, our lives together growing up?”

“How did you know it was me?”

“Wasn’t hard for me to put two and two together, but considering everyone else around here has their head up their asses, they have no idea,” he said, before lowering his voice conspiratorially and giving you a charming smile. “I haven’t told anyone. What’s a secret between friends?”

You nodded, overwhelmed by the intensity of his attention on you. “What do you want to know?”

He sighed, resting his head on his hand. “Everything.”

So you told him. Not quite everything, of course, but enough to abate his curiosity. At least for the time being. His interviews were sharper, more specific with details rather than rattling off whatever had been in the comics. You watched in shock as convincing photos of his Little League days were posted to his social media accounts, anecdotes provided by his increasingly frequent conversations–or more like interrogation sessions–with you, but in his style, of course. It was almost scary what the graphic design team at Vought could accomplish, not that you’d ever know how, exactly, as they were all under the same strict NDA that you were.

He started spending more time with you, too, and after a while, it did seem like you were old friends. Part of you flinched whenever you called him Johnny, because Johnny wasn’t even real, but with your complacency, this fabrication was slowly morphing into a strikingly tangible memory. With each conversation, he drew you deeper into the world you’d been paid to create for him until you found yourself slipping up.

You’d been showing him a goofy stuffed monkey on your desk, a cute little thing with big sparkling eyes. A prize for getting two out of three at the ring toss. Probably spent more money winning it than it was actually worth, but it was about the effort, the memories made.

“You remember, don’t you? You won it for me at the county fair,” you said without thinking.

He laughed in agreement, as if he actually had. Except he hadn’t. Your high school boyfriend won it for you a week before graduation. Sensing the mood shift, he set down your prize and looked at you with the same intensity he had when you first met.

“It’s been a while since we were there, huh?” he said. “Why don’t we go back?”

You furrowed your eyebrows. “Go where?”

“Home.”

With a strong arm around your waist, he took off for your hometown. You could hardly tell which way was up or down, he was flying so high, but he didn’t seem to mind the way you clung to him at all. When he finally landed, you recognized the community baseball field where all of his fictional games were set.

“Geez, it’s like nothing’s changed,” he said cheerfully.

You looked at him in disbelief. How long was he going to expect you to go along with it? Or maybe the question you should have been asking was, how long were you going to enable him? The end wasn’t anywhere in sight as he took your hand, and you walked him through your childhood, further enmeshing him in it until you arrived at the house you grew up in.

The middle of the day, no one was home, and so you let yourselves in like you owned the place. Suddenly, the house seemed too small for a man like Homelander to occupy, but he was engrossed in the details of it. He scanned the kitchen, no doubt inspecting the contents of the fridge and cabinets with his x-ray vision. Moving onto the living room, he stared at photos on the wall, the magazines and DVDs that were strewn on the coffee table, giving away your parents’ taste in entertainment.

“Which one was your room again?” he asked.

You swore you could feel his breath on the back of your neck as you wordlessly led him to your room. Each step down the hall felt dangerous, as if you were about to walk into a trap. Face-to-face with the closed door, you opened it, standing aside while Homelander looked around, from what you had hanging on the walls to the knick-knacks you’d left behind.

An uncomfortable tension settled over the room when Homelander closed the door of your childhood bedroom. An odd blend of hurt and amusement spread across his face as he observed the way you were eyeing him, body ready to fruitlessly run from him the way a rabbit would a hawk.

“C’mon, after how long we’ve been friends, I would never hurt you,” he said, as if reading your mind. “We’ve been through so much together. I mean, we were each other’s first kiss.”

You froze. Issue #9. That was something Vought’s editors had added, claiming a romance angle would make the series appeal to the younger female demographic. You hadn’t thought much of it at the time.

He slyly backed you into the wall, leaning over you as you slinked down the slightest bit.

“Show me how we did it,” he whispered, his hand caressing your cheek. “So clumsy and nervous, I can even feel you…quivering.”

“Homelander, I don’t know what you’re—“

He tsked. “Y/N.”

You let out a shaky breath, “Johnny—“

He hummed in satisfaction. “It’s alright. I know it’s been a while.”

You let him kiss you, sweetly in a way that put your actual first kiss to shame. His lips were soft against yours, his tender movements intentional as he cradled your face, pulling you the slightest bit closer to him when you kissed him back.

A sense of familiarity settled over you, warm and comforting like pulling a blanket out of the dryer on a chilly evening. Every time it seemed like you were beginning to overthink the situation with Homelander, he drew you back in with the kiss, a more than effective distraction until you pulled away with a dazed smile on your face.

#homelander x reader #homelander x you #the boys x reader #the boys x you #the boys tv #the boys amazon #homelander #homelander the boys #the boys

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netherfeildren · 1 year

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Kiss, Kiss, Kill, Kill!

Pairing: Joel Miller x F!Reader

Summary: Joel is a long haul truck driver. One day he finds a pretty girl in a diner and decides he’d like to keep her.

Murder and sex ensue!

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: No outbreak; Graphic depictions of violence; Murder; Blood; Gore; Threat of SA; Impotence; Unprotected sex; Creampie; Loss of virginity; Virginity kink; Breeding kink; Spit kink; Rough sex; Pussy slapping; Dark!Joel; Mean!Joel (also kinda crazy and pathetic); Obsessive behavior; Possessive behavior; Discussions of suicidal ideations; Unreliable narrators; Alcoholism; Consensual non consent kind of (But not previously discussed - they're both into it tho); Use of misogynistic language; Grief

A/N: Hi :) Another one just bc I have no self control.

Parts of the narrative read a little disjointed and/or confusing. This is intentional. I was kind of trying something weird out here, I guess.

Word Count: 9.7K

Read on AO3

The first time Joel sees you, it’s a Thursday. His least hated day of the week, but not his favorite, for he doesn’t really have any favorite things anymore. Your eyes’d stunned him at that first look. They sparkled as if dusted with frost – speared him with an intensity that burned.

But no�� that was a lie, and Joel is trying not to be such a liar anymore. He does have one favorite thing now. This middle-of-nowhere diner, this place where’d he’d found you.

The first time he’d actually talked to you, you’d interrupted his own stubborn, sour silence with a silence of your own. Different, agonizing, compared to your usual persistent fishing for his attention.

“What’re you doin’ out here in this wasteland, sweetheart?” Because you look sweet as that cherry pie you’re always trying to push on him.

“Been here my whole life.” It’s verging on evening, the sky gone to melancholy, and there’s a young girl with dark hair weeping on the shoulder of an older woman in the booth over. He wants to snap at her, demand to know what the fuck she could possibly have to cry over? He’s sure she mustn’t have a dead daughter like him, and so there really seems to be no reason for tears.

“No plans to leave?”

You shake your head, hum a little, set the coffee pot down on the edge of the table to pop a hip out and think on your answer. “Guess you could say I’m a little bit weak or scared, don’t know.”

“Doubt that,” a surprised laugh forced out of him. Entirely improbable, he knows this just by looking at you. “You’ve got eyes that seem as if they’ve never held fear within them in your entire life.” And he makes you laugh at that, head thrown back, throat rippling. The sound like the tolling of the bell indicating the start of the rest of his life.

When you’re done gifting him your laughter, you ask, “What about you? Why are you here?”

“My daughter died.” Plain.

Your eyes seem to shutter or flicker, something like a chimera about them, “When?”

“Two years ago.” He watches the crying girl and the old woman get up to go. And then the two of you are alone. You move to sit in the booth across from him. He’d been coming in here to see you for more than half that time since, and now, the first time the two of you are having an actual conversation, and this is what he’s decided to open with. But really, it’s the only story he has to tell anymore. He watches you watch him for a long moment, as though you’re searching for something within him, or mulling over what it is you want to say to him, the shift of your jaw from side to side as you chew on your words. He feels easily frightened now – fragile – and yet vibrantly malignant, at the same time. A juxtaposition on two opposite ends of the spectrum of good and not so good, or perhaps, verging on very, terribly bad, in the grocery store line of human morality. Two Joel’s at the start and end of the queue who could not seem to come to terms with one another. Enemies – they were enemies of each other. A Joel who’d once had a daughter, and a Joel who now did not. A Joel who’d pulled a trigger at his own temple, and one who’d never even considered such a thing. He draws his finger along the line of scar tissue at his temple.

For a long time he’d wanted to tear a hole in his world and escape, but he was no master of inventiveness. On the contrary, he found his attempt rather miserly – had short changed himself at the last moment and flinched. But perhaps, it had been for this reason – for you, to find you. He wishes he could peer inside your mind, crack open your skull and read everything you’re hiding away from him inside there. A violent thought, but you make him feel slightly violent, or – no, that’s not it – for Joel is already a violent man. It’s more that you pull a specific hue of violence out of him, incite it, like he needs to move, to howl, to claw at something, at you, scream and scream and scream to keep your undivided attention on him forever.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” you say finally, voice quiet. “How old was she?”

His loss. That was a funny way of putting it. It had never felt like a loss. The word was too small. Four letters was not enough to describe what it really was. There was no word for what it felt like. An emaciation of his very self until he simply ceased to exist. Something that had sucked his soul, his heart, his brain out of his body, but they didnt feel lost. They felt destroyed, decimated, or like they had never existed. Sometimes the feeling left him confused, disoriented – this strange purgatory he’d been relegated to, it was like it had never happened in his mind sometimes, or like it had happened to a different man. Like that life with that beautiful little girl with the green eyes who’d had a father who loved her, who’d then died, had happened to someone else. Someone who wasn’t Joel. Like a war that had raged and raged for centuries, and now nothing was left in its wake. Only that terribly fraught reminder of a violence too grotesque for a human mind to conceive.

How could he miss something, wish for something so, so, so fucking desperately he’d peel his very skin from his body himself to get it back, but also feel like it didn’t belong to him anymore? Like it had never happened to him, like he remembered it out of his own body? A dream that belonged to someone else, and Joel’d only been told of it second hand. His mind was fractured now, he knew this. He wasn't right – broken or glued together the wrong way. His bones didn’t fit in his joints the way they were supposed to anymore. He was all wrong and ugly and fucked.

“She was twelve.”

“My whole family’s dead,” you say it almost casually, with a half shrug of your shoulders. “Is that why you started driving? To get away?”

He’s been a long haul truck driver for going on two years now. Started just after Sarah – needed to get away, to get lost. He didn’t enjoy it – he does not enjoy it. Not because the work is bad or boring or what have you, but because he doesn’t enjoy anything anymore. But it’s productive and pays well and… well, he does appreciate the solitude. There is that, at least. He’d been on the route from New Mexico to Washington for several months now, and it was fine. Occasionally, he’d head up to the Dakotas – not so fine, longer, harder trek, but he managed it. He preferred this one, preferred the darkness of the north west corner of the country. He never went further south than New Mexico, though. Absolutely never into Texas. He’d never go back there again.

“Sure… to get away.” He couldn’t be there anymore afterwards, had nothing left. “My neighbor, Anna, she’s got a teenager, Ellie. Sweet kid. Weird kid,” he laughs fondly, remembering the two of them. “The kid was friends with my daughter, Sarah. And after everything– well, after everything, Anna made sure they both stuck around. Didn’t let me shut myself away the way I wanted to,” ill-shaven recluse, confused, fractured, “They’re good people. You’d like them, I think. They’re… they’re my friends.” They were another reason he kept doing the driving, he liked to send money back to Anna and Ellie. He knew they didn’t need it, didn’t want it, but he had to. He needed to feel like he was still taking care of someone, contributing to someone’s well being. It was just part of who he was.

“I’m sure I would.”

He watches your silent enrapture as you listen to him tell you of his pseudo life. After a while he’d realized that was all he’d started doing, making his way back to you, to this diner where you work. A sad place for ugly men to stop in on a pause from their interminable journeys and lay eyes on an angel. He hadn’t even really realized that’s what he was purposely doing or that it’d become a pattern. He just needed something to see at the end of the tunnel, a light to look towards when he was lost in the darkness. That’s what you are, a single flickering light in the abyss of darkness he exists in now.

You’re small – tiny compared to Joel’s own hulking size. He thinks he could break you, easily, if he isn’t careful, if he so felt like it. And you were – you are so fucking pretty. He thinks of you so often. Almost as often as he thinks of his dead daughter which might seem wrong or strange, but it’s really nothing more than the two opposite ends of a spectrum of perfect beauty that he’s known within his lifetime that now he cannot reach either end of. Sarah – dead, forever out of reach. And you. Too perfect for consideration, too beautiful and good for these monstrous hands of his. The thing he’s become in his grief is not worthy of a gorgeous creature like you. His existence post Sarah’s death had become some sort of apocalyptic dysphoria where the only monster here was Joel. But he does like to watch, and he does like to think of you. To come to your diner and sit and watch you serve coffee to your customers – the scum that muddles through here isn’t worthy of laying eyes on you – men like him. Sometimes, when he sits here silently, pretending to ignore you and not be entirely beguiled by you, he feels as if he has a purpose again, like the money for Anna and Ellie, getting to inconspicuously watch over you, make sure no one gives you a hard time gives him purpose. And when he goes, even though he never really wants to, he takes you with him in his mind through the long stretches of his hauls. When there are nothing but ghosts to keep him company. When thoughts of Sarah and that dead life become too overwhelming, he calls you to mind, plans his routes to make his way back to you.

You’re also fucking persistent – not giving him the chance to wallow away in his silence and brooding. He was rude at first, gruff and unresponsive and wouldn’t ever acknowledge your queries of, How’s it going today, and, Oh, back again I see. Sometimes he wanted to snap and just spit the truth at you, ‘course, I’m fuckin’ back, I’m here to see you, I’m obsessed with you. And rounds and rounds of, Can I get you another cup of coffee? The same as usual? You’d memorized his order. Pestered and pestered and pestered for his name until he’d finally ceded it to you, and, How ‘bout some cherry pie this time? After a while you’d gotten sick of his recalcitrant bullshit and just dropped off the piece of pie, slipping it onto the edge of the table and sliding away without a word or a half look back at him. He’d eaten the whole damn thing, savored it, and caught your sassy, little smirk after he’d finished. He’d wanted to bend you over the counter and spank your ass until you cried after that. He bets you’d taste as sweet as that pie, that if he slapped your cunt enough times he could get it red as a cherry. He bets you’d like that – that you’d like it a little rough, a little dirty, a little mean. You might look like an angel, but Joel’s seen the way you look at him, the way you follow him with your eyes, leaning against the counter, chin cupped in your small palm watching him eat his eggs and drink his coffee.

You want him.

But Joel is frightened – frightened and cowardly and not right, and as much as you look like an angel, he also worries you might have the ability to entice him into very, very bad things – to provoke him into depravity, even. There is a part of him, large or small given the day and the mood and the weather that he walks in here on, that has the rotten half of his mind whispering at the not-so-rotten half that he wants to defile and debase you, and that he’s pretty sure you’d like it if he did. He wants to fuck you full of his come and then watch it leak out of your used, gaping hole. Then he wants to lick you clean, kiss it all better so that he can do it all over again.

The first few times he’d stopped at your diner, he’d pretended he hadn’t even noticed you, would lie to himself in his mind and tell himself that he had no interest in a little thing like you. He had no interest in women, in making connections, in having conversations. Occasionally… well– no, not occasionally. Twice, it had happened twice now, when the urge had struck, the itch had become too persistent, and his hand not enough, he’d gotten a hooker. The first time he’d shut down completely, lost his hard on and not been able to finish. The second time… he’d finished. He might’ve even made the woman come, he hadn’t bothered to ask, but he thought he might have. Then he’d gone back to his truck and cried great heaving sobs. Like he’d said… not right, he wasn’t right anymore. Couldn’t even fuck a whore without blubbering like a baby. He’d wondered if perhaps his grief had made him impotent. That’d be funny. That type of funny thing that is also a humiliation… you know the sort?

But after a while, the lie had become too much of a farce, even for his own mind. He knew, from that first moment he’d walked in, and you’d spun around, a bright smile and chirpy, little voice telling him to sit anywhere you’d like, be right with you, mister, that he’d taken notice. More than notice. He’d put you in his pocket that day and had carried you with him in some way since. Like a stone chosen off the beach, washed up by the tide and deposited in the sand just for him to come across, or maybe like a fucking infection, like the plague, for he did not want this. He did not want to think of you. He did not want to think of anyone or anything. He wanted to be alone and without anything or anyone for the rest of his life. If he did not have anyone, if he remained alone, then he could never again experience that loss which was not truly a loss, but something much worse and devastating, and even, perhaps, a little hilarious, in that way that a hilarious thing can also sometimes be humiliating and shameful… there it is. A loss that is not a loss for it is a thing so devastating it becomes something else entirely. A humiliation to one’s very existence, a decimation, emaciation, all the things, all the things, and nothing at the same time.

His mind was wont to ramblings, on occasion now. Perhaps, incoherence, was the better word. Anxiety, as well, panic, tears. Couldn’t even fuck a hooker without weeping, howling, a few sobs.

He had wandered so far, and sometimes he thought, I want to go home, but of course, that home no longer existed. It had been put in the ground two years ago and lost forever. The dissatisfaction of constant ennui. He could, perhaps, return to the geographical place, but nothing familiar would remain. He couldn’t live with the memory, he couldn’t live away from it. It was like it had simply ceased to exist that day that she’d died, and every moment since that moment was just a series of moments filled with a yearning for some place that no longer existed. He didn’t think he’d ever again feel at home anywhere.

And yet…

He turns back to look at you.

“How did they die? Your family.”

“Home invasion – murdered. He never found me, hid in the boiler closet.”

“Little rabbit.”

“Hmm,” a huff of a laugh, “Maybe. Someone once said I was lucky. Pretty fucked up, no?”

“Do you feel lucky?”

“Never. Angry – that I’d been left behind.”

“Yeah…”

“Alone.”

“Are you alone?”

You turn back to him. Inspect him. He watches the slant of your eyes take in his hair, his face, wrinkled, haggard, his chest, his arms – he feels a flush flare beneath his ribs, then back up to his eyes. He wonders if you’ve ever been fucked before. You’re young – but he can’t imagine how you wouldn’t have been. He thinks he’d do anything in this moment to get between your thighs, but also, he hopes you haven’t, hopes you could be all his, only his, his his. Mine.

He hopes he won’t cry if he gets the chance.

“Entirely,” you say finally.

“I had– have– ” shakes his head, “I have, I guess, a brother. Tommy. But the last time I saw him… I was horrible.” They seldom saw each other now – lie – they never saw each other now. Truth, Joel. We’re telling the truth now.

You laugh lightly, shrug, “Happens.”

“Sure…”

“What’d you do to him?”

“Ah, just couldn’t get a handle on myself after everything. Things got bad enough eventually, and we fought… a lot. Violently. I was violent. One morning I got out of hand, terrible – one of my biggest regrets. We hurt each other with our words and our fists, and in that way only two people who know each other too well can. He cracked my ribs, gave me half his orange in the evening, afterwards – said our apologies. He was gone the next day. Haven’t heard from him since. I just got to be too much for him,” he says again, needs to reiterate it, make sure you understand that he is too much and too dark, too unmanageable – ugly. That you should not be sat here with him. That he has a violence within him, and that you should probably run as fast and as far as you can, but that he cannot promise he will not follow. “I had…” he is ashamed of this part, surprising for he sometimes wonders if he still possesses the heart to feel shame, “I had a problem with drink for a while – not anymore, though,” he says quickly. “I promise, not anymore.” He should not be promising you anything. “I got control of it – knew it was making it all worse rather than better. Felt like I was trapped underwater with my damn ghosts – that … What's that thing called when – when sick people get like – like trapped inside themselves or somethin’? You ever heard’a that?”

“Locked-in syndrome.”

“Yeah– yeah. I read about that once or heard it somewhere – that’s what it felt like when I was drinkin’ – fuckin’ terrible. Let it go after a while… but by that time… Tommy was gone, done with me. I was – dunno… like some sort of demon or somethin’ – somethin’ bad.” He huffs a small, derisive laugh, looks at you with that ridiculously charming, crooked half smile.

That laugh sparks a kindling of anger inside of you for him. This is a broken, angry, creature of a man, you think. Something fractured – not whole, and he must be handled with care and gentleness. “How could he just leave you?

“Didn't give him a choice. Sometimes people deserve to be left.”

“I wouldn’t have.” That sobers him, wipes the smile right off his handsome face. You think of the invisible giants hurting this man in some unimaginable fashion; of the endless tenderness coiled up inside of him and how the crushing of that tenderness – the death of it – has given way to what may be considered madness. Because after all these months of watching him, of him watching you, you can see it, recognize that tenderness for what it is, but also the madness, for it is impossible to ignore if you’re really looking. Soft marrow at the center of a hard man.

“I did other things… worse things.”

“Try me.”

“I tried to kill myself.”

You whistle, long and low. You actually had not been expecting that one, at least, not the admittance of it, “You’re just full of truths,” for looking at him – the sort of man he’s built as, the thought that he could be felled by anything, even his own hand, is a little hard to believe.

“Feels like a sort of confessional in this–”

“Shithole–”

“Diner–”

Your voices overlap. You both laugh. You think you quite like the sound of your voices intermingling one on top of the other.

“What happened?”

“Flinched–”

“I flinch all the time.”

“Have you ever thought about killing yourself?”

You hum, tilt your head side to side on your neck as if you’re letting the thought slide from ear to ear within your skull. “Perhaps only the peripheral idea of it, but never with much imagination or dedication. I don’t think I have that much to kill myself over, you know?”

“Your family?”

“Not really – it’s sort of become just this… this thing that happened once. I don’t feel much ownership over it anymore. Don’t know why, exactly.”

“Sure, that’s how I feel about it sometimes too. That belongs to a different man now – like– like some actor or a facsimile, and I just look in on it as if from a distance. Enjoy the sight of someone else's suffering…” He shakes his head, “That doesn’t make sense.”

“No, no, I understand. Something to do in the way that a tragedy can be compelling to watch. You can let go, let go of your awareness of yourself and experience it in a way you’d never do so in the present moment.”

“A dissociation.”

“Yes. Why would you want to go and relive the basest parts of yourself all alone, over and over again? Not likely.”

“But it was me.”

“A dissociation,” you repeat, smile.

“Yeah,” he pauses, turns the coffee cup round and round with the slow spin of his wrist as if to dissolve the remains of the grounds you know the shitty machine has left deposited at the bottom. There is a small dusting of golden brown hair covering his wrist and disappearing up his forearm beneath his flannel. You want to taste it, follow the trail to places unknown. “Not so well adjusted, us two,” And he laughs then. A real laugh. He lets you have a real laugh of his, and it is powerful – special.

“Well… no.” Of course not. “I don’t think either of us could ever claim that.”

“Bet you’ve never been bad a single day in your life, have you?”

You cock your head, let your eyes slide from him to peer out the dark window. His lonely semi is parked under the single flare of light out there. The evening has sunk into a deep blue, the hue of mourning, of melancholy, and the pavement is wet with evening rainfall.

You'd heard that some trucks had spaces behind the seats where truckers could put a bed, have a place to rest. You wonder if he’ll take you back there and fuck you in his little bunk. And honesty is a fickle thing when discussing a topic like this, isn't it? There’s a depravity about him, and you can’t tell if the truth or the lie would placate him – incite him – more. To be similar in such a way as that which he’s imagining. A little bit of both, then. After all, intent holds weight – imagination, desire, it has a mass to it that can, if enough pressure is exerted upon it, be transformed into something else.

“Not yet,” you tell him, sliding your gaze back to meet his, “Haven’t had a chance – but there’s still time.”

“What would you like to do?” He wants to take a bite out of that soft flesh you’re encased in, draw blood.

“Something depraved?” You’re taunting him – trying to provoke. It makes him slightly angry, but also hard. You should know what it is you’re toying with here.

He frowns at you, at the lilting song of your words trying to beguile him into doing whatever it is you think you want him to do to you. “What is it that you think you want here? You don’t know what I was, how I lived. Shouldn’t be sat here with me, little girl,” he scoffs. “I was– was not– I don’t fucking know, not a man. I’m not, I’m not. Not a person anymore, just this thing that continues to exist. I should not have been expected to survive. This should mean something to you too. You also have no one. You’re alone too. You’re alone in the world. You know what it feels like to only live in the winter.”

You’re quiet for a long moment, and then you say: “I think I’ve come to quite like the winter.” And at that he knows he’s taking you for himself, whether you agree in the end or not. You’re going to be his.

But he knows he must also let this roiling anger, this depraved hunger settle before he lays hands on you. Like this, in this state, he’d be too rough, break you, nothing compunctious about him or his jaggedness. He excuses himself for a smoke, your only response simply more of that inciting silence – more thoughts of cracked skulls and a cherry red cunt and tears after failed trysts with someone who doesn’t even know his name. He’s fucking embarrassing. What would Tommy say if he knew Joel couldn’t even get it up for a paid fuck anymore? He’d laugh in his face, never let him live it down. He misses his brother very much. He misses lots of things.

He’s sucking on his Red under the awning of the diner’s entrance, imagining what it’ll be like to suck on your little clit, when he hears them.

“She’s usually out about midnight. We’ll snag her then.” Grating, guttural voice.

“But I get to fuck ‘er first. This was my idea so I go first.”

“Yeah, whatever. S’only happenin’ ‘cause of me. Too fuckin’ stupid to see the plan through after all these months of watchin’ ‘er.”

“Fuck off.” Silence, and then almost with giddy elation: “We gonna kill her too?” Something cold and terrifying settles within Joel.

A beat, “Should we?”

“Dunno, man. Might be fun, huh? Never done it before.”

“She’s fuckin’ pretty,” the voice draws the vowel out in a high pitched, sacharine whine. “Got the face of an angel.” Joel’s angel, his, his, only his.

He’s got his Bowie in a sheath on the back of his belt. Perhaps, this would be a useful exercise in release. After he’s dispelled his excess energy he can come back and touch you, take you.

“Can’t wait to taste that cunt.” His cunt.

“Seen her tits, man? Fucking round and bouncy. Wanna make ‘em bleed.” And there’s only one avenue of consequence after that. After all, this is not the first time Joel’s done this.

His most well kept secret.

Sometimes, when the itch cannot be eased, abated, by his hand or a fuck or a drink or any of the other readily available vices, he turns to this. Only when the straits were dire. Only when he saw no other recourse. Only after his daughter was dead and in the ground and his brother gone away from him

But sometimes… sometimes it’s just fun. Sometimes it’s useful for a man to do that thing that he really feels he wants to do, if only to enjoy himself, if only to let go of some of that suffocating tension. If only to keep vermin like this away from an angel like you.

“We’ll chill in the woods for a while, wait the little thing out, yeah?” Joel edges his way towards the edge of the building closer to them, peeks a lone eye around the corner. Two men, middle aged. Not a problem. Not for a man like him.

He waits for them to make their way to the edge of the tree-line, watches them disappear into the gloom. He looks back into the diner through the murky windows. The warm glow of the overhead lamps washing you in a hue of golden light that brings out all the warm goodness in you he’ll take for himself once he’s snuffed out this issue.

No one’s going to touch you but him. No one’s going to hurt you but him.

As he rounds the corner of the diner there’s a piece of metal pipe propped up against the building by the dumpsters. Very nice.

He goes after them.

At the edge of the tree-line, under a swaying, low hanging branch, there is a tiny unfledged bird, helplessly twitching its way towards death in a puddle. He pauses to watch its struggle, gathers his skin about him, tightens his seams – prepares to gorge. He watches the inch by inch pilgrimage towards its last breath, then stillness. He feels so much older than his years, like he’s lived a thousand terrible years, watched a thousand terrible deaths. But there is a buoyancy about him, as well. Filled with a saccharine sweet fizz of sticky anticipation. He’s going to taste your cunt after this is done.

He moves into the gloom. He’s going to kill them for you, and his cock is hard at the thought.

Stepping beneath the canopy of the trees, into that cold, damp darkness, he sees the absolute truth of the world. On the heels of two men who’d do you harm, he knows that he’d failed to save someone he cared about once, he’d not be bested by failure a second time. Darkness implacable, the crushing black vacuum of their overheard words buzzing in his head like flies, of the harm they’d do you. Two hunted animals moving away from a creature much darker than they could even imagine, scurrying on borrowed time. What most moves him is that the things they’d do to you are not so dissimilar to the things he plans to do to you, as well. The only difference being that after he’s done defiling you, he’ll keep you for himself, with all the care and gentleness a little thing like you so deserves.

You press your ear to the cracked open door leading to the back of the building. It’s not the first time those two’ve talked their filth regarding you. The murdering is new, though. You’d not thought they were smart or inventive enough to come up with an actual kill plot. Rape enough of a hardball for minds as shallow and small as those two’ve got.

You’d never really considered them much of a threat. Or maybe you’d just never really cared enough to pay them much attention. But as you watch the broad, rippling expanse of Joel’s muscled back stalk after them, his pause at the tree-line to look down at something on the ground, you think he must be more in the vein of taking a stupid man’s shit talk to heart than you’ve ever been.

He has a thick, forearms-length of steel pipe gripped in his huge fist, and there’s a wicked looking knife strapped to his belt on the back of his hip.

Interesting.

You look back at the empty diner, the lonely parking lot beyond the glass of the windows, only Joel’s semi still taking up residence on the wet pavement. You turn back to follow after the three men.

One you want, two you’re interested to see what fate awaits them.

For some reason, when you step outside, you’re expecting there to be snow on the ground, but there is none.

You move across the pavement towards the forest-line, and the pilgrimage towards the verdant darkness feels very much like your one-way ticket out of this forlornness you’ve been trapped in your whole life. You’ve been stuck in this small town for so long, for too long. One man had already tried to forcibly evict you, had taken your entire family with him, maybe this one, maybe Joel, would do so in a way you’d more likely enjoy.

There’s been a steady, faint drizzle all day long, and the puddles of rain look like holes in the dark pavement, apertures into some other realm that glide past underground. You wonder if you stepped through if you’d disappear below into some other place. You wonder if he’d be able to find you even in that unknown other.

You cross the line into darkness.

The familiar terror of silence – you don’t seem to find it here. There is only the sound of your rushing blood, the cadence of his voice rumbling through your psyche, firing your neurons up into a frenzy. There is a twisting heat low in your pelvis, dampness between your thighs. What’s he going to do? Why’s he going to do it?Is it for me? Is it for me? It’s for you.

You let out a low whistle between your teeth and move beyond the trees. There is a giddiness about the darkness of the wood – the motley of shadows, the aroma of mushroom rot.

The familiar terror of silence. Perhaps, that is what they are experiencing now. The great horror of being set upon by a beast more terrifying than anything they could have ever conjured up on their own.

That infinite tenderness from before, that acute madness – it coalesces in the gap in the trees as you come upon the three men.

Joel has already started on the first. He murders almost tenderly. With great care, but infused with an aroma of agitated frenzy that seems flavored in the same notes of erotic buzzing that hums beneath your own skin. There is blood and viscera splattered on his face and clothes, in his hair. That great hunting knife embedded in the throat of the first man. The body lays facing you now, eyes open, shocked at his own death. Funny. Perhaps, that’s how they would have liked you to have ended up once they were through with you.

Oh, how the tune changes when the monster is on your side.

What are you? Be a creature. Be a creature. Be a creature!

You take Joel in. Thick, massive frame. You love his hair, it was one of the first things you’d noticed, thick dark curls streaked with the silver veins of his age and experience. Something that promised of care and knowledge and patience. His patchy beard with the heart shaped gap in it, you’re going to write your name into that space. His powerful arms, muscles coiled tight, his shirt stretched tight across his broad shoulders as he brings the steel pipe up above his head, pauses to look down at his next victim.

“We won’t bother her anymore, never again – p– please, please, I swear,” the man on the ground begs and cries. There are tears and snot bubbling down his ruddy, pocketed face.

Joel is silent and terrifying and glorious above him, and then a small nod: “That’s alright… I believe you.” The metal comes down in a whistling arc, makes contact.

Flesh and blood splatter, the sound of it is pulpy and wet and vindicating. He starts with the man’s knees, then his head, caved in like the shell of an egg, the yolk spilling out like vermilion drool.

He heaves silently above the man that would have done you harm. Makes the threat go away.

You step forward, cunt pulsing and wet and eager for him. When he’s gotten his fill of bludgeoning he turns slowly back towards you, as if he’d known the entire time that you’d been stood there watching.

And the look on his face, it makes something electrifying and sticky buzz up your spine and ooze down your veins. You shift back on your heels

He shakes his head, his eyes are huge, pupils blown wide. “Don’t run,” he says slowly. If you hadn’t just watched him murder two men in cold blood – no, in your defense, he saved you, he protected you, fizzy heart full of satisfaction – you’d say he almost looks a little doe eyed.

A hollow pounding begins in his heart, as if it had remained silent for the past two years and was only now taking notice of its own silence. His cock, hard enough to burst, angry and throbbing beneath the confines of his blood soaked jeans. Fuck this scum laying on the ground beside him, look at what he has infront of him. Nothing else matters but you. A goddamned angel. Damned for he’s found you now and nothing good can come of this. He takes a step towards you, and you match him with one backwards, away from him, his blood starts to howl in his veins. Different to the humming frenzy that had filled him as he did his murdering. This is hot and viscous and ravenous, and he knows he’ll get to keep his catch once he’s gorged himself on it. He knows he’ll get to keep you once he’s caught you.

You take two more nervous little, quick steps away from him. Your eyes are slightly manic, face flushed, frame jittery, excited. A rabbit that knows it’s about to be caught. He watches the pause of your limbs as they fill with coiled energy, getting ready to make the bound and leap towards escape. He lunges, goes in for the kill, teeth bared, talons brandished.

Faster than you can even comprehend, he lunges, takes you to the ground with one massive, powerful shoulder to the vulnerable, soft of your belly, one huge paw cradled at the back of your skull to protect you from the hard ground. Your spine hits the cold, wet earth, the breath knocked out of you. You think you let out an animal noise, high pitched and supplicant. A thing that knows it’s been caught and is soon to be devoured. Your limbs scramble against the dirt, heels digging into the ground for purchase, you feel the loss of one of your shoes, as you try to get away or to crawl closer, who can be sure. A spider caught in the web or a larger, hungrier arachnid. He sets the huge heaviness of his muscular weight over your much smaller frame, one strong hand caged around the column of your throat, the other pushing your chest into the earth as he shoves his hips into the cradle of your own, forcing your thighs apart and your skirt to pool at your waist. You feel the stretch of the center plaque of your tights as his wide breadth settles between your legs, making room to take you for himself. You bring your own hands up to the wrist holding your throat and dig your nails into the skin there. You can feel the light smattering of hair covering his forearm beneath your soft palms, the cold, wet dirt beneath you, the searing stretch of the inner muscles of your thighs spread wide for him, the damp of the air surrounding the two of you. He leans forwards, pressing you down into the ground, and you have the fleeting thought that you want to transfuse yourself into the earth, into him.

He pauses then to look down at you, appreciating the gloriousness of his catch. “Caught ya.” And he’s filled with an exuberance, a sort of victory. Look at what he’s snared – all for himself.

You try and struggle again, if only to see the flare of annoyance in his eyes. It makes your cunt tight and achy. Even more than it already is. There’s a part of you that thinks you want him slightly angry – rough or mean. That you might like it even more if it hurts. Be kind enough to be cruel about it, you want to beg him. He leans forward to press his nose to your cheek, drags the cold vermillioned flush of it along your jaw, down the line of your throat, bites harsh and painful at your collarbone then over the peak of your breast.

“Are you a virgin?” He whispers into your skin. It sounds very much like a threat.

“Yes.”

“Saved this cunt all for me.” And it is not a question. Yes, you moan anyways. Let him know. Let him know that this defiling is a gift you’re granting him. He sits up on his haunches between your thighs, his hands sliding down to press on your lower belly and digs his fingers into the center of your tights and pulls, ripping a hold in them for his pillaging. You try and press your knees shut at the feel of the frigid air on your sensitive inner thighs, dig your nails into the ground above your head to try and drag yourself away from him.

He digs his own fingers harshly into your flesh, his nails biting painfully into the soft skin of your thighs and ass and brings you back towards him. There’ll be streaks of pain left in his wake after this. Bad little rabbit. He smacks the inside of your thigh, watches the smooth flesh ripple for him. You let out a warbled, angry screech, little nails still trying to claw yourself away from him. He laughs then, a little mean, condescending. “Fight harder, little baby. This is pretty pathetic.” He rips your thighs apart, keep your fuckin’ legs open for me, his hands slick with the blood of his victims slide up the back of your thighs, anchoring his palms beneath the damp creases of your knees to press you open and wide for him, slaps your cunt, hard, over the soaking gusset of your panties.

“Who the fuck’re you wearin’ this tiny little thong for?” he growls. It’s white lace, with a sweet, little pink bow adorning the front. “Me? Wrapped yourself up all nice and pretty for me?” Your little foot sneaks up under his armpit and tries to push with, what he’s sure is all your valiant might, at his chest, trying to unseat him from his conquering position above you, but he takes your ankle in a vice like grip, bites harshly into the meat of your calf so that an animal squeal of pain is clawed out of your throat at the same time that he slots his fingers under the damp center of your panties. “Sing as loud as you want, sweetheart. No one’s gonna hear you out here.” He can feel the soaking wet seam of your cunt against the backs of his knuckles, and he rips them clean off you. The sound of the last remaining barrier of protection of your cunt against his ravaging being decimated has you going shock still – prey that knows it’s caught and has decided to give up. Good, this is how he wants you. Your big, wet eyes look up at him as he flings the lace towards the still steaming dead bodies. That’s all they’ll get of you. The rest is only his. Mine, mine, fucking mine.

You let your arms go limp above your head, soft and pliant and ready for ravaging, melting into the earth.

He presses your knees back and up, letting the red blossom of your wet cunt bloom for him. It’s slick and swollen, and he knows when he shoves his cock inside it’ll be burning hot. “Look at this gorgeous virgin pussy, baby. All for me. Only for me…” he murmurs, hypnotized, mesmerized. He drags the back of his knuckles over your slit, uses his thumbs to spread your lips apart, admires the swollen nub of your clit. You’re just as hungry for him as he is for you. Messy, eager little whore. He moves to undo his belt and free his aching length. Huge and brutish, thick veins pulsing just beneath the thin skin. He’s going to split you in half, break you, mold you in his image.

He spits right onto your soaked folds, watches the thick glob of saliva slide down to mingle with your own leaking slick. He’s not even going to make you come first. Little virgin cunt and he’s not going to even bother getting you ready – just gonna shove the whole, unforgiving length of himself inside of you. Force you to take it. He fists his thick fist around himself, jacks his cock once, twice, squeezing at the bulbous head so that a trickle of precum seeps out of the slit. He presses his head to your clit, slides down to give you a small threat of pressure at your opening. When he looks back up at your face your eyes flutter shut, a look of pure contented submission washing over the gorgeous planes of you.

“Not gonna be gentle, baby. Don’t got it in me.” He notches the fat head at the slick mouth of your entrance and crams his cock inside of you in one go, meets that thin barrier that says you still belong to yourself and rips through it. Mine now. No reprieve, no respite. And God, the feel of it, cleaved in half, scorching hot, filled to the brim and never deep enough. He is a rabid, snarling beast of a man as he hits the very end of you, grinds his cockhead at the mouth of your womb. You let out a warbled, pained moan, little fingers coming up to claw at his throat and chest with kitten-strength, down to dig into his thick thighs as he pins you down, and you tilt your hips to let him in deeper or escape him, he doesn't know. He doesn't care. He pulls his hips back and forces himself back in, too thick cock wedged into the too tight space. “Christ, goddamn tight fuckin’ pussy – made for me,” he grits through bared teeth.

He fucks you raw and cruel, and he needs you to just lay limp and still and take it.

And you do. And he does not cry this time.

He sets a brutal pace, throbs deep in your belly at every pause as he grinds at your cervix. It must be painful for you, perhaps, but the flush in your cheeks, the fever in your eyes, the ripple of your cunt around his driving length tells him you also like it. “What a good girl, taking my big cock,” he coos. You preen, tilt your hips this time in supplication he’s sure, hitch your feet higher along his sides. There are tears running back down your temples and into your hairline. His cock makes you cry. If he could, he’d split your throat and drink, he would. But he cannot, so he’ll split your cunt instead. He thrusts into the hilt, complete negligence for care, for gentleness lost in the dark wood, for the desperate necessity of feeling your virgins blood coating his cock. Your protestations lost to the louder song for more, for harder, for deeper

Joel, Joel, Joel.

He’s going to listen to you sing his name for the rest of his life.

He feels unhinged, a thread picked at too many times, spun loose, unraveled and frayed. That edge that separates good and evil – his bloody fingers clamp down hard on the edge of your jaw, forces you to open for him, and he spits into your mouth – direct, dirty … warm. “Lemme see…” he rumbles, and you stick your tongue out for his inspection. Once he nods, pleased and smug and conquering, you close and rub the slick of his saliva onto the roof of your mouth with your tongue, savor the taste of him. This was the taste that you’d longed for… that which teaches you what that professed edge really is. Is he good, is he evil – he’d just killed two men, you’d watched him, cunt wet at the sight of it. Albeit to protect you… sure – but does it even matter? You swallow his spit down. Probably not.

He is huge and life altering inside of you. Your virginity scoured away on his invading length.

He leans forward, hand clamped around your jaw to pierce you with his manic gaze, like his cock pierces your cunt. He smells like the forest and sweat and power. “Little fuckin’ tease,” he grits, “Bringing me cherry pie like that all the time – fuckin’ provoking me. You just wanted me to pop your cherry for you. Didn’t you, little girl?” All you can do is nod dumbly and take what he gives you. He hooks one of your knees over his elbow, the other propped over his shoulder, foot bobbing limply at each slam of his hips. He has you bent entirely in half, cunt splayed wide open for him to fuck down into the deep, devastating end of you. Your vision goes blurry, black stars streaking across the back of your eyelids. All you see is him. Perhaps he’s all that exists now. Maybe you’re just as dead as the two bodies laying beside the two of you. You wonder peripherally what the sight of the four of you must look like. Joel’s hulking form fucking you like an animal into the dirt. You open your eyes to look up at him, there’s blood splatter across his face, in his hair. His skin is burning hot against yours. You think that perhaps you’ll have scorch marks in the shape of his fingers in your skin after he’s done with you. Two dead, brutalized bodies cooling beside the place where the two of you are fucking.

“Can feel ya tightening up, baby. Gonna come all over my cock.”

He does something to change the angle, and it fucking hurts. “Too much,” you beg, try to push him back weakly, but your cunt pulls sharp and tight, and then your muscles are rippling around him, womb contracting painfully as your orgasms blinds you with its sudden intensity.

“Don’t care,” he growls back. “Do not fucking push me away.” No, he must not care. Prey doesn’t decide how it’s felled, after all.

He pulls out and back then, suddenly, slaps your cunt harshly, once, twice. You mewl, high and shocked, writhing around in the dirt. He grabs you by the hips and flips you so fast you’re left disoriented, pulling your ass up, up, up.

“Fuck, you’re so fuckin’ pretty,” he croons, bends to bite down on the meat of your asscheek, and then notches back at your gaping, fluttering hole, orgasm still running through you, and pushes back in. You’re soaking wet, slick and fucked open by him and the taking is much easier this time. You feel his thumb press down on your asshole, “Gonna take this too. Gonna have every part of you, every piece. Gonna swallow you whole.” All you do is arch your back further, cheek smushed into the dirt, fingers digging into the cool earth for purchase, for salvation.

The sight of you stretched around his thick base, so slick he feels you dripping down his balls and further below, into the bloody earth. There’s a red tinge of your own blood coating his skin, and he’s going to come. He’s going to fill you up with his spend and fuck it deep into you until it takes. Until no matter how far you want to run, he’ll be with you, always. He lets his head fall back on his neck and stares up at the dark canopy of the trees, groans low and deep.“You’re gonna be my little hole now,” he promises, presses one large palm into the small of your back to deepen the angle and fuck down into you. “Gonna take you with me and fill you up whenever I feel like it. My gorgeous little cumslut.” The ramming of his hips starts to grow sloppy and stuttered, close to the edge now. Victory is so, so near.

You start to claw at the dirt and wiggle again. Little knees chafed raw and scrambling against the hard ground trying to get away. He slaps your ass hard, hopes there’ll be the print of his hand to appreciate later.

“Not inside, not inside – not – no birth control,” you stutter, beg.

“I’m not fuckin’ pulling out.” He twists a cruel and unyielding hand into the back of your hair and presses your face harshly into the ground. Your eyes pinch and tears seep and mingle into the blood and dirt beneath you. “Gonna pump you raw and full. You don’t gotta worry about anythin’ anymore, baby. Gonna take care of you,” he grits and you press yourself harder back into him. There is an existential seesaw inside of you – a volleying of your wants – you want him to hurt you, to force you, to take care of you and keep you, all at the same time.

“Promise – promise me you won’t leave me,” you cry and beg because really, that’s all you want. All you’ve ever wanted. For someone to stay, for someone to never leave, no matter what.

“I promise – fuckin’ swear.” And you go loose and passive again at that – his to do with as he will. Nothing else really matters after all that.

He senses the change. The loosening of your muscles into capitulation. He stops his thrusting and grinds, strums at your clit. “Oh fuck, you want me to fill you up? And what happens if I do? What happens if it takes? Want me to get you fuckin’ pregnant?” Starts to fuck into you again, “I think you do.”

Don’t care, don’t care, don’t care.

“You’re mine. Fucking mine.” He says it again and again and again, yes, yes, yes, lets himself fall forward, anchored above you with one strong arm as he presses as deep as he can physically go and starts to fill your pulsing cunt with his come, the heat of his spend inciting you to roll into one more throbbing orgasm. He brings his face down close to yours, open your eyes, little thing, lemme see you. The fluttering of your lashes, sweaty, dirt-streaked face, and you are seraphic, the wet crimson heat of your blood pounding beneath the delicate membrane of your skin. Gorgeous, perfect, conquered and his.

“Fucked full’a me now,” he whispers, presses a soft kiss to the tender skin of your eyelid. You nuzzle into him, and then look up at him with the warmest, most vibrant gaze he’s ever seen. Fucking pleased and sated.

“They wanted me, but only you get to have me now,” you whisper. “How does that make you feel?” Provoking, provoking again.

“Like I fucking own you.” He grinds his still spitting cock further, feels the pull of your muscles milk him deeper.

He lets his weight fall partially over you, too heavy for the full mass of himself. You are, after all, a delicate thing, and he must remember to handle you with care, occasionally. He feels the pulsing and quivering of your cunt around his softening cock, and the two of you settle to lay there in the dirt, bodies still dead, virginity scoured and stolen, and stare at each other.

“Have you ever been in love?” you whisper, dragging the tip of one little finger, whisper soft, over the arch of his brow, the slope of his nose.

“I feel a little in love with ya right now,” he confesses, and you press that finger against the seam of his mouth, begging for entrance, and then inside, against the flat of his tongue to inspect the wet gleam of it. It’ll be inside of you soon enough, you should take a look at that which you’ll be writhing against in due time.

“Good. That was my plan all along.” Smug, conniving little creature.

Once it’s full dark, he packs you into his truck, buckles your seatbelt for you, tucks a blanket around your dirty knees and drives off as if he hadn’t just murdered two men and taken your virginity with their blood still hot on his skin. He goes for miles and miles, eventually finds a dark, secluded spot to park the truck for the night. He takes you into the back bunk and fucks you like you’d wanted him to, on your side, one leg slung over his shoulder, hand gripping the lush of your ass to pull you onto his impaling cock, watches your ass bounce against his thrusts. A demanded play with it, lemme see ya push it back in, as he watches himself drip out of your messy hole. Eats your cunt until you cry. Afterwards, the two of you lay, naked and damp, facing each other, tracing the lines of one another in the quiet dark.

Sometimes he’s worried he’s blood hungry – or pain hungry. Starving for something he doesn’t have a name for. But he thinks that, perhaps, he can use your name to fill in the blank space now. He’d always felt as if his devotion was a punishment to the receiver. After all, everyone Joel has ever loved has left him. But as he looks at you, there’s something in your eyes that tells him that perhaps, you’ll remain. Perhaps, he can compel you to, force you to. Perhaps, he can anchor you to himself, and in turn, give you everything.

“Are you a ghost?” he asks.

“No. Are you?”

“Sometimes I think I am.”

“I don’t think so.”

“You’re like a fuckin’ angel or somethin’. What were you doin’ out here in this wasteland?” He asks you again.

“Maybe I was waiting for you.” This answer he likes.

He’s quiet for a long time after that – taking you in, cataloging you, memorizing you. His fingers ghosting over your face, your hair, strumming the fan of your lashes. Later he asks: How do you remember the memory of someone else? How do you keep them when they’ve gone somewhere entirely unreachable?

“Because you love them,” you tell him.

“That’s enough?”

“Of course. Will you ever forget that you loved her?”

“Never.”

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

#my writing #joel miller #the last of us #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #joel miller x female reader #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller/you #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller fic #the last of us fanfiction #tlou fic #pedro pascal #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal fanfiction #joel miller smut #joel miller imagine

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queerfables · 6 months

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'Wilson' as an episode fucking slaps. I'm obsessed with Wilson's complete lack of boundaries and I'm obsessed with the way he acts out to express resentment while still being completely incapable of saying no. He gave a patient part of his liver!! The man is in no way hinged.

For all the emphasis that gets placed on Wilson's failed marriages and infidelity, we don't ever actually see it directly on screen. This is a narrative choice I love, for the record. We see Wilson's relationships through House's eyes and it allows us to understand Wilson as a deeply flawed person without ever making him unlikable, because Wilson's flaws and contradictions are what make him irresistible to House. It's so effective, the way these failed relationships say so much about Wilson's character while being constructed largely out of inference.

In this episode, though, we watch his inability to self advocate play out in real time, and I guarantee that this is what every one of his relationship meltdowns looked like from the inside. On some deep fundamental level, James Wilson doesn't believe "I don't want to" is a valid reason not to do something. You know the fantasy trope of an obedience curse, where the victim is inescapably compelled to obey other people's requests? Wilson casts that spell on his own damn self, and he'll hold true to it even to the point of violating his own bodily autonomy. When you lack boundaries like that, it becomes almost impossible to even know what you truly want, let alone to act on it. So Wilson says yes and yes and yes until it breaks him, and then he still can't say no.

When saying yes feels like surrendering to torture and saying no feels like committing murder, the only option left is escape. So Wilson goes out drinking to trash the liver he's going to donate. He gets dinner with the pretty nurse instead of going home to his wife. All of it is him scrabbling at the bars of his cage. And the irony is that the cage is unlocked, he just has to walk through the open door, and that's the last thing he could ever bring himself to do.

I'm pretty sure that when he went to Cuddy and told her his plan to donate, he wanted her to say no. She almost did! And I think she should have, because her first impulse was right, it is insane. Unfortunately this is the Insane Lack of Boundaries Hospital, and she can't actually be expected to guess when her employee's mouth is saying yes but his eyes are saying dear god no. By the rules of universe that House MD operates within, this doesn't even break a 7 on the "unhinged measures to save a patient" scale, and Wilson invoked the power of friendship. What was she supposed to do?

And through all of this, House is the person Wilson lashes out at. I love, love, love that House is the person Wilson lashes out at. Wilson can't even admit to himself that he's angry about the position he's in. How can he be angry when he's the reason the patient needs a new liver? But House sees right to the heart of everything going on with him, and he says all the things Wilson wants to be true and can't afford to believe. Because if he lets himself believe this wasn't his fault then he might not be able to say yes. And he's going to say yes. And he hates that he's going to say yes. And he hates that House knows he's going to say yes.

So he gets angry with House, because it's safe to get angry with House. He lashes out, because with House, he can. He tells House he's wrong about him, and demands House move out, and that's not at all what he really wants but he feels helpless and coerced and he desperately needs to exercise some kind of control over his own life. The fact that he can let go like this with House is in part about knowing House isn't ever going to leave him - the closeness of their relationship is always defined by what Wilson wants, House has never once pushed Wilson away and fights to reconcile when Wilson wants distance. But it's also about knowing that he can't hurt House by setting boundaries with him. Mostly this is because House will walk right over any boundaries he considers unacceptable, but in fairness, the fact that House is kind of a terrible person is part of his appeal. If Wilson had issues around other people violating his stated wishes, House would be the last person in the world that he should have anything to do with. But Wilson's issues lie in the fear that not being compulsively available and accommodating to everyone around him might permanently fuck up the life of someone he loves. House's fucked up life is never going to be Wilson's fault and even if it was House would still kind of deserve it, so Wilson's anxious people pleasing compulsion can chill the fuck out for five minutes at a time.

I don't want to idealise, there are times in their relationship when Wilson absolutely makes fucked up sacrifices for House. I don't think it's the case that he earnestly wanted to every time. But it's also true that House brings out authenticity in Wilson that few other people manage to. House knows him. House allows him to give in to his selfish impulses without guilt and consequences, and for all the people who love the best in him, House knows and loves his worst. While Wilson is caught up in trying to bend himself into whatever shape someone else needs him to be, what House wants more than anything is the truth. For Wilson, who is so out of touch with his own desires, being an object of fascination to someone obsessed with drives and motivations must be a rush. And if we accept the throughline of this episode, it might just be the case that House's boundary pushing and obsession is something Wilson needs.

#house md #fable talks

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emjayewrites · 1 month

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All For Us (Lewis Hamilton SMAU)

SUMMARY: Lewis Hamilton secretly dates an older woman with a daughter and the public slowly starts connecting the dots. [smau w/narrative]

PAIRINGS: Sir Lewis Hamilton x influencer!OC Bree King (faceclaim is Sasha Exeter)

WARNINGS: verbal/emotional abuse from an ex, drama, age gap romance (Bree is 2 years older than Lewis), formula one b.s., pre-established relationship, step-daddy Lewis. PLEASE READ THE WARNINGS!!

TAGLIST: @cocobutterqwueen @httpsserene @mauvecherie-writes @galatially @pausmoon @a-moment-captured @yeea-nah @melodichaeuxx-lacritquexx @weetjy @lewisroscoelove @hxneyclouds @questionable-behaviour @lovebittenbyevans @tian-monique @alika-4466 @saintslewis @cherry2stems @planetmimi @woderfulkawaii @d3kstar @liamundi @trinitoldyouso @scorpiobleue @certifiedlesbianbaddie @blveeeeeee @sugardontbesweet @omgsuperstarg @bluesole16 @serpenttines-library @peyiswriting @royallyprincesslilly @jasmindaughteroftheworld @motheroffae @hrlzy @xoscar03

A/N: Read the warnings!! This oneshot may be triggering!! Please let me know if you want to be added/removed from the taglist. The headers/dividers are by @inklore

Lewis grinned as Bree's face appeared on his FaceTime screen. "There she is! My favorite lady."

"I should hope that's still the case," Bree teased with a wink before turning her head. "Sloane, baby, come say hi to Lewis!"

A moment later, Bree's eight-year-old daughter popped into view, her face lighting up with excitement. "Lewis! Hi!!"

"Hey there, Sloane!" Lewis' smile widened. "Having fun at camp?"

The little girl nodded vigorously. "It's so cool! We went canoeing yesterday and I caught the biggest frog ever!"

"No way, that's amazing!" Lewis played along. "You'll have to show me next time I see you. Which is actually why I FaceTimed..." He glanced at Bree, who gave him an encouraging nod before he proceeded. "I was wondering if you and your mom are still planning to come to my race in Montreal next week?" he asked Sloane. "It'll be my last chance to see you before you go back to school."

"YES!!" Sloane pumped her fist in the air emphatically. "We're definitely coming! I can't wait!"

Bree chuckled fondly and ruffled her daughter's hair. As her eyes met Lewis again over the video call, her expression was full of meaning.

Though keeping their relationship under wraps wasn't easy, moments like this made it worth it to Lewis. Having this slice of domestic bliss, however ephemeral, grounded him in a way he never could have imagined before meeting Bree and her daughter. It was a small price to pay for the unexpected joy of finally finding someone who knew the real him - flaws and all.

Their relationship was still so new, barely six months old, but he felt more at peace with Bree than he could have imagined. Bree understood the punishing demands his career brought in a way no one else could. With her own entrepreneurial spirit and drive, she never asked him to compromise his ambition. If anything, she helped stoke it.

Yes, the secrecy could be tedious at times. But Lewis didn't mind. After a lifetime in the spotlight, he relished having this one thing that was just for him and Bree. At least for now.

Race day arrived and Bree made her way through the hustle and bustle of the Montreal Grand Prix paddock. Despite Sloane's excitement in the lead-up, her father had pulled one of his typical selfish moves at the last minute by insisting on taking her to the zoo that day instead.

Bree felt that familiar pang of disappointment mixed with resignation. Her ex had been more of a sperm donor than an actual parent to their daughter from the day Sloane was born. He only seemed to appear when it was convenient for him, not Sloane.

Pushing those negative thoughts aside, Bree focused on the thrill of being here to support Lewis. As an influencer, she had initially been given paddock access through her partnership with Peroni, but over the last few months, as her relationship with Lewis intensified, racing had become personal.

"You must be Bree!" She spun around at the greeting to see a tall, stocky man striding towards her, hand outstretched. Spinz stood around six-foot-three and was built like a linebacker, with a lightly tanned skin tone. His smile was kind and friendly as he enthusiastically shook her hand. "I'm Daniel, but you can call me Spinz."

"It's so great to finally meet you! Lewis has told me loads about you," Bree mentioned happily.

"Likewise," Spinz replied genuinely. "I've heard so many stories, it's nice to finally put a face to the name."

Lewis and she had been intentionally slow about intermingling friends and family. They didn't want to rush things before they were both exclusive and comfortable, yet now that Sloane had grown so fond of Lewis, it felt right to begin that integration.

"Can't believe my man is finally bringing his girlfriend around the paddock!" Spinz continued, laughing delightedly. "Bout time, if you ask me." This emitted a chuckle from Bree. "Well, since you're finally here, allow me to give you the grand tour," Spinz offered, gesturing for her to follow him. "Lewis is still doing his pre-race routine, but I can show you around until he's free."

Bree nodded eagerly, falling into step beside the towering Spinz as he led them through the controlled chaos of the paddock. He pointed out the various team garages, the hospitality suites, and regaled her with funny behind-the-scenes stories from past races.

Despite the unfamiliar environment, Bree instantly felt at ease with Spinz's warm presence and easy banter. She could understand why he and Lewis had been mates for so long. There was an affable authenticity to him that put her instantly at ease.

"And this...is the sacred ground," Spinz proclaimed dramatically as they walked inside the Mercedes garage. "Though I suppose for you, it's more like hallowed ground at this point, eh?" He elbowed her teasingly.

Bree laughed, shoving him back playfully. "That's one way to put it, I suppose. I have to admit, seeing this side of his life up close is still taking some getting used to."

Before Spinz could respond, a familiar voice spoke out. "Hi, baby."

Bree shifted her gaze to see Lewis walking over to them, clad in his racing suit. His eyes crinkled behind his sunglasses as he pulled her into an embrace. She melted into his arms, inhaling his familiar warm scent.

"Sorry to keep you waiting, gorgeous. Pre-race craziness, you know how it is," Lewis murmured, lowering his voice. "But I'm all yours now."

He leaned in to place a soft kiss on her lips. Even with the smile on his face, Bree could sense that something seemed a bit off with him.

"How are you?" Bree asked gently.

Lewis let out an exasperated sigh. "Comme ci, comme ça." He made a wavering 'so-so' gesture with his hand to emphasize his point.

Bree's expression was knowing. "Ah, I see." With a slow blink, she decided not to pry further for now.

"Let's not worry about that now, okay?" Lewis gave her a lopsided grin, clearly wanting to change the subject. "Everything good with you? How was the tour with Spinz?"

"Great, Spinz was awesome. Thank you again for the tour," Bree replied, smiling at Lewis' friend.

Spinz waved it off. "No problem at all. I'll leave you two to it. Lew, I'll catch up with you later?"

"Of course, man." Lewis pulled Spinz in for one of their signature dap-up handshake hugs before his friend departed.

"Now that that's out of the way..." Lewis trailed off, snaking his arms around Bree's waist and pulling her close. "I can finally kiss you like I've been wanting to."

"Oh, so it's like that, Sir Hamilton?" Bree teased, removing his sunglasses to gaze into his warm brown eyes. "There, that's better. I can actually see those pretty eyes of yours now."

Lewis batted his lashes exaggeratedly. "You like what you see, huh? I could get used to all this flattery."

With that, he leaned in and captured her lips in a lingering, tender kiss, the troubles of the earlier melting away as he lost himself in her being.

Bree paced near the gate, phone pressed to her ear as she listened to her ex-husband's latest tirade.

"You're really going to let some race car driver try to one-up me as a father figure for Sloane? Come on, Bree. This guy is just a fling - he'll get bored of playing house eventually and leave you high and dry."

She bristled at his condescending tone, upset rising in her chest. Before she could snap back, her gaze landed on Sloane sitting nearby. The little girl was utterly engrossed, flipping through a "Formula One for Kids" book in preparation for their time at Silverstone.

The sight of her daughter's pure, unbridled excitement instantly calmed Bree's anger. She took a steadying breath before responding.

"You know what, you're right - you shouldn't be threatened because unlike you, Lewis actually shows up for Sloane," she stated evenly. "He's been more of a parent to her in six months than you have her whole life."

There was an indignant sputtering on the other end, but Bree kept talking before he could interject.

"Don't project your guilt about being an absentee dad onto my relationship. This isn't about you. It's about giving our daughter some stability and male role model who wants to be present."

The overhead speaker crackled to life, an announcement requesting they begin boarding their flight to Paris. Bree knew she needed to hang up now if they wanted to make it.

"I'm done wasting my time on this. We're boarding now. Maybe next time you can join us instead of just criticizing from the sidelines." She ended the call with a tap before he could respond.

Turning to Sloane, Bree plastered on a brilliant smile, letting the contentment of this new chapter wash over her.

"You ready for our adventure, baby girl?"

Sloane beamed up at her mother, curls bouncing as she nodded enthusiastically. "So ready! This is gonna be the best vacation ever!"

As they joined the line to board, hand-in-hand, Bree felt a swell of gratitude. Her daughter deserved all the happiness in the world - and she'd do whatever it took to provide it, with or without Sloane's father.

-------------------------------------------------

"No, no, you've got the lyrics all wrong!" Sloane collapsed in a fit of giggles as Lewis dramatically belted out his very off-key rendition of "We Don't Talk About Bruno" from Encanto, which was playing on the TV.

"What are you talking about? This is exactly how it goes!" Lewis protested, bopping around their hotel suite and encouraging Sloane to sing and dance along with him.

Bree watched the scene unfold with a content smile, sipping her coffee as her boyfriend and daughter's musical silliness filled the room. It had been a long but utterly joyful day exploring the magic of Paris together.

As the next song from the movie came on, Lewis grabbed Sloane's hands and started twirling her around in an impromptu dance number. Sloane squealed with laughter, trying her best to follow his goofy choreography.

Despite having to attend a couple of fashion shows, Lewis insisted on making the most of their time together. He had kicked things off with a surprise shopping trip that morning to Dior, allowing Bree and Sloane to play dress-up before walking away with an entirely new boutique-worthy wardrobe.

From there, it was on to take in the splendor of Parisian culture and sights. They strolled along the Champs-Élysées, stopping to snack on crispy crepes and macarons. Lewis delighted in teaching Sloane a few French phrases, though she quickly realized he was cheekily mispronouncing things.

As evening fell, Lewis whisked them away to a breathtaking circus show at Cirque Phénix. Sloane's eyes were saucers the entire time as she watched the daring acrobats and exotic animals perform. When it was over, she kept asking "How did they DO that?!" in awed tones.

Finally, they capped the night off with a decadent multi-course dinner at an acclaimed family-owned bistro. Even Sloane was lured into trying cuisine well beyond her usual mac-and-cheese comfort zone.

Now, lounging in their luxury hotel after baths, it was the perfect way to wind down after a memory-making day. Lewis intentionally kept the mood light and fun, perhaps sensing Bree needed a break from any lingering emotional fallout after her ex's cruel words.

Lewis and Sloane collapsed in a giggling heap on the suite's plush rug, exhausted but elated. Pressing kisses to Sloane's flushed cheeks, Lewis grinned contentedly.

"Best day ever, right team?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

As the Silverstone Grand Prix weekend approached, Lewis became adamant that Bree and Sloane finally meet his family. They would all be in attendance on Sunday to cheer him on at his beloved home race.

"It's time," he stated firmly one night as they relaxed together in bed. "You two are the most important people in my life now. I want my family to really know you both."

Bree felt a flutter of nerves, knowing this was a big step. In all his years as a global celebrity, Lewis had only ever brought one other woman home to meet his parents and siblings - his ex-girlfriend from years ago. There hadn't been anyone serious enough since then to warrant those introductions, until Bree came along.

Saturday night arrived, and Bree smoothed her hands down the summer dress she had carefully selected. She caught a glimpse of her anxious expression in the mirror and exhaled slowly.

Get it together, she scolded herself.

So what if she was a few years older than Lewis, and a single mom at that? His family seemed warm and supportive based on what little she knew. Surely they wouldn't judge her too harshly, right?

The sudden image of them dismissing her as some gold-digging cougar flashed through Bree's mind before she could stop it. She shook her head firmly. Those were her own insecurities talking, not reality.

"You ready, gorgeous?" Lewis' voice pulled her from her reverie. He stood in the doorway, Sloane's little hand clasped securely in his own.

Bree managed a tremulous smile and nodded. "As I'll ever be. Let's do this."

They made their way to the private dining room at Dishoon's, where Lewis' family awaited. The moment they entered, multiple pairs of eyes widened almost comically at the picture before them - Lewis holding Sloane's hand while his other arm wrapped protectively around Bree's waist.

Bree felt her cheeks warm as the hushed murmurs started. Lewis simply grinned, surveying the room with an almost smug satisfaction.

"Everyone, I'd like you to meet the two leading ladies in my life..." he began by way of introduction. "This is Bree and Sloane."

What followed was a cheerful commotion of hugs, back slaps and well-wishes as Lewis deftly made the rounds. To Bree's relief, his family seemed just as warm and gregarious as he had described.

If anything, they seemed impressed by her vibrant spirit and career accomplishments. Lewis' father in particular was delighted to discover Bree's Caribbean heritage, insisting they were practically "family already."

At one point, Lewis was gently pulled aside by his mother, Carmen. Concern furrowed the older woman's brow as she studied her son intently.

"So...what do you think of her, Mum?" Lewis asked almost shyly.

Carmen's expression softened as she glanced over at where Bree and Nicola were giggling together. "I think...I haven't seen you look this happy and fully yourself in a long time, sweetie."

She reached up to cup Lewis' cheek, her eyes shining with emotion. "That girl clearly adores you. And you've already taken her little one into your heart as well."

Lewis' smile was beatific as he covered his mother's hand with his own. "She's the one, Mum. I'm going to marry her someday."

Carmen arched an eyebrow, though her tone remained gentle. "Are you ready for that? To be a father to that little girl, and take on all those responsibilities?"

Lewis didn't hesitate. "More than ready," he stated with conviction. "Bree and Sloane...they're my world now. I can't imagine my life without them in it."

Pulling his mother into a firm embrace, Lewis felt his heart swell almost to bursting. For so many years, this kind of profound contentment had eluded him despite all his success. But somehow, fate had brought these two incredible ladies into his life. And he would spend every day showing them how indescribably grateful he was.

As they prepared for their upcoming trip to Grenada, articles started appearing in The Sun and The Daily Mail hinting that Lewis was dating Bree. Twitter was going crazy, with Lewis' massive fandom mostly showing support, especially after photos and videos surfaced of him with Sloane at the Silverstone race weekend. Sloane had been put 'in charge' of caring for Lewis' beloved English bulldog, Roscoe, and both she and the dog were practically attached to Lewis' hip the entire time.

Meanwhile, Sloane's father was up in arms once more about the apparent relationship. Bree's phone rang with the sperm donor himself on the other line.

"How dare you let that race car driver get so close to my child!" he yelled. "He thinks he can just swoop in and play dad now?"

"I mean someone has to do it," Bree muttered under her breath.

"I'm going to sue for full custody if you keep letting that man around my daughter!" Sloane's father shouted over the phone. "You're just a useless whore letting any man walk all over you!"

It was at that moment that Lewis came walking into the kitchen, having just finished playing in the backyard with Sloane. He immediately sensed the tension on Bree's face.

"Give me the phone," Lewis said firmly, holding his hand out.

Bree shook her head, not wanting to subject him to her ex's vitriol. But then the man's voice came through again.

Lewis' jaw clenched and he commanded again, "The phone, Bree. Now."

Reluctantly, she passed it over, her eyes apologetic. Lewis gave her a reassuring nod before putting the phone to his ear. "Who the fuck do you think you are, speaking to her like that?" he said sternly.

"Who do YOU think you are?" the man retorted. "You have no right getting cozy with my kid!"

Lewis' expression hardened. "I care deeply about both Bree and Sloane," he stated firmly. "And I'll be damned if I let you disrespect them like this."

"You think you can just insert yourself into my daughter's life?" Sloane's father sneered. "Playing father figure and getting handsy with her mother? Over my dead fuckin' body."

She opened her mouth to let loose a blistering retort, but Lewis squeezed her shoulder lightly.

"Listen here, mate," Lewis' voice was low but resonant with conviction. "I love that little girl as if she were my own flesh and blood. Sloane is everything to me, to us. And I'll be damned if you try to keep us apart with your selfishness and toxic presence."

Bree's breath caught at the fierce protectiveness in Lewis' words. She covered his hand with her own, lending him her strength.

On the other end, Sloane's father sputtered indignantly before finding his voice again. "You arrogant prick! You can't just—"

"That's enough." Lewis's words sliced through the man's tirade like a whip. "Your disrespect ends now. And if you continue speaking to Bree this way, you'll never see Sloane again."

There was a pause on the other end. "Is that a threat?" Sloane's father spat.

"No," Lewis said coldly. "It's a promise." He disconnected the call and turned his full attention to Bree, wrapping his arms around her firmly. "How long has he been talking to you like that, love?"

Bree let out a shaky breath, leaning into his embrace. "Not long...just when we started getting serious."

Lewis scoffed, rolling his eyes at her ex's audacity. The man had been absent for most of Sloane's life, and now that another man was stepping up, he wanted to play father?

"Next time he does that, record it," Lewis instructed. "Take it to your lawyers. I don't want that piece of shit thinking he can verbally abuse you however he pleases. He's going to fuck around and end up in a ditch somewhere if he keeps going down this road."

Bree searched his eyes intently. "You would...kill for me? For us?"

"Yes." Lewis met her gaze unflinchingly. "I'd do anything for you and Sloane. Anything at all."

The fierceness in his voice sent a shiver down her spine. She knew, without a doubt, that he meant every word.

-------------------------------------------------

Bree sighed contentedly as she gazed out at the pristine Grenadian beach. So much had happened so quickly - meeting Lewis' friends and family, being accepted into their fold almost instantly alongside Sloane, yet it all felt so natural, like the missing pieces finally clicking into place.

Her eyes shielded from the brilliant sun, she watched as Lewis chased the waves with Sloane, both of them shrieking with laughter. He looked utterly gorgeous with his toned, tattooed physique glistening with saltwater, the picture-perfect image of a doting father. The idea of giving Sloane a sibling, with Lewis as the dad, sounded unexpectedly appealing. Though she had a few eggs frozen, she wondered if pregnancy at her age would be difficult, but as scary as that thought was, she couldn't fathom being with anyone else. Their seven month relationship felt more profound than any bond she'd ever known.

Down the beach, Lewis was helping Sloane construct an elaborate sandcastle, patting the wet sand into turrets.

"Lewis?" Sloane piped up suddenly.

"Yes, princess?"

"Do you love my mom?"

He smiled warmly. "Yes, I do. Very much. And I love you too."

Sloane beamed, delighted by his answer. "Will you marry my mom then? My parents were married but then they got divorced."

Lewis' heart melted at her hopeful expression. "You want me to make an honest woman out of your mum?"

She nodded vigorously. "I just want her to be happy."

"I promise I'll do everything I can to make you both happy," he vowed. "But would it be okay with you, if I married your mum?"

"Duh!" Sloane rolled her eyes dramatically. "I already think of you as my bonus dad."

Lewis felt his throat tighten with emotion at Sloane's words. This amazing little girl and her mother had utterly stolen his heart.

Gently, he pulled Sloane into a hug, resting his chin atop her head. "You know I love you like you're my own daughter, right? You and your mum are everything to me."

Sloane nodded against his chest. "I know. That's why you should marry her." She pulled back to look up at him with those big, innocent eyes. "Will you be my dad for real then?"

"Of course, princess," Lewis murmured, brushing the sandy hair from her face. "If your mum will have me, I'd be honored to be your dad in every way that matters."

Sloane grinned, throwing her little arms around his neck excitedly. Down the beach, Bree watched the tender scene with a wistful smile. She could clearly see the love between Lewis and her daughter - it was undeniable.

As if he could sense her eyes on him, Lewis glanced over and raised a hand in a beckoning wave. Bree rose fluidly to her feet and made her way over, sandals dangling from one hand.

"Everything okay over here?" she asked lightly as she approached.

Lewis stood, pulling Bree flush against his side with his free arm. "More than okay," he replied, dropping a kiss on her salty hair. "We're building a sandcastle estate and could use the extra hands, right Sloane?" Sloane was too busy packing buckets full of wet sand into elaborate castle molds to answer and Lewis shrugged. "Alrighty then, let's get to work."

As they worked together under the warm sun, Bree couldn't help but feel grateful for these moments of simple joy with the little family she created.

The Las Vegas Grand Prix was in full swing, and Lewis was basking in the excitement of being publicly "Instagram official" with Bree. He had Bree by his side, and he was so happy to be able to publicly show off their relationship.

It wasn't that he cared what anyone else thought - Lewis had never been one to seek approval or validation from others. But having Bree by his side made everything feel more real, more solid. She was his rock, his anchor in this wild world of racing. These last few months, although crazy at times, were the best memories to experience with Bree.

And she looked stunning as always. Her long dark hair cascaded down her back in soft waves and her fitted red dress hugged her curves in all the right places. She was by Lewis' side through all the glitzy festivities and parties surrounding the race weekend, including the launch of his Almave pop-up bar. With Sloane spending the weekend with Bree's mother, it was a kid-free getaway, and he intended to take full advantage.

He knew Bree's ex-husband would be fuming seeing pictures of them together online, but Lewis didn't give two flying fucks about him anymore. He was focused solely on Bree and the profound happiness she brought him. Bree's arm was looped through his as they made their way through the crowded VIP party for the race sponsors. He greeted familiar faces with warmth and charm, introducing her to everyone he knew.

"You're a natural at this," Lewis remarked as they headed towards the bar for some much-needed drinks.

Bree laughed and rolled her eyes playfully. "Please, I'm just winging it."

He shook his head in mock disapproval as they approached the bar. "Don't sell yourself short," he said seriously before turning to order their drinks.

_____________________________________

After dinner one evening at their hotel's high-end restaurant, fans swarmed Lewis for autographs as they exited. "You're a lucky man," one told him, eyeing Bree appreciatively. "She's gorgeous."

Lewis' arm tightened around her waist. "I know," he said simply, pride warming his tone.

Back in their suite, they came together in a heated clash of lips and roving hands, shedding clothes as they stumbled towards the bedroom. Bree reveled in the hard planes of Lewis' body, tracing the lines of his tattoos as he worshipped her with his mouth.

He lifted her up effortlessly and carried her to bed, laying her down gently before joining on top of her, settling between her legs. Their bodies fit together perfectly like puzzle pieces as they moved together in a rhythm that felt almost too familiar now.

Every time they made love was like a brand new experience for them both. They never grew tired of exploring each other's bodies or finding new ways to pleasure one another.

In between stolen kisses and whispered declarations of love, they lost themselves completely in each other until they reached that explosive climax. Afterwards, they lay sated and tangled in the plush hotel linens. Bree traced idle patterns across Lewis' chest as he tucked her against his side.

"Have you thought about getting married again?" he asked quietly.

Bree's head whipped up in surprise. "Here? In Vegas?"

Lewis chuckled, dropping a kiss on her forehead. "No, love. No offense to others, but I could never get married here. I meant...in a year or two, maybe. With me."

Her breath caught at the meaningful weight behind his words. "I...actually think about that a lot," she admitted shyly. "I can see us having a future together."

Warmth bloomed in Lewis' eyes. "You can?"

Bree nodded, feeling herself get swept up in the thrilling certainty of what she felt for this man. "Yes. A real future - marriage, forever."

Lewis looked utterly overjoyed as he cupped her face tenderly. "Okay then...future Lady Hamilton."

A startled laugh bubbled up from Bree's lips. "Lady Hamilton? Is that what I'll be since you're Sir Lewis?"

"Precisely." His grin was terribly smug. "Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it?"

"It sounds like some character from Bridgerton!" she giggled, swatting his chest playfully.

Lewis joined in her mirth, nodding wholeheartedly in agreement. "I can see the resemblance."

Bree's laughter slowly faded as she gazed at the man she loved with every fiber of her being.

Her future husband - it had a deliciously appealing ring to it.

The End.....or is it?

#all for us #sir lewis hamilton #emjayewrites #lewis hamilton #lewis hamilton fanfic #sir lewis hamilton x black!reader #lewis hamilton x black!reader #lewis hamilton x oc #f1 x reader

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piratecaptainscaptainpirates · 6 months

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Given all the really excellent and interesting talk about this recently, I wanted to write up a quick list of ways we see Izzy being consistently abusive to Ed in season 1, just so I have a handy post to link to the next time someone asks me "wait, how is Izzy abusive?"

(Again, I genuinely like Izzy. I think he's a great character, but dismissing how he behaves in s1 defangs him as a character, cheapens his s2 arc, and decontextualizes a lot of Ed's behavior.)

Izzy is shown as being emotionally abusive to Ed throughout season 1, because he:

Controls the information Ed has access to. In s1e3, we see Izzy tell Ed his own version of events, twisting them to suit his purposes. He does this so easily and cleanly it's clear he's probably been lying to Ed to manipulate his perception of events for a long time.

Isolates Ed from others. We do not see Ed talk to any crew members before s1e4, and even then, Izzy cuts the conversation short. He also prevents anyone from seeing Ed in s1e10 until Ed makes him ask for Lucius. In s2 Ed tells us that he knew very little about Fang despite having worked with him for 20 years - Izzy seems to make a habit of making Ed unapproachable.

On that note, Izzy insults and demeans Ed to other crew members, creating his own narrative around Ed's actions. He says he "massages" the crew when they're worried about Ed's judgment, but what he actually does is tell them Ed's "half-insane." He is creating a situation where Ed is reliant on Izzy for information and the crew feel like they need Izzy to interpret what he presents as the irrational demands of an insane man, even though we as the audience know Ed's behavior is never as erratic or irrational as Izzy makes it out to be.

Insults and demeans Ed to his face. Izzy is not shy about calling Ed insane and unpleasant to his face, and Ed doesn't seem surprised to hear it. I don't think it's a coincidence that Ed admits while he's in the gravy basket in s2 that he's scared he's insane - that's one of Izzy's favorite insults to apply to him and he's clearly internalized it.

Ignores Ed's feelings and wants when he's not acting the way Izzy believes is appropriate. We see Ed constantly reaching out to Izzy in s1e4 to share his thoughts and excitement, and Izzy shuts him down every time. Izzy's created a situation where Ed can only really talk to Izzy, and Ed is clearly desperate for human connection.

Pushes Ed to harm someone Ed loves, even when Izzy knows that Ed "adores" Stede and Stede makes him genuinely happy. Izzy is very insistant about getting Ed to kill Stede, even once it's obvious Ed has already deeply bonded with Stede.

Literally "buys" Ed in return for selling Stede out. This is just gross and unacceptable, not to mention wildly racist. Frankly I think Ed showed remarkable restraint for only punching him once.

Tries to get Stede killed in front of Ed, multiple times.

Obviously, threatens and mocks Ed when Ed isn't behaving "appropriately." When Ed is starting to feel better in s1e10, and is reaching out to the crew and connecting with them, and is painting his nails and singing and generally behaving in a much more feminine and emotionally available way than Izzy would prefer, Izzy threatens him to force him back into the hyper-masculine Blackbeard persona he knows Ed hates and Ed has said he wants to move past.

Goads Ed into violent behavior and is delighted when Ed is visibly upset. When Ed chokes Izzy, Izzy is laughing and grinning and generally having a very nice time while Ed's standing there with tears in his eyes and visibly terrified. He's very happy to have gotten the reaction he was trying to provoke and doesn't care about Ed's feelings.

So, take it all together, and we can see that Izzy has created an atmosphere where he has put himself in control of Ed and has further manipulated the crew so they look to Izzy as a filter for Ed's behavior so Izzy can completely control the narrative. When he thinks he's losing control of Ed, that's when Izzy tries to get Stede killed, without regard for Ed's emotions. Izzy consistently insults Ed, ignores his desires and feelings, and prioritizes his control over Ed's feelings.

Have I missed anything?

#ofmd #our flag means death #izzy critical #i don't really think this is izzy critical at all because i'm just talking about the character's canon actions in the text of the show #but tagging it anyway. just in case. sigh

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n3ptoonz · 4 months

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Hello! I saw your most recent headcanon list thing with the Earthrealm guys being caught Slonking it Silly Style™ and uh. I was just wondering if you'd be willing to do something similar with the Outworld guys as well? Obviously you don't have to if you don't want to, but I think it would be neat! Thank you so much in advance! I love your work :)

deep, dramatic sigh. (kidding anon tysm i gush over comments like this ily smoochhhh) also the terminology made me laugh out loud ty for that

Shang Tsung

kinda sorta didn't gaf. who's to say he didn't want you to hear him. the world may never know

you were to report to him about some findings for his experiments and there he was, leaning over the table and straight up cranking it over a bucket (he's odd like that) honestly when you acknowledge your own presence he's like... can i help you?? you see i'm busy???

but at the same time he's like hold up i have a fine specimen here to help me out here...he's leaving here with SOMETHING (studio laughter)

Rain

i don't think he'd care either if you walked in on him. in fact, he might welcome it. he's used to having his own space, but he doesn't mind sharing it with people he's ok with being around. yes that includes you (is it only you? not even he knows yet)

day 8163 of using Rain's arrogance to push my narrative that he's not only in love with himself but how he looks in the mirror. you definitely walked in on him wanking it in the mirror and he'd freeze but recover so quick

ain't no way you're leaving here after you just caught him though. how else will his problems get solved? you went and made him hard all over again!

Reptile

syzoth has two, let's get that out the way. AND he uses both hands for them LMAOO

president of syzoth is a lil subby bitch society. so when you catch him tugging on both and reduced to a pathetic mess from his own hands??? he's frozen and quite literally has no clue what to do. he's sweaty, there's tears in his eyes, and his fangs are much more pronounced than usual

once you give him the green light that you're into whatever tf he was just doing watch him crawl over to you on all fours and hug your legs, practically begging you to touch him

Havik

expect this smug fuck to claim he wanted this to happen. dude was hunched over and going at it behind his own desk, grunting like a cave man who discovered self pleasure for the first time

1000% expect him to demand you help him, but instead it's after he froze for like 5 seconds and then tried to play it off

he would also be internally shocked when agree to finish the job, but on the outside it's like "that's what i thought...now get over here" whole time he's jumping up and down and twirling in his brain

Reiko

it's already rare that he has time to himself and definitely RARELY has time to be with you for an extended period of time, so you catching him when you wanted to surprise him with your presence it triggered his fight or fight LMAO

legit laughed at the thought of him jumping up from his chair hands ready to be thrown...but his dick is swinging PLSSSSSS

he's like well shit now he deserves your help after you almost got two pieced by your own boyfriend...but who's complaining?!

General Shao

this man weirdly reminds me of bowser sometimes. with that being said i think he'd do a BUAHA as a shocked sound when you catch him thwoping the schlong

as much as i can't fucking stand him he does look a lil better in this game i will admit. i'm not gonna sit up here and lie, he def has a HUGE wanker innit. so you didn't miss shit when you walked into his chambers

he would also demand your help. but if you have a lil push back just for fun, he'd eventually say please and be all soft and shit. why? cause it's you god damn it!

Baraka

let's be fr. truly i do not think mk1 baraka would masterbate simply bc he's like depressed all the time😭but for the sake of shits and gigs, ill humor y'all

let's say he hasn't seen you in a while and misses you dearly. he knew you were on a quest for a while, and he was very pent up... so what better way to release stress other than sparring! oh. not enough? time for another type spar 😈

if this were old baraka i'd say he has two 👁️ but since this version of tarkat is a disease let's say it made the skin around his wee like ribbed or something ya SO when you caught him he was in a straight up panic and apologizing profusely but once you calm him down and tell him you're glad he missed you so much, he's like oh shit...well help me out then...only if you want to!

a/n: i did it y'all FUCK. my bad for taking so long to release this i'm a perfectionist to a fault💀

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mostlysignssomeportents · 7 months

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Amazon Alexa is a graduate of the Darth Vader MBA

Next Tuesday (Oct 31) at 10hPT, the Internet Archive is livestreaming my presentation on my recent book, The Internet Con.

If you own an Alexa, you might enjoy its integration with IFTTT, an easy scripting environment that lets you create your own little voice-controlled apps, like "start my Roomba" or "close the garage door." If so, tough shit, Amazon just nuked IFTTT for Alexa:

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/25/23931463/ifttt-amazon-alexa-applets-ending-support-integration-automation

Amazon can do this because the Alexa's operating system sits behind a cryptographic lock, and any tool that bypasses that lock is a felony under Section 1201 of the DMCA, punishable by a 5-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine. That means that it's literally a crime to provide a rival OS that lets users retain functionality that Amazon no longer supports.

This is the proverbial gun on the mantelpiece, a moral hazard and invitation to mischief that tempts Amazon executives to run a bait-and-switch con where they sell you a gadget with five features and then remotely kill-switch two of them. This is prime directive of the Darth Vader MBA: "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."

So many companies got their business-plan at the Darth Vader MBA. The ability to revoke features after the fact means that companies can fuck around, but never find out. Apple sold millions of tracks via iTunes with the promise of letting you stream them to any other device you owned. After a couple years of this, the company caught some heat from the record labels, so they just pushed an update that killed the feature:

https://memex.craphound.com/2004/10/30/apple-to-ipod-owners-eat-shit-and-die-updated/

That gun on the mantelpiece went off all the way back in 2004 and it turns out it was a starter-pistol. Pretty soon, everyone was getting in on the act. If you find an alert on your printer screen demanding that you install a "security update" there's a damned good chance that the "update" is designed to block you from using third-party ink cartridges in a printer that you (sorta) own:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/ink-stained-wretches-battle-soul-digital-freedom-taking-place-inside-your-printer

Selling your Tesla? Have fun being poor. The upgrades you spent thousands of dollars on go up in a puff of smoke the minute you trade the car into the dealer, annihilating the resale value of your car at the speed of light:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/23/how-to-fix-cars-by-breaking-felony-contempt-of-business-model/

Telsa has to detect the ownership transfer first. But once a product is sufficiently cloud-based, they can destroy your property from a distance without any warning or intervention on your part. That's what Adobe did last year, when it literally stole the colors from your Photoshop files, in history's SaaSiest heist caper:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/28/fade-to-black/#trust-the-process

And yet, when we hear about remote killswitches in the news, it's most often as part of a PR blitz for their virtues. Russia's invasion of Ukraine kicked off a new genre of these PR pieces, celebrating the fact that a John Deere dealership was able to remotely brick looted tractors that had been removed to Chechnya:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/08/about-those-kill-switched-ukrainian-tractors/

Today, Deere's PR minions are pitching search-and-replace versions of this story about Israeli tractors that Hamas is said to have looted, which were also remotely bricked.

But the main use of this remote killswitch isn't confounding war-looters: it's preventing farmers from fixing their own tractors without paying rent to John Deere. An even bigger omission from this narrative is the fact that John Deere is objectively Very Bad At Security, which means that the world's fleet of critical agricultural equipment is one breach away from being rendered permanently inert:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/23/reputation-laundry/#deere-john

There are plenty of good and honorable people working at big companies, from Adobe to Apple to Deere to Tesla to Amazon. But those people have to convince their colleagues that they should do the right thing. Those debates weigh the expected gains from scammy, immoral behavior against the expected costs.

Without DMCA 1201, Amazon would have to worry that their decision to revoke IFTTT functionality would motivate customers to seek out alternative software for their Alexas. This is a big deal: once a customer learns how to de-Amazon their Alexa, Amazon might never recapture that customer. Such a switch wouldn't have to come from a scrappy startup or a hacker's DIY solution, either. Take away DMCA 1201 and Walmart could step up, offering an alternative Alexa software stack that let you switch your purchases away from Amazon.

Money talks, bullshit walks. In any boardroom argument about whether to shift value away from customers to the company, a credible argument about how the company will suffer a net loss as a result has a better chance of prevailing than an argument that's just about the ethics of such a course of action:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

Inevitably, these killswitches are pitched as a paternalistic tool for protecting customers. An HP rep once told me that they push deceptive security updates to brick third-party ink cartridges so that printer owners aren't tricked into printing out cherished family photos with ink that fades over time. Apple insists that its ability to push iOS updates that revoke functionality is about keeping mobile users safe – not monopolizing repair:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/22/vin-locking/#thought-differently

John Deere's killswitches protect you from looters. Adobe's killswitches let them add valuable functionality to their products. Tesla? Well, Tesla at least is refreshingly honest: "We have a killswitch because fuck you, that's why."

These excuses ring hollow because they conspicuously omit the possibility that you could have the benefits without the harms. Like, your tractor could come with a killswitch that you could bypass, meaning you could brick it at a distance, and still fix it yourself. Same with your phone. Software updates that take away functionality you want can be mitigated with the ability to roll back those updates – and by giving users the ability to apply part of a patch, but not the whole patch.

Cloud computing and software as a service are a choice. "Local first" computing is possible, and desirable:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/03/there-is-no-cloud/#only-other-peoples-computers

The cheapest rhetorical trick of the tech sector is the "indivisibility gambit" – the idea that these prix-fixe menus could never be served a la carte. Wanna talk to your friends online? Sorry there's just no way to help you do that without spying on you:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/08/divisibility/#technognosticism

One important argument over smart-speakers was poisoned by this false dichotomy: the debate about accessibility and IoT gadgets. Every IoT privacy or revocation scandal would provoke blanket statements from technically savvy people like, "No one should ever use one of these." The replies would then swiftly follow: "That's an ableist statement: I rely on my automation because I have a disability and I would otherwise be reliant on a caregiver or have to go without."

But the excluded middle here is: "No one should use one of these because they are killswitched. This is especially bad when a smart speaker is an assistive technology, because those applications are too important to leave up to the whims of giant companies that might brick them or revoke their features due to their own commercial imperatives, callousness, or financial straits."

Like the problem with the "bionic eyes" that Second Sight bricked wasn't that they helped visually impaired people see – it was that they couldn't be operated without the company's ongoing support and consent:

https://spectrum.ieee.org/bionic-eye-obsolete

It's perfectly possible to imagine a bionic eye whose software can be maintained by third parties, whose parts and schematics are widely available. The challenge of making this assistive technology fail gracefully isn't technical – it's commercial.

We're meant to believe that no bionic eye company could survive unless they devise their assistive technology such that it fails catastrophically if the business goes under. But it turns out that a bionic eye company can't survive even if they are allowed to do this.

Even if you believe Milton Friedman's Big Lie that a company is legally obligated to "maximize shareholder value," not even Friedman says that you are legally obligated to maximize companies' shareholder value. The fact that a company can make more money by defrauding you by revoking or bricking the things you buy from them doesn't oblige you to stand up for their right to do this.

Indeed, all of this conduct is arguably illegal, under Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits "unfair and deceptive business practices":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

"No one should ever use a smart speaker" lacks nuance. "Anyone who uses a smart speaker should be insulated from unilateral revocations by the manufacturer, both through legal restrictions that bind the manufacturer, and legal rights that empower others to modify our devices to help us," is a much better formulation.

It's only in the land of the Darth Vader MBA that the deal is "take it or leave it." In a good world, we should be able to take the parts that work, and throw away the parts that don't.

(Image: Stock Catalog/https://www.quotecatalog.com, Sam Howzit; CC BY 2.0; modified)

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/26/hit-with-a-brick/#graceful-failure

#pluralistic #alexa #ifttt #criptech #disability #drm #revocation #nothing about us without us #futureproofing #graceful failure #darth vader MBA #enshittification

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doormatty3 · 5 months

Text

Ocean Eyes: Chapter 4 (Orm Marius x Reader)

Masterlist Ao3

Ocean Eyes Masterlink

Summary:

[Orm Marius x Female Reader] [Orm Marius x You]

The ocean has always fascinated you - the ebb and flow of its water, the marine life in the sea and the wild and untamed beauty it exudes. Your attempts to explain this fascination have always fallen short. But when you meet Orm at the seaside one rainy day you find, that he just understands. You offer to show him around since he is not from the city. And you are intrigued by his rather strange quirks and his regal demeanour. After all, how could you not? When his eyes mirror the ocean itself, deep and incredibly blue. OR: You impress Orm with the surface world and he impresses you with his Atlantean cock

Wordcount: 4721

A/N: If there some mistakes, I had a major surgery and am currently high on Oxycodon...

As the day unfolds in a gentle rhythm, you and Orm find solace in the simplicity of lazy kisses and unhurried walks along the shoreline. The connection between you two is palpable, a subtle energy that defies explanation.

It‘s akin to the unspoken bond you have with the sea – a presence that exists without the need for words or rationale. It just is.

The lazy kisses are a sweet punctuation to moments of shared silence. Each touch, each caress, carries with it absolute bliss.

The slow walks along the beach with the sand beneath your feet, warmed by the sun, create a soft pathway for the two of you. The play of light on the water, the shifting hues of the sea mirroring the ebb and flow of emotions between you and Orm. The horizon stretches endlessly, a metaphor for the boundless potential of the connection you share.

The day progresses at its own unhurried pace, mirroring the unhurried nature of your connection. It‘s as if time itself has slowed down, allowing you to savour the simplicity of being in each other‘s company.

As you spend more time with Orm, you find yourself wanting to get to know him better - to unravel the layers of the person beneath the surface. However, you sense that it doesn‘t make sense to push him - he has to approach you,

Sometimes, his eyes betray the storm within him. There‘s a depth to Orm that intrigues you, a narrative etched in the lines of his expressions.

And so, you tread gently through the storm in his eyes, offering a steady presence without demanding entry into the tempest.

In the ebb and flow of days, you find a quiet rhythm with Orm.

The days are punctuated with laughter, conversations, and shared silences that speak volumes. You explore the nuances of his likes and dislikes, weaving the tapestry of your understanding of each other. In the simple joys of companionship, you find a happiness that surpasses even your most cherished expectations.

Waking up next to Orm becomes a source of comfort, a tangible warmth that permeates your mornings. His presence beside you is a reassurance, and falling asleep in his arms at night feels like being cradled by a serenade of tranquillity.

As you navigate the passage of time together, the bond between you and Orm deepens with shared experiences, mutual understanding, and unspoken affections.

_____

In the gentle embrace of morning, you awaken to the warmth of Orm‘s body pressed against yours. The soft light filtering through the curtains paints a tranquil scene, and as you open your eyes, the first thing you feel is the steady rhythm of his breath, a comforting lullaby in the quietude of the dawn.

Orm‘s arms are securely wrapped around you, creating a sense of safety and intimacy. The rise and fall of his chest against your back form a soothing cadence, a heartbeat that resonates with the peaceful stillness of the early morning.

With eyes half-open, you take in the contours of the room, the subdued light of dawn casting a gentle glow. Cradled in Orm‘s embrace, you savour the quiet beauty of these morning moments, where time seems to stand still, and the world outside is yet to fully awaken.

But it‘s late enough to get up you think, so you slip out of Orm‘s embrace, careful not to disturb his peaceful slumber. With a gentle touch, you rise from the bed, leaving behind the warmth of the covers.

You steal a final glance at him, a quiet affection swelling within you for his peaceful, sleeping form.

You make your way to the kitchen to brew coffee for yourself and prepare tea for Orm. While he really doesn‘t like coffee, you found out that he has a rather sweet tooth and likes fruity teas.

As you walk through your living room, your gaze shifts towards the window overlooking the terrace.

To your surprise, a tall, bulky figure captures your attention - A huge man stands on your lawn.

His long brown hair and beard contribute to a rugged appearance. As he stands there, the rays of the morning sun dance upon intricate tribal tattoos that tell a silent tale on his well-defined arms.

Instead of looking lost, he seems like he belongs - like he is waiting.

Reacting instinctively, you grab a fire poker, your heart pounding with a mix of caution and adrenaline. The sturdy handle feels reassuring in your grip as you cautiously open the door, the brisk morning air brushing against your skin.

The stranger meets your gaze as the door swings ajar, and you waste no time asking, “What do you want? And who are you?”

“I‘m Arthur,” the towering man responds, his eyes locked onto yours.

His sheer size renders him an imposing figure, dwarfing even Orm in comparison. In hindsight, you realise you should have called for Orm instead of venturing out on your own.

Thinking logically, you surmise that if he intended to harm you, he would have struck by now, so you inquire, “And what do you want, Arthur?”

“I‘m Orm‘s brother. I need to talk to him, please,” he explains, hands raised in a gesture of non-aggression.

Your scepticism persists as you lower the fire poker and remark, “What? I‘m sorry, but you two don‘t exactly look alike.”

Amused, Arthur lets out a hearty laugh, “I know. He‘s my half-brother.”

“How do you know he‘s here?” you inquire, unable to shake off the scepticism. Orm‘s family is uncharted territory, and Arthur‘s sudden arrival stirs a mix of curiosity and caution.

“Oh, he told me,” Arthur replies with a nonchalant smile.

The revelation that Orm talks about you to his family brings a pleasant warmth to your cheeks. It‘s a subtle affirmation of the connection you‘ve been building with him. It‘s a vulnerable yet comforting feeling, knowing that you hold a place in his thoughts outside the moments you spend together.

However, Arthur‘s unexpected appearance and claim of urgency cast a shadow of doubt and wariness.

“But if you talk to him regularly, why not just ask him directly?” you press, your tone carrying a note of suspicion.

“It‘s urgent – please,” Arthur implores, his gaze holding a sense of sincerity. The urgency in his voice hints at something pressing, and you furrow your brow - you‘d really like to know what‘s going on.

“Arthur, he never mentioned you – he never said anything about his family,” you assert, your words carrying a mix of confusion and caution. The unexpected nature of the encounter prompts a wave of doubt about Arthur‘s intentions. “For all I know, you‘re gonna murder me because you don‘t know him and just pretend.”

Arthur lets out a hearty laugh, a sound that echoes across the terrace. “If I wanted to hurt you, don‘t you think I‘d already have done that?” he retorts, the humour in his tone attempting to diffuse the tension.

The acknowledgement of your shared perspective brings a momentary alignment of understanding. “But you get why I‘m sceptical, right?” you press, seeking reassurance in the face of the unknown.

Arthur‘s laughter rumbles through the air again, seems inconsistent with the seriousness of the situation. “Sure, alright, listen. I can just prove to you that I know my little brother, alright.”

“Okay, go ahead,” you say, a glimmer of curiosity mingling with your scepticism.

“When he drank coffee at your place, he almost spat it out – he told me it was one of the most vile things he‘s ever drunk, and he really doesn‘t understand how we can drink it - and how you can call your coffee a good roast ,” Arthur reveals, a grin playing on his face.

A surprised chuckle escapes you, realising that Arthur‘s story is an accurate retelling of your and Orm‘s first breakfast together. “I didn‘t know he thought it was that bad,” you admit, laughter bubbling up at the unexpected revelation.

“Oh, he hates it,” Arthur laughs, his deep voice resonating with amusement. “But he really likes that fruit tea you have,” he adds, a mischievous twinkle in his eye. He finds it funny that you and his brother are so smitten with each other.

You smile, feeling a warmth spreading through you. Clearing your throat, you say, “Well, Arthur, you just earned yourself a cup of coffee in my humble home. Come in.”

You head inside, leaving the door ajar for Arthur to accompany you.

He follows you into the house, his gaze wandering around the living room and open kitchen. As you prepare coffee for both of you and a cup of tea for Orm, Arthur‘s attention is drawn to the aquarium. Colourful fish gracefully move through the water, creating a captivating display.

Setting the mugs on the table, you join him by the aquarium. “It‘s a passion of mine,” you say, gesturing toward the fish gliding through the water. “Helps bring some life into the place.”

Arthur nods, his eyes still fixed on the mesmerising dance of the aquatic life. “I can see the appeal. Orm never mentioned you had such a lively home.”

You chuckle, “Well, surprises are always good, right?”

Arthur smirks, “Indeed. So, where‘s Orm? Still asleep?”

“He is,” you reply, “I didn‘t want to disturb him. Plus, I wasn‘t sure if waking him abruptly for a family reunion was the best idea.”

Arthur chuckles, “Fair point. I appreciate you being understanding about this.”

As you lead Arthur to the table, both of you take a seat, the morning light streaming through the windows casting a warm glow on the room. The aroma of freshly brewed coffee mingles with the comforting scent of tea, creating an inviting atmosphere.

The conversation flows smoothly, and you start to feel more at ease with Arthur‘s presence. He talks about his life, sharing snippets of his experiences - you find out that he‘s married with a kid.

It becomes evident that despite the differences, there‘s a shared thread of love for the sea that ties the siblings together.

After a while, Arthur‘s eyes wander to the sea glass on the table. “Interesting choice of décor,” he remarks, picking it up and examining it.

You smile, recalling the moment when you found it on the beach. “It‘s a little souvenir. Reminded me of Orm.”

Arthur nods, his gaze thoughtful. “You know, he‘s not one to easily let people in. Must‘ve seen something special in you.”

You blush at the compliment, feeling a mix of warmth and appreciation.

As the conversation progresses, you discover more about Arthur, finding him to be not only funny but also kind. He delves into anecdotes about his child‘s antics and shares tales of odd jobs he‘s worked.

The warm atmosphere changes when Orm enters the kitchen. You eagerly go to greet him, excited to see him, but his expression stops you in your tracks.

Instead of the usual calm demeanour, Orm is seething with anger.

His brows are furrowed, and his normally serene eyes now burn with an intense fury akin to a storm raging beneath the surface.

The soft blue eyes that you love looking into have turned into a cold and cloudy hue. It feels as though you are looking into the heart of the storm, waves of fury rising and falling with a savage rhythm, crashing against each other like warring titans engaged in an eternal struggle.

The lines on his forehead deepen as he directs a stern gaze towards Arthur, whose presence has triggered this unexpected reaction.

You have never seen him like that.

Orm‘s anger is palpable, radiating off him like waves of heat. His clenched fists and completely tense posture speak volumes, signalling a storm about to unleash its wrath. His broad shoulders are rigid, every muscle coiled with tension.

You feel your heart beating in your chest, a mix of concern and confusion enveloping you. You‘re not sure how to react.

But before you can even utter a word, Orm curtly nods towards Arthur, his jaw clenched. The silent message is crystal clear – this is not the time for pleasantries. Without further ado, Orm guides him outside, the door closing behind them.

As you stand in the kitchen, you can‘t help but notice the drastic shift in the atmosphere. The air feels tense, and you can‘t help but wonder what transpired to provoke such a reaction from Orm.

You observe them through the glass door, the transparency offering a distorted lens into the unfolding scene.

Orm‘s expression has contorted into a visage of frustration. His brows are furrowed, and the anger etched on his face transforms him, turning him into someone feral.

On the other side, Arthur appears to be caught off guard by Orm‘s reaction. He stands with a mix of surprise and contrition, facing the verbal onslaught from his brother.

Through the closed door, you catch fragments of Orm‘s voice. The tone is heated, and you can sense the palpable tension in the air.

You hear his voice, sharp and reproachful, berating Arthur for showing up unannounced. The words come in bits and pieces, like the distant echoes of a conversation carried by the wind. The door muffles the sound, leaving you with only intermittent snippets of the exchange.

“Arthur, you can‘t just...” Orm‘s voice pierces through the door, each word laden with reproach.

You see Arthur talking back but can‘t understand what he‘s saying.

“...eat a cockroach, Arthur!” Orm‘s voice surges, and you can almost feel the exasperation in his shove when his hands press against Arthur‘s chest, pushing him back a step.

Arthur‘s reaction is a mix of shock and indignation. His eyes widen, and he instinctively recoils from the force of the shove, a flicker of surprise crossing his features before finding his footing again.

Orm‘s voice escalates, slicing through the air with a sharp sense of accusation, punctuating his words with another forceful shove.

“...took my throne, my betrothed, and now my peace of mind!” Orm‘s voice carries a weight of bitterness and resentment, the gravity of his words hitting you like a sudden tempest.

Wait what?

The unexpected revelation leaves you stunned, grappling with the realisation that there are layers to Orm‘s turmoil that extend beyond the immediate situation.

As the tension between Orm and Arthur reaches a boiling point, Arthur‘s composure begins to crack. His anger builds, evident in the tightening of his jaw and the fire that sparks in his eyes.

Arthur‘s accusatory words, dripping with frustration, reverberate through the room like an unspoken challenge, “What‘s your problem, Orm?”

He not only responds with words but also looks like he‘s ready to hit back, his fists clenched and posture shifting into a defensive stance when a flicker of realisation seems to cross his face.

“You never told her, did you?” he accuses Orm, his words laden with disbelief. His tone takes a sharper edge, and the words pierce the air like a dagger.

Your heart beats rapidly in your chest, caught in the whirlwind of emotions and uncertainty. He spoke about a fiance, and now there‘s something he never told you?

The bits and pieces of the argument you manage to overhear only serve to deepen your confusion. Determined to seek clarity, you take a deep breath, summoning courage, and make the decision to step outside.

The chilly air nips at your skin, and you‘re met with the intense atmosphere that hangs between Orm and Arthur.

Determined to understand the roots of this conflict, you inquire, “What‘s going on?”

Orm remains silent, his features etched with reluctance and a hint of frustration. It‘s clear he‘s not eager to divulge the details.

Arthur, seemingly less concerned about the secrecy, interjects with a tone that swings between nonchalance and urgency, “We‘re from Atlantis. He was the Ocean Master, the king of Atlantis. But he lost it all. Too hungry for power, and I had to step in to fix the mess. And now I have to deal with the Council of Houses that want my ass.”

“Sure. And I‘m the Chinese emperor.,” you say in disbelief, the sarcasm dripping from your words. Your gaze shifts to Orm, who avoids your eyes and still appears visibly angered, with frustration and regret emanating from him.

The growing anger inside you prompts you to confront Orm directly, “You won‘t tell me what‘s really going on, Orm?” You don‘t know what‘s worse: Orm just being silent or Arthur lying to you.

“Shit, I am not lying,” Arthur exclaims, his frustration matching yours. “Orm, this is your woman, fucking tell her the truth.”

Orm finally meets your eyes, and you swallow nervously. His expression shifts to remorseful; the once-angry blue eyes now reflect sadness and uncertainty.

“Orm?” you say quietly, a plea for honesty and transparency.

“I‘m Atlantean - so is he. He didn‘t lie,” he begins, running his hand through his hair. “I have never been to the surface before...and -”

Arthur interjects with a hint of playfulness, “Look, we can breathe underwater, and I can talk to fish. The ones in your living room told me some interesting things about you two a few days ago.”

“Arthur, please,” Orm says, a mix of exasperation and concern in his tone.

At this point, you‘re just confused. You don‘t know what to believe. Surely, they must be lying. There is no way in hell Atlantis is real - it seems preposterous, Yet the sincerity in Orm‘s eyes challenges your scepticism.

Arthur somehow senses that you need some proof, and realising Orm is not in a state to do something, he strides back into the house. The urgency in his movements compels you and Orm to follow, caught in a whirlwind of confusion and disbelief.

Once inside, Arthur doesn‘t waste a moment. His eyes, now with a peculiar yellow gleam, fixate on the aquarium as he approaches.

You watch in amazement as the aquatic inhabitants respond to him. They swim in intricate patterns, almost as if following a choreographed dance. Some even seem to perform playful flips in the water, creating a surreal spectacle.

Arthur, with a mischievous glint in his eyes, turns to you and grins. “Impressive, huh?”

You find it hard to fathom the reality unfolding before you.

“Atlantis is a fun place,” Arthur continues, undeterred by the incredulous atmosphere. “Full of politics, underwater cities, and, well, talking fish.”

The surreal scene in your living room challenges the very fabric of your understanding, leaving you grappling with the notion that Atlantis, a mythical realm, might be more than just a legend.

As Arthur‘s words linger in the air, you‘re faced with the undeniable truth that the world you thought you knew is just the surface of a much deeper and more complex reality.

Your attention shifts to Orm standing beside you. As he reaches out to put a hand on your shoulder, you turn around, your voice a mix of hurt and confusion. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

Your heart thumps loudly in your chest - this is not how you envisioned the morning unfolding. Hell, you had placed trust in Orm, and you genuinely like him. However, you‘re uncertain about what this revelation means for you.

The room seems to tighten with tension, and Orm‘s response is palpably strained. “I was going to, in due time.”

The weight of his words lingers in the air, leaving you standing on shaky ground. Uncertainty creeps in, and you‘re left to grapple with the implications of this newfound knowledge. The man you thought you knew harbours a secret world beneath the surface, a world you were blissfully unaware of until now.

Feeling the need to collect your thoughts, you excuse yourself, stammering out something about needing a moment. Hastily making your way to the bedroom, you close the door behind you, the muffled sounds of conversation still audible from the other room.

As the weight of the revelation bears down on you, you find yourself overwhelmed by a rising tide of emotions.

Panic tightens its grip around your chest, and you can feel the telltale signs of an impending attack. Placing your head in your hands, you try to steady your breathing, attempting to navigate the storm of conflicting thoughts and emotions swirling within you as the room feels suffocating.

As the door creaks open, Orm enters the room, his footsteps measured and purposeful, his demeanour carrying a palpable sense of remorse. The soft click of the closing door resonates in the air as he crosses the threshold, his gaze meeting yours with a mix of regret and genuine concern.

His movements are deliberate, each step echoing the weight of emotions he carries. Without hesitation, he gracefully kneels down, his hand extending to rest on your back, a comforting touch that conveys both warmth and strength.

“Hey, it‘s going to be okay. Just take a breath, honey,” his voice is a soothing cadence, every word chosen with care.

You observe the furrow in his brow and the slight slump of his shoulders, evidence of the burden he shares with you in this moment. His presence feels like a reassuring anchor amidst the tumult of emotions.

Attempting to steady your breath, panic tightens its grip on you, “I can‘t, I can‘t-” Your words falter, caught in the throes of distress.

His voice assumes a rhythmic flow, guiding you through the storm of emotions. The deliberate pace of his words creates a sense of order within the chaos, each syllable serving as a lifeline. With each uttered phrase, you sense a gradual easing of panic, his words acting as a balm for your distressed mind.

His large hands gently brush over your cheeks and hair, reaching wherever they can. The warmth of his touch is palpable. You find solace in the softness of his fingertips and the sincerity etched in his gaze.

“You‘re doing so well, honey. Just keep breathing. I‘m here with you. You‘re safe. Inhale slowly... and exhale,” Orm‘s voice continues its calming effect, a steady stream of reassurance that envelops you like a protective cocoon.

He talks you through the panic attack, guiding you with words that carry the warmth of understanding and reassurance.

With each carefully chosen phrase, Orm helps you navigate the tempest within. The room, once suffocating, begins to loosen its grip as Orm‘s presence becomes a source of comfort and support, helping you weather the emotional storm.

You manage a shaky breath and look at Orm, gratitude in your eyes.

“Thank you, Orm. I... I didn‘t expect all of this,” you admit, your voice carrying a mix of vulnerability and appreciation.

“I know, and I‘m sorry,” he reassures, cradling your face in his hand. His blue eyes shine with worry and tenderness, a testament to his commitment to being there for you.

You observe him close his eyes, taking in a shaky breath before reopening them. He appears on the verge of tears as he apologises once again.

Instinctively, you wrap your arms around Orm. Tears held back for too long stream down your face, a release of the pent-up emotions that have been coursing through you.

Orm responds with a gentle understanding, reciprocating by wrapping one arm around you in a protective hold. With his other hand, he tenderly wipes away the tears that cascade down your cheeks, and you feel the comforting touch of his fingers on your face.

As you remain wrapped in Orm‘s embrace, you become keenly aware of the rhythmic thudding of his heart against your chest. His shaky breaths resonate in the quiet space, a testament to the emotional intensity of the moment.

In response to the palpable tremor in his breath, you softly whisper, your words a gentle reassurance, “Everything will be alright, Orm. We‘ll get through this together.” The words uttered in a hushed tone carry the weight of sincerity, weaving a sense of comfort into the shared space.

Feeling Orm‘s tightening embrace, as if he fears you might slip away, you reciprocate the gesture, bringing your arms to cup his face gently.

As you lift his gaze to meet yours, you see the aftermath of the emotional storm in his eyes. They swim with unshed tears, and the intensity of the blue is almost overwhelming. His bottom lip trembles with the weight of the shared emotions, and you can sense the vulnerability etched across his features.

Your touch on his face is both a grounding presence and an assurance that you‘re here, steadfast and unwavering.

It is at that moment that you realise that you‘re falling in love with him.

Despite lingering anger about the concealment of his Atlantean identity and Atlantis itself, you know that he didn‘t do it out of bad intentions. He did it because he was afraid, and you know that feeling all too well.

With a gentle yet firm touch, your hand buries itself in Orm‘s blonde hair, fingers tangling in the soft strands. The kiss that follows is soft, tender, and brimming with a vulnerability that binds you both.

Orm responds to the kiss, and his vulnerability meets with your own as the unsheared tears in his eyes glisten.

Breaking the kiss, he tenderly smooths your hair away from your face, apologising, “I‘m so sorry. I didn‘t mean to tell you like that.”

“I know,” you assure him, your voice carrying a soothing tone as you lean in to place a gentle kiss on his forehead. “I know.”

“I‘m glad you know now, for all that‘s worth,” a small smile graces his lips.

“I‘m glad too. It does explain a few things,” you chuckle. “I‘m looking forward to showing you more surface things - now you can actually tell me what you haven‘t seen before.”

He laughs at that, a full-blown grin spreading across his face, reaching his eyes.

“I‘m genuinely excited to see more with you,” Orm admits, his eyes reflecting a genuine curiosity and eagerness. “And I promise not to keep any Atlantean secrets this time.”

“I‘ll hold you to that, King Orm,” you share a playful smirk, “Or do you want me to call you Ocean Master?”

His head snaps up at that, and his eyes darken with a feral intensity that makes you swallow dryly. He holds your gaze for a few seconds before surging up, capturing your lips in a searing kiss.

That was not the reaction you wanted, but you‘re not complaining, you think.

You whine into the kiss as Orm‘s hands cradle your face, his touch both gentle and possessive. It‘s as if he‘s imprinting the kiss with a promise, and the raw passion sends a surge of electricity through your veins.

The kiss deepens, the feral intensity transforming into a potent blend of desire and longing. Orm‘s lips move with a rhythmic urgency, leaving little room for doubt or hesitation.

His fingers thread through your hair, a tactile exploration that sends shivers down your spine. Each touch, each caress, is a language of its own, conveying unspoken promises and a shared hunger for connection.

Breaking away, Orm rests his forehead against yours, his breath mingling with yours in the shared space.

Orm‘s eyes, still darkened with desire, lock onto yours with an intensity that leaves you breathless. His thumb traces your lower lip, a lingering touch that ignites a spark of anticipation.

“I didn‘t expect you to call me Ocean Master,” he remarks, a hint of amusement in his voice.

You laugh softly, still a bit breathless, “Well, you do seem to enjoy it.”

“Perhaps I do,” a wicked gleam enters Orm‘s eyes, and he bites down on your bottom lip before leaving a warm trail along your jawline.

Orm‘s movements are both tender and possessive, making you gasp beneath him. His touch leaves a trail of heat, a tantalising promise of more to come.

As he continues his journey, his hands find their way to the small of your back, pulling you closer. The room seems to shrink around you as Orm‘s body presses against yours, the closeness igniting a delicious ache of desire.

Orm‘s breath, warm and steady, fans over your skin, sending shivers down your spine. The scent of him, a mix of sea and musk, envelops you, adding to the intoxicating atmosphere.

You feel arousal pumping through your veins and driven by pure instinct, you lean up and whisper in his ear, “Or do you prefer to be called my king.”

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