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littlerequiem · 1 month

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— midnight ventures ˚⁎⁺ levi ackerman x f!reader (18+ MDNI)

You shouldn’t have looked and he shouldn’t have been there. But Fate can have a funny sense of humor. The punchline that night? Stumbling onto your naked Captain in a hot spring… and doing something about it.

content — Rated E - Canon universe, Snowed-in, Winter, Hot Springs, Power Dynamics, Smut, Orgasm Delay, Oral (f. receiving), Authority Kink, Unprotected sex, Creampie, Biting, Multiple Orgasms, Light dom/sub dynamics, Soft!Dom Levi (wc: 11.7k).

Thanks to my BETA @stellar-smth. Written for @sixpennydame following this prompt: "I can't get enough of you."

Crossposted on AO3.

The mountain is a lonely, cruelly cold place.

Up here, everything is covered by planes of white, endless valleys rolling and coming. Icicles cling onto winding branches, while roots are drowned in bitter cold. Even nature seems to be at a complete standstill here.

Getting lost here would be ill-advised.

And yet, here you are, stranded, with the last person you ever expected to be with.

Captain Levi Ackerman.

“That was our last one, sir,” you say as you lower the flare gun, securing it to the harness strapped to your wool jacket. Gray smoke, usually reserved to warn of the presence of abnormals, now towers above you. It was a last hope to signal someone to your location and unfortunately, no answer has come.

You are, in every sense of the word, lost.

"You grew up around here, didn't you?" comes Levi's voice, that his gravelly and magnetic tone that always makes you instantly zero-in on him. "Any of this look familiar?”

You meet his impassive stare, and you try to ignore the familiar flutters forming in the pit of your stomach.

“I did. But I’m sorry, sir, I don’t recognize these parts,” you answer evenly, glancing at the footprints in the snow. “Everything looks the same to me.”

“I see.”

You rub your hands over your covered arms, trying to create your own means of warmth. "My father used to say these mountains were a death trap come winter. I suppose there was some truth to his words.”

“A death trap.” Levi clicks his tongue. “A novelty in our lives, I’m sure.”

Your chuckle beneath your breath.

Somewhere to the north of here is a military outpost, the destination of your supply round. Unfortunately, as things stand now, you won't reach it on time. Perhaps if you had ODM gear or horses, you might have already reached it. But winter in the mountains renders both useless: the hooks don't secure properly because of the ice, and horses aren't trained to navigate such terrains.

Hence, you are doing everything by foot.

“It's going to be dark soon,” Levi points out in a monotone voice, as if this situation wasn’t a matter of life-and-death.

You stare at the darkening clouds over the horizon. "Yeah."

Levi kicks some snow with his boot, white particles clouding the air. “Let’s head back down, I saw a cabin on our way up.”

“Yes, sir.”

With his directives now laid out, you begin the walk down. Levi sets the pace, keeping a diligent speed that ensures your bodies stay warm and your minds stay sharp. For a while, that’s all there is to it. Nothing but the crunching of footsteps in snow and the wind howling across white nothing.

The silence gives you a moment to yourself, one where you're able to take in your surroundings, including the sight of your Captain next to you.

Like you, Levi’s appearance is marked by the cold. His eyes, red-rimmed; eyelashes, glistening white; his cheeks, flushed with a rosy hue; his hair, flowing and ebbing midnight.

It suits him, this look. All dressed in white, he looks beautiful.

Not exactly a surprise, you suppose. Your Captain could wear a rag and still look good.

It’s an objective, albeit unfortunate, truth. Your Captain is beautiful, magnetic, striking… and you happen to have a big, fat crush on him.

It’s not like it's a secret. You think everyone in the Corps knows at this point. The brats from the 104th love to tease you about it. So does Commander Hange, for that matter—somehow, you think it is no coincidence the two of you ended up paired for this mission.

Meddlers, they all are.

"Oi, focus on the road," Levi grumbles.

Your cheeks warm, feeling like your Captain caught you red handed with your daydreams, even if you know that, objectively speaking, there's no way he did (Levi is many things, but a mind reader isn't one of them. Thank the Walls for that.)

Despite knowing that, you can't help but stammer, "S-sir?"

"You're not focused on the road. You're going to slip and hurt yourself."

And he's right, of course. It is slippery. Dangerous, even.

But how exactly does your Captain even know you aren't focused on the path? He's not looking your way.

(Over the year, you've learned this hard truth: Levi always knows, somehow.)

A snow storm has picked up by the time the cabin comes into view. Relief expands in your chest; you were just starting to lose the feeling of your toes.

The shelter appears to be deserted. Out of courtesy, you knock several times, checking the perimeters for signs of life, but when it’s clear no one is inside, your Captain decides that survival precedes politeness.

He surprises you with a new skill: opening locked doors.

“Dare I ask when you learned to pick locks, s-sir?” you stutter as he uses the tools from his bag. His movements are nimble and practiced, like a well-oiled machine. “S-secret skill from the Underground?”

From his crouched position, your Captain shoots you a blank look. “You may not ask.”

With a click, the door swings open.

You enter, raising your oil lamp to illuminate the inside. A half-decorated living room with a dining table, a sofa, and a fireplace. There are additional rooms to the back.

"Nobody’s lived here for months,” you comment, sniveling.

“They intended to come back.” He bobs his head to the right. "There's fresh wood and supplies over there."

You hum in agreement, teeth chattering. “It’s-s common enough for folks beneath the mountains to have a second house up here. Maybe they plan on coming up come s-summer.”

Levi grunts out a sound, presumably not caring too much as to why the house is well-equipped, but glad that it is all the same. Either way, you're clearly trespassing on someone's property, and you hope that whoever this house belongs to won't mind soldiers occupying it for one night.

Knowing the Captain, they'll probably find it in a cleaner state than the one they left it in, anyway.

But before that, your Captain seems to have other plans.

“Before we do anything else, we need to take care of you,” he declares.

Your Captain’s gray eyes then narrow onto you, roving up and down. His attention makes you straighten in place, feeling uneasy to be in his spotlight. Levi closes the door with a swing of a leg. His stare never strays from his thorough inspection.

A shiver licks your spine. “S-sir?”

“You’re shaking like a leaf. Strip, now.”

Your stomach stupidly flips at Levi’s orders.

"You need to change into something dry," he adds in a rueful tone.

You chuckle nervously while your brain goes into overdrive.

... Shit.

This is going to be a long night, isn't it?

Trying to push aside all the ways you feel overwhelmed by Levi's presence (you are, after all, fucking cold), you begin to remove your ice-coated gloves. This, however, proves to be an exceptionally painful endeavor—you suck in a breath when you realize you can't completely bend your fingers. Oh, no. Why can’t you bend your fingers?

“Damn it, you’re like an icicle,” comes Levi’s sharp voice behind you. Before you can make sense of anything, you feel your Captain by your right side, seizing your hands to inspect them.

You wince.

Levi is right, of course. Your fingers feel as though they are frozen, though you know they’re not. You can still move them, just painfully.

Still, you’re not exactly feeling peachy right now. You’re visibly trembling and your balance is growing more wobbly. And why is your vision so hazy?

“Why didn’t you speak up earlier?” Levi scolds. He shrugs off his own gloves and scatters them to the floor. He grabs your hands into his own, rubbing to create friction.

You stare, watching his slender fingers—rough and calloused and yet, so gentle—encompass your own. It’s the first time he touches you like this, and even if there’s nothing romantic about the gesture, your heart somersaults all the same.

(Stress and romantic attraction cause such similar reactions, you note in passing.)

“I’m s-sorry, sir. I really didn’t realize I was feeling so cold,” you say.

“Do you have something dry to change into?"

You nod.

“Good. Go change while I get the fireplace going,” he tells you.

You do just that.

While Levi works on the chimney, you discover that the rest of the house consists of two bedrooms and a lavatory. You don’t waste time inspecting them; you quickly lock yourself in a room. The first layer to go is your coat, but everything else is eventually removed. You change into dry pants and a sweater retrieved from your bag. Then you lay out your belongings, as well as Levi’s scattered coat and gloves, on wooden chairs, placing them near the starting fire, hoping (praying) that they dry by tomorrow morning.

Levi’s just finished throwing several logs into the fire. He stands up to meet you, looking at you through a half-lidded stare.

Unlike you, your Captain's clothing is relatively dry; only his gray shirt sports wet patches, the fabric clinging to his chest. You try not to stare at his well-defined muscles for too long.

(Even if you really, really, really wish you could.)

The beginning of crackling amber hovers on one side of Levi’s face, creating sunken shadows on the opposite side.

“Looks like cleaning will need to wait. You’re trembling like a drowned rat,” he says.

You conceal a smile. “L-like the ones in the Underground, s-sir?”

“Yeah, and I’ve seen enough for a lifetime.” His eyes narrow to slithers. “Just… sit your ass down on the sofa. I’ll find blankets and make tea.” You stare at him blankly, which he seems to take as some kind of signal to press the urgency in his tone. “Fucking stay awake, got it?”

You give him a confused look, but soon catch a glimpse of yourself in one of the windows. Ah. You're not looking so well—your lips are chapped, and there's shadows plaguing your eyes.

Levi finds several blankets in a wardrobe. With your help, he moves the sofa from one side of the room to the next, positioning it right in front of the fire. Levi forces you to sit (“But sir, I can—” “Stop arguing and sit the fuck down.”), and soon, he layers covers over your shoulders.

The sofa shifts under his weight as he sits next to you.

“You alright?” he asks.

You nod, still groggy. You're still cold, but the tea is helping a little.

Still, you should really try to warm up now. You attempt to take a sip of your drink, but in your excitement, you forget the fact that fresh tea tends to be, in fact, piping hot.

It trickles down to a burning sensation down your throat. “Pah, I think I just burned my tongue.”

“Now I'm starting to think you take pleasure in inflicting pain on yourself.”

“N-no." You gulp nervously. "I just didn’t notice the tea was so hot.”

“It's tea."

"Yeah, well. I guess I'm still not thinking straight. It's just s-still so cold in here.”

You do your best to hug the cup of tea with both hands, still audibly shivering, while snuggling into the blankets Levi threw over you. In front of you, the hearth continues to warm, staining the room with a glow that's oddly comforting.

A log splinters.

Then, Levi’s voice barrels through: “Hand over the tea.”

You turn towards him.

Your Captain is fixing you with a severe frown. Without questioning his orders, you hand him the drink. You think he might add some lukewarm water to it to make it drinkable, but to your surprise, he places both cups on the cold floor close to the edge of the sofa.

A confused look draws on your face.

What now?

“Fucking come here already,” your Captain orders.

And he gestures with two fingers in his direction.

That’s when you realize what Levi’s offering. He’s… beckoning you closer.

He wants to warm you up.

You gape at him.

This isn't happening. Is it?

But apparently not interested in watching you mull this over, Levi doesn’t leave you time to consider his proposal. He yanks on the blankets draped over your shoulders, reeling you close. You heave as the back of your skull collides with his collarbone, and you readjust against the crook of his neck.

“S’ just for a moment,” he mumbles under his breath, arms settling by your side.

And who are you to contest that? He's your Captain, you can hardly disobey him (well, you know you could disobey this particular order, but it's too late for that now).

So you let him tuck you close, and you discover that Levi is warm, and you think how nice that feels after hours of walking in cold weather. In fact, Levi’s body rather reminds you of a furnace right now, burning at its strongest in winter. His embrace creates a little cocoon of body heat just for you; soon, all you can smell is him, the scent of tea leaves and cotton enveloping you into a lovely state of serenity.

(You always did love Levi's scent.)

With enough elements grounding you, you let your head roll back, pressing against his right shoulder blade, trying to ignore his steel muscles (that you can, admittedly, finally feel to some degree—and they are just as hard as you always imagined they would be).

“Fuck, you’re freezing.” Your Captain’s voice rumbles against your back, presumably feeling the cold sting of your cheek as you nestle closer.

In response, Levi’s hands slot over your forearms, something careful and hesitant about his touch. You hold your breath, feeling his fingers spread against your sweater. There, he begins to rub up and down, repeated motions that create tiny tingles down their path.

The added friction renders you speechless.

It was one thing to be so close to him before; now, your Captain is essentially stroking you. His attempts to create warmth spread like wildfire, and in an absence of coherent thoughts, you let the fire consume you.

Soon, even the fireplace growing in size doesn’t seem to phase you. It licks the cold air, spreading from all sides, but it is nothing compared to the burning sensations simmering across your neck, your cheeks, and down to your core. It’s like Levi’s touch is commanding it everywhere, this warmth, leaving you flustered and confused.

Then Levi’s fingers make contact with your bare wrist, and you jolt.

Because unlike the rest of his body, his hands are freezing.

“What… Captain! Your hands are—w-wha—” You let your voice trail, heart plummeting in your chest, when you come to a realization, a realization that makes you a little frustrated. “Hey! You were cold all along as well!”

A clicking sound resonates against the shell of your ear. “Stop yapping.”

You try to move to face him, but Levi grabs your wrists with an iron grip, keeping you locked against the expanse of his chest, making his order quite clear.

“Quit squirming and stay put,” he mutters.

“But, Captain, you gave me all the blankets,” you complain, for once foregoing your respect for him and letting your concern speak volumes instead. A decided frown settled between your brows. “What would I say to Hange if their best soldier died trying to save me?”

“I wasn't going to die."

"But what if you did?"

"Then I’m sure you’d have found a creative way to spin it.”

“You still shouldn’t have done that. I’m not worth Humanity’s Strongest.”

“Stop saying stupid shit and focus on staying warm.”

You sigh. Your Captain and his stubborn ways. He was never good at putting his needs on the line, and years of military service haven’t changed this fact.

Still, not finding the energy to argue back, you allow the conversation to die out.

It is only a minute later, as you try to relax back in your position that you notice that Levi’s breath has mellowed out as well. In fact, your Captain’s attempts at creating frictions have slowed in urgency. His pace is now languid; his fingers are wrapped around your shoulders while his thumbs slide up and down, up and down. Slow.

You imagine that the two of you rather look like two people lounging on a sofa after a long day's work.

Like lovers.

“Tea's ready,” comes Levi's husky voice, making you jump in your seat.

You swallow down all the feelings bubbling at the back of your throat—the ones begging and begging to be let out—keeping your face trained ahead.

“R-right. Um, thank you for that, Captain,” you say. "I feel all better now."

Breaking away from his embrace, you try to avoid his burning gaze. You grab both cups, handing him one without sparring him a glance.

Instead, you move to sit at the edge of your seat, far away from your Captain. Between the two of you, the covers bundle together, discarded.

“So, what do you think?” he asks.

You stare at your flustered reflection in the tea cup. "Mm?"

“Why the hell does it smell like old eggs in here?”

That takes you right out of it.

You finally look up at Levi, meeting his lidded stare. Old eggs?

“... Sorry?”

“The fucking stench,” he mutters, wrinkling his noise. “It reeks in here.”

And that’s when you realize that Levi is talking about the smell in the air, the scent that’s lingered everywhere since you entered the house, but you were too focused on everything else to notice.

An odor you know well enough.

“Oh,” you say dumbly, “that’s the smell of a hot spring.”

“What?”

You finish your cup of tea in one gulp, now just perfectly warm and drinkable, and place it back on the floor. “I think this house might have one.”

You swiftly get up, darting to the bedroom you changed in earlier.

And sure enough, as you pull the curtains open, you notice a familiar sight. The back gardens of the house, all dusted in white, are painted with steam and water.

A hot spring.

.... And you are, you realize, a complete idiot.

Why didn't you think of this before? You could have simply taken a dip to warm up.

“What’s that?” Levi’s monotone voice comes from behind. He’s close to you, hovering just behind your shoulders, but you do not turn around. You’re certain that if you do, that you will find him bathed by the moonlight and that you won’t be able to form a single coherent sentence.

“A natural body of water, sir. It’s what Commander Hange was talking about in their briefing for this mission. Hot springs are found all over these mountains..." You bite your lower lip. "I didn’t realize we were right next to a hot spring. I could have spared you all the effort in warming me up.”

“No thanks, I’ve no intentions in having us swim around in something that smells so foul,” he grumbles. “Besides, it’s not good to go from two extreme temperatures.”

You hum. “True enough.”

“It smells vile.”

“It’s the sulfur. It’s great for muscle tension.”

“Sounds dubious.”

“I promise, it’s true!”

Forgetting your own advice, you turn around to drive your point home, and you realize that Levi is close—that you could count his eyelashes, if you wanted. But you don’t, because normal soldiers don’t think about counting the eyelashes of their superior.

“W-When I was young," you stammer, "my parents sometimes brought me up to the mountains to swim in them. They’re perfectly safe.”

Levi makes a face. “I’ll pass. But I guess it’s good to know the stench isn’t coming from the house itself.”

You snort.

Levi’s eyes seem to soften, half-lidded as they were. And just as you suspected, the moonlight trickling in really does something to your Captain’s face, bathing in with a silver hue that brings out the blue in his eyes.

Don’t look at his lips, don’t look at his lips, don’t lips…

“Looks like titan steam,” the Captain suddenly comments, looking at the steam fogging the windows beyond your shoulders.

He takes a step back.

You let out a much-needed breath, one you didn’t realize you were holding all along. “Uh-huh. It does.”

You glance back towards the hot spring, noticing that the snowstorm is close to subsiding, a cloak of black draping the sky beyond.

“Well, I suppose we should get to work, now that we’re all warmed up, huh?” you suggest.

“Yeah. Let's get this dusty-old house spotless.”

That night, you can't fall asleep.

This in itself isn’t a rare occurrence—most Scouts have somewhat questionable sleeping habits. Between the world of titans and watching comrades die, there's plenty of reasons for soldiers to struggle with sleeping.

The problem is, at least tonight, the culprit isn’t insomnia.

It’s… something else.

Something that's lead your thoughts astray.

Maybe it's everything that happened with the Captain earlier, maybe it's the snowy setting that feels oddly romantic, maybe it's the cold that zapped your brain but... you keep on imagining what it’d be like to have Levi next to you, doing indescribable things to you. You imagine him turning on his pillow, taking his time to take in every line of your exposed skin. He’d unravel you with his gaze alone, you’re sure of it. Would he bestow the same intensity he reserves in training? Would his fingers hook around your limbs with the same ferocity? You think they might.

You think—

You groan, cutting your fantasies short. You and your damn fixation on Captain Levi—the one person who couldn’t possibly be less within your reach. This crush of yours must be a cruel joke from Maria, Rose, Sina… maybe all three of them combined.

More importantly, why is it all resurfacing now of all times? It's been fucking years that this one-sided crush of yours has been, just, there. In all this time, you've managed to reign in your emotions.

So why? Why won't your mind stop wandering into dangerous territories? Why can't you shut it down even now?

Whatever the reason may be, you need to find a solution to your... predicament. You suppose you could try to be quiet about it here, to bring yourself the release you desire, but you fear your Captain hearing you, given that he's sleeping in the room next to yours. You can’t imagine being caught in the act of pleasuring yourself.

No.

You need to find somewhere private.

Somewhere like…

Oh.

The hot springs.

Of course—why didn’t you think about it before?

At once, you shuffle to a seated position in your bed, glancing out of the windows of the bedroom. The weather has cleared up by now, freckles of delicate white weaving through the air. Just beyond it, the hot spring awaits.

Serene. Lovely. Inviting.

Just the kind of spot you've been dreaming of.

Sure, your Captain wasn’t too keen on the smell, but you can wash afterwards.

Yes, this will have to do.

With your grand master-plan now laid out, you quickly spring into action. You gather your belongings: a towel, boots, an oil lamp.

In the main room, the remains of the fireplace are still dim and warm. Levi is occupying the second bedroom, and his door is closed shut—just as you’d hoped. It’s well past midnight, he must be asleep.

You grin to yourself. So far, your plan is a resounding success.

Outside, the air hangs still. The blizzard's fury has long passed, leaving only delicate snowflakes that twirl gracefully through the air. You pause to savor the newfound peace, taking in the picturesque landscape: rolling hills blanketed in pristine white, majestic forests embracing the mountain's gorges.

And the hot springs.

Nestled nearby, the cabin's springs stretch impressively, their shape narrow and serpentine rather than wide. Smooth rocks jut out over the water's edges, with pines and shrubs clinging to them. Together with the rising steam, they weave a misty veil that softens your view of the night.

Shedding your clothes, you quickly step in.

And oh... the initial touch of warm water is everything you'd hoped for and more. It sends a delightful trail of goosebumps trailing across your body.

The hot spring is shallow enough for ease, yet deep enough to envelop you comfortably as you sit. As you wade deeper, the water laps gently just above your chest, soothing the day’s weariness from your muscles. You let out a contented sigh, a particular knot in your spine coming undone.

This is the respite you've craved these past hours, especially after today's strenuous hike. It's a pity, really, that your Captain was so against the hot springs. This might have done him some good.

You venture further in with a smile plastered on your face. The clear waters mirror the starlit sky above, inviting you to explore every tranquil corner of this secluded paradise.

It isn't until you're midway across the hot spring, shoulders dipped beneath the water, that a sense of unease begins to gnaw at you.

Light.

Movement.

Noise.

With the instincts of a trained Scout, you crouch into the water. Through the shrubs, you suddenly notice a pool of yellow light, too intense and artificial to be anything natural. Strange. It bears the distinct glow of the oil lamps used by the Survey Corps. More troubling still, there's a subtle sound of splashing water.

Your gaze flicks anxiously to where your clothes lie scattered, a distance away. You didn't bring a weapon with you. Should you attempt to go back?

Before you can think further on what to do next, your peripheral catches a glimpse of pale skin.

You freeze.

In the thickening steam, rising like delicate spirals into the chilly air, it’s hard to trust your eyes. This could easily be a hallucination.

But as the figure emerges, shoulders and back surfacing smoothly from the water, the reality sets in sharply.

It's him.

Captain Levi.

The man you’ve had a crush on for as long as you remember.

The man who you were just fantasizing about.

The man who’s currently naked a short distance away from you.

Oh.

Oh no.

This is bad.

Levi is clearly out for a swim. Apparently unaware of your presence, he pauses at the edge of the spring closest to a hill. He tilts his head back, hand brushing back wet hair. He looks up at the sky, oddly peaceful.

(The altitude is so high that it almost looks like your Captain could touch stars if he wanted to.)

But then your attention is drawn inexorably to the droplets cascading down his bare chest, and the full implications of your predicament crash over you.

Sure, water conceals Levi’s lower body, but his upper body leaves little left to the imagination. The curves of his shoulders, sloping down towards well-sculpted biceps. His chest, marked with scars and lines left by ODM use. His abs, well-defined and toned—a feat you know is only possible due to his diligent training ethic.

Already, warning bells ring in your brain.

What are you doing still standing here? By some miracle, Levi hasn’t noticed you. But with his perceptive senses, it won’t be long before he does.

And when that happens, you’re in trouble. Not only are you naked and gawking, but you also have no real reason to be here.

You could try to tell him you couldn't sleep. If anyone could understand, it might be Levi. The man rarely sleeps.

But you’re not entirely sure your Captain wouldn’t see right through your deception. He's sharp like that.

That can't happen. You can't admit to him the real reason you came out here: to touch yourself while thinking of him.

You need to leave. Now.

Which is why you carefully start to back away, eyes trained on him—praying he doesn't notice you.

Unfortunately, while you miraculously slipped past Levi’s attention the first time around, your luck has run out. His focus shifts, honed like a hawk zeroing in on its prey.

Then comes his voice, slicing through the quiet of the night. “Who’s there?”

The familiar timbre sends shivers down your spine and tightens the knot between your legs.

Panic sets in.

Desperate, you dive underwater, hoping to blend into the natural shroud provided by the spring.

But Levi isn’t called Humanity’s Strongest for nothing. With instincts sharper than a knife, you see the blurred outline of his pale body trudge through the water at an alarming speed.

Shit.

Levi’s voice rumbles through the water, but the meaning of his words are drowned by the elements. Your lungs burn as you begin to swim away, the mingling bubbles and steam clouding around you, the sulfuric scent of the spring sharp in your nostrils.

You pump every ounce of strength in your frantic escape.

Then a strong hand clamps around your arm, and you're dragged upwards.

“Oi!”

Instinctively, your hand lashes out, grabbing hold as your body is yanked forward. You gasp, air filling your lungs, the cold biting at your wet skin.

Your eyes round when you realize what your hand has landed on: one of Levi’s biceps.

You glance up, eyes locking with your Captain's surprised face.

A choked sound escapes you.

“What...” He says your first name, a frown settling between his militant brows. There's a lull in the conversation, like he doesn't quite believe what he's seeing, but his barking tone soon replaces it. “What the hell are you doing?”

Moments later, his lips press together in a taut line, and his biting grip tightens. He pushes back so that you're pressed against the edge of the hot spring, where he lets you go.

You land with a splash.

At once, you attempt to cover yourself using your hands, dipping into the water so that you're almost entirely submerged. Levi looms over you, apparently not feeling discomfort from being naked before you. The water level arrives below his waist, and you can’t help but notice a trail of trimmed black hair that starts just above his navel.

You want to scream.

Your eyes fleet back up. His expression is inscrutable, but his eyes carry an intensity that you've only seen reserved for training sessions.

“You have five seconds to explain yourself,” Levi grumbles, magnetic and sharp.

“I—” you begin, only to close your mouth again.

You… what? You can’t tell Levi the truth. You would rather drown than admit to your lewd intentions.

But you also have to say something.

“—I didn’t realize you were in here,” you manage with some difficulty.

There. That's not a lie, is it? You wouldn't dare to come in here if you knew your Captain would be around.

Unfortunately, your answer doesn’t seem to satisfy him.

“And why aren’t you asleep?” he asks.

You bite the inside of your cheek, watching the steam envelop Levi’s torso. “I couldn’t sleep, sir.”

“We’ve got a long hike ahead of us tomorrow. You can’t be dead weight because you wanted to go on a midnight stroll.”

You hate this… this feeling that you are letting him down. It’s everything you strive to avoid when it comes to your Captain. You’re proud to be in his squad and you pride yourself on being the best soldier you can be.

“That won't happen, sir. I can carry my weight.” You try to sound resolute, calm and collected. You fear you may be failing. “And Captain… I find it a bit odd that you're saying all of this to me.”

“What?”

Walls. You’re treading dangerous territories.

You clear your throat, waving a hand in the air. “Didn't you say the water was unhygienic? That it reeked? That we should both go to sleep?”

"Get to the point."

"I just assumed..." you mumble, chewing at the inside of your cheeks.

"Oh, I see." Something flashes in his eyes. Torture. "You hoped you could just do as you please, that the curfew rules didn't apply to you. Hate to break off your fantasies, soldier, but that's not going to happen. I'm here and you're caught."

"Well, you also need sleep, so..." you attempt, dipping your chin away from him and into the water. Levi's eyes narrow. You clear your throat. “I’m just speaking out of concern.”

“Then don’t concern yourself.”

You grimace. You're really not doing too well with all of this, are you?

You need to turn the tide, somehow.

“I apologize, Captain. But I don’t think I’m in the wrong," you try to reason. "My track record speaks for itself: I’ve never faltered, even when running on fumes. You know I haven’t. I couldn’t sleep and this seemed like the best solution to reach that end. I wasn’t planning to stay here all night or to be a burden, sir; I just needed to clear my head before going to bed.”

You look at him again, trying to stand straighter for your words.

Levi's expression doesn't falter.

Then, he lets out a long exhale, half-turning away from you. “Look, I'm not your parent. Do as you please. But don’t come crying to me tomorrow if you're tired. You better be able to keep up. I expect nothing less of you.”

Your Captain must recognize that level-headed attitude he witnessed plenty of times out on expeditions, or he wouldn’t let you go down so easily.

Levi rubs his eyelids with the tips of his fingers. “And next time, pay better attention. There are all manners of perverts in this world. Even if this place seemed abandoned, you can never be too careful. It’s unlike you to be so careless.”

You chuckle nervously. If only Levi realized you’re the only degenerate lurking these waters.

“Right,” you answer. “Lucky it’s just you.”

As you say those words, Levi looks at you—really looks at you—and something shifts in his expression. His eyes move away from your face, casting his stern gaze over the rest of your body, as if seeing you for the first time.

His attention makes your breath stop.

“You should still be careful," he says in a low tone. "Men in the military are still men.”

You swallow loudly, a delicious sensation coiling at the bottom of your stomach. There’s something suggestive in Levi’s words, isn't there? You tell yourself that it’s just him showing his concern and that it means nothing beyond that.

“As I said, lucky it’s just you,” you repeat.

Then, Levi surprises you.

He takes a step forward, cornering you further to the edge of the spring. His stare glints like starlight.

Your heart leaps. What is he doing? Outside of training, Levi never approaches you like this.

You try to keep your cool at the sudden proximity. Knowing that just one peek down, and you’d see what lies between your Captain's legs. You briefly wonder what his cock looks like.

If it’s like the rest of him…

Stop.

You need to focus now—your Captain is speaking to you.

“And who’s saying I’m not the sort of man to take advantage of a situation like this one?”

Your breath hitches, unsure if you heard him correctly. His gray eyes linger on your bare shoulders, fixing it like his stare could pierce through them.

Is he... is he testing you?

Your eyes meet again. His pupils are dilated, yours are wide.

“I know you,” you hear yourself say, “you’re not that type of man.”

For a moment, neither of you speak. Snow continues to dust the air, melting into the warm water surrounding you both. A faint gust of wind wheezes from down the mountain.

“You have that much faith in me, do you?” Levi asks quietly.

Your eyes flit back up. Levi has dipped further down into the water. He looks... pensive, eyes fixing his rippled reflection.

The sight of him so close almost takes the air out of your lungs.

And you’re reminded of how handsome your Captain is.

In all the years you’ve known him, all you could do was admire him from a distance—trying to keep your feelings and attraction for him in check. But Levi has always been beautiful, even when you denied yourself the opportunity to think so.

Deep-set eyes that remind you of muted skies—the occasional spark of blue shining when the sun hits his face just right. A velvety undercut that you know he trims himself every other week, the rest of his shiny hair parted in the middle. Rosy lips that appear permanently pressed together—only you’ve seen it: on the rare occasions that your Captain allows himself a downtime to drink a cup of tea with his squad and friends… yeah, the corners of his mouth twitch upwards, and the world is graced with one of Levi’s rare smiles. It’s a sight that you’ve kept locked in your heart.

“Yes,” you whisper, “I do.”

Levi's eyes come smoldering back onto you. “Speak up.”

“I would follow you to the ends of the earth, Captain Levi.”

It's true.

You first agreed to join Levi’s squad because you’d seen him fly, seen the way he handled his ODM gear. You grew to respect him like no one else. You stayed because of the sort of leader Levi proved to be. He didn’t demand authority like the rest, but he exuded it all the same. He didn’t care to be Humanity’s Strongest, but he still garnered hope and made people believe in him.

“I mean it,” you add, “I’m devoted to you.”

Levi's face pinches. “Careful with your words. I don’t like thoughtless sheep.”

“That’s not what I mean. You know I’m not scared to question your orders if I disagree with them. I’m smart and I’m strong. But even so, you’re the person I followed when I joined the Scouts. I would do anything for you.”

His eyes do not blink. “Anything.”

“Anything.”

Levi swallows heavily, taking a step back.

“Don’t say shit like that," he mutters. "Anything is everything. Other people would abuse your willingness. You should be careful.”

A moment passes by. You lick your lips, already moistened by the fog. Suddenly, you recall the actual reason for being here. You’re hot, burning. Like if you don’t get the release you desire, you might just need to cool off in the snow somewhere.

It might be why you dare to say your next words.

“Do you want to abuse my willingness?” you ask.

Levi’s stare darts back to you. Before you can control it, you squeeze your thighs tightly together, finding the tension unbearable. Levi takes notice: his eyes burn up and down, mouth parted.

It's maybe Levi's stupor that makes you act next. You push yourself up on the balls of your feet, rising with an arm draped over your breasts. The water provides a somewhat decent cover over what lies below your waist, but it does nothing to stop runlets plowing down your exposed curves.

Levi’s goes still.

And you push through.

“I lied, Captain Levi,” you tell him.

His brows knit together.

“The truth is, I came out here because," you avert your gaze, "… because I needed relief.”

“Relief.”

“Yes, relief in the…," your cheeks grow warm, "physical sense, I mean.”

“You mean masturbation.”

“You’re putting it rather plainly, but sure,” you mumble. “I.. I’d still like that relief, sir.”

“Look, whatever depravity you’re up to does not concern—”

“With you. I'd like for it to be with you.”

Everything goes still after that.

Levi’s entire face is blank, as if he sucked in all his emotions. All you can hear is the light gust of wind, swallowed by the mountains.

“What..." Levi opens his mouth, then closes it shut again as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. The knot in his throat bobs in what you can only describe as the most painful seconds of your life. You swear your heartbeat must be loud enough for him to hear. "What you're suggesting. You realize that it’s against the rules.”

“I realize, sir,” you say.

“That I’m your Captain and you’re my subordinate?”

Dread settles at the bottom of your stomach. Yikes, you’re in for one of his lectures, aren’t you?

“Yes, Captain Levi.”

“That both of us could get in trouble if this gets out?”

... What?

Your eyes flit up.

Did you hear him correctly?

Levi assesses you. He takes a step forward and you shrivel back as he plants his arms on either side of your body, caging you in. He dips down into the water to come eye-level with you.

“Tell me,” he murmurs, stare never straying from yours.

You blink. Is your Captain seeking to understand your desires?

"S-sir?” you stutter.

“Tell me what you want, if you could have it,” he says.

Oh shit, he is. Your Captain is actually trying to understand what you want.

“Oh, um," you fumble with your words, heartbeat climbing up to your throat. Truthfully, you never expected to make it this far, so you feel unprepared. "Well, in my fantasies, my partner would… touch me, sir.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere. But I suppose it begins with a… kiss.”

Levi’s eyes flicker to your lips.

Oh, fuck.

"Show me."

Your eyes widen. "S-show you?"

"That's what I just said."

Now, normally, you'd be the type to overthink and overanalyze just about everything. So when your Captain says those words, beckons you closer, you stop thinking.

You do as he asks and you kiss him.

And you discover that his mouth is soft, like velvet on skin.

Then Levi leans into you—moving his lips over yours, cupping your cheeks with more vigor—and you realize that it’s truly happening. Your hands fall onto his chest bone and his heartbeat sparks under your fingertips. It's his heart. The heart he dedicated to the Survey Corps—it's yours, if only for a brief moment.

And reality crashes on you.

You’re kissing Levi Ackerman. Your Captain. Humanity's Strongest.

Holy shit.

Not wanting to waste this fleeting opportunity (because surely, this can't last), you slide your tongue further into the depths of his mouth. Levi lets out a hum of approval, and you taste him—taste the chamomile he drinks most evenings and the mint from his toothpaste.

When your eyes venture open, you find that your Captain’s steely gaze is already fixed on you, watching you through a half-lidded stare. You can see the clear blue ring around his silver irises.

It only makes you want him more.

"C-captain," you say through the kiss.

Levi breaks apart briefly. “Tell me.”

You take his hand and guide it to your chest.

“T-touch me here. Please.”

Levi acquiesces, gripping the bud of your nipple between two fingers and pinching, hard.

Pleasure ripples through your body, making you whimper in place.

At that moment, you can only imagine what you look like—flushed, pliant and pleading for more. You’ve never shown this side of yourself to him before; you wonder if it repulses him.

Wrong, utterly wrong. The opposite seems to be true, in fact; your Captain seems to delight himself with this facet you are revealing.

“Desperate, are we?” he murmurs into the shell of your ear, tone dripping with a husky sense of satisfaction.

Before you can answer to his teasing, his mouth moves over your neck, while his hands continue to caress your breasts. The contrast of temperatures is so stark—the hot spring so warm, his skin so cold—that it makes you audibly gasp.

Your hands slide up towards his nape, and you brush the brittle undercut and twist, tugging him closer.

That’s when you feel it… the hardness—his hardness, pressing against your plump flesh.

At the contact, the Captain groans against your throat, biting down without restraint. You whimper, attempting to push back, but Levi's teeth don't let go.

"Quit squirming," he mutters.

Your warm breath clouds the air. “C-captain, please.”

“Mm?”

"Please touch me. I can’t bear to wait anymore.”

In response, Levi slides his free hand to tug at your hair. He pulls on your locks, exposing the side of your neck for him to ravish, nibbling from the tip of your ear to your collarbone.

“Don't you know that all good things come to those who wait?” he says.

Vindictive that your Captain is depriving you of what you’ve asked, you decide to give him a taste of his own medicine. You roll your hips forward, grinding against him, a fleeting attempt to make him just as desperate at you are.

Levi hisses as your soft curves plow against his erection. “You little minx.”

He pulls you back to shoot you a glare. Dangerous move, his eyes convey. And yet, it also gives you a glimpse into his state and, oh... interesting. You aren’t the only one who’s flustered, you realize—rosiness dusts his cheeks and his pupils are wide-shot black.

Your lips quirk into a playful smile.

Levi shrugs with one arm, looking away. “Be patient, will you?” His voice is hoarse. “I’m not someone who does things half-way.”

You roll your eyes. “Uh-huh. Believe me, I’ve noticed.”

Levi lets out a grunt that’s so decidedly him.

Suddenly, Levi completely lets go and your body drops into the water. You frown. One of Levi's lids twitches.

“What are you doing?” you ask.

“Teaching you some patience. Wait here and stay put."

"But, you said—“

“—that's an order.”

You close your mouth, shivering at the commanding tone in his voice. You aren't sure how you'll be able to go back from this after tonight—listening to his orders on the battlefield is going to be a nightmare.

Nonetheless, you do as he says, watching as he swims offshore where the oil lamp is placed.

And the whole situation hits you like bricks.

Holy shit.

You just kissed Captain Levi. And you're about to do more with him.

Why exactly is it happening now, of all times, you wonder? Why is your Captain allowing this?

In all the years you’ve been working alongside the Captain, you always thought your crush had gone unnoticed, or if Levi knew, that he had ignored it altogether.

Your observations are cut short as Levi comes back, holding up his towel and his green cloak above the water's surface.

You raise a questioning brow.

“I’m not touching you in this water, natural spring or not.” Your Captain unfolds the towel as he places it neatly over the smooth edge of the hot spring that's snow-free, casting the cloak behind. He shifts his blank stare on you, and taps on the ground with one hand. “Sit.”

You gulp, self-conscious at the idea of exposing yourself like this. Sure, it’s nighttime, and sure, the steam obscures the air, but he’s demanding a level of vulnerability that you hardly give out.

Levi picks up on your hesitation in a flash of a moment, reading you like a book. “You can still back away from this, you know.”

“I… no. No, I want this.” And you do—the way your core pulsates even now should be a telltale sign of just how much you want this. “I really want this.”

“Then what? You’re never uncertain during expeditions.”

“That’s because I know my shit out there. It’s not that easy with you. This is scary.”

Levi scoffs. “You think I’m scarier than a titan?”

“Of course not. But I overthink.”

Levi traps your chin between two fingers, tilting your head so you’re forced to look at him. “Then don’t think.”

You falter, mouth parting. Levi skims a thumb over your lower lip. The sudden gentleness behind his words, combined with his actions, makes you falter.

“Okay,” you find yourself whispering back.

“Okay, what?”

You meet his stare head-on. His eyes are no longer a muted silver, but turning towards a stormy gray. They demand an answer.

And you have just the thing to give him.

“Please help me not to think, Captain.”

Levi lets out a long hum as he slides closer. There, he takes the time to kiss your forehead, your cheeks, your nose, your neck, all the while his hands create a path down your body, exploring for the first time.

“Is that what you want?” he asks in a low tone. “For me to help you stop thinking?”

“Y-yes." You swallow loudly. "You have complete control. Do whatever you want to me, just... get me there.”

In one movement, Levi plucks you off the ground, his hands gripping your ass as if you weighed nothing at all. You squirm in his grip, clutching his back for support as your wet flesh slides against his own. He then carefully places you onto the towel so that you're sitting on the edge of the hot spring, your calves dipping into the water. The rocks under you are smooth, and you now tower over him.

Levi takes a step back to admire you, his eyes roving over every facet of your body, tracing your curves with meticulous care.

It makes you squirm in place. “Captain…”

“Levi,” he answers without missing a beat, engrossed in admiring your body. He parts your legs as he anchors himself in between them, where he draws circles along your rib cage, thumb slotting along every dip.

“Huh?”

His silver eyes look up to you, a fire in them that wasn’t there before.

“We’re not here as soldiers, so. Just call me Levi,” he says.

One hand nestles along the flesh of your waist while you tremble in his arms. Levi angles your head sideways with his other palm, siphoning your neck with kisses before finding a sensitive spot that makes you gasp.

“Alright… ah, Levi,” you say with some difficulty. It feels strange to call your Captain so informally, but there’s something arousing about it too.

"And if I do anything that displeases you or that feels too much, just so."

"Say what?"

He pulls back for a moment. "I don't know, pick something."

"Anything?"

He nods.

You think about it for a moment when the idea hits you. "Okay... Green, red. Formation colors."

Levi scoffs. "Titan formations."

"You said to pick, so I picked. Still a soldier through and through, right?"

"Whatever you say."

Levi’s hand trails to your chest, moving to cup one of your breasts between his nimble digits. His thumbs toy with it while his tongue finds its place along the valley of your second breast.

His hot breath drifts against the tip of your hardened tit, “I'm gonna go down on you.”

Before you can answer, Levi flicks the bud of your nipples with his teeth, swirling his tongue in circles that sparks pleasure everywhere—leaving you to moan and hold onto his set of hair.

Your words tumble mid-breath. “Are you s-sure?”

Levi’s stare lock with yours, his lips still sealed to your breast. He pulls away with a pop, a thread of saliva connecting between his mouth and your nipple.

The sight makes you want to scream.

“Have I ever said anything I didn’t mean?” he asks.

A shiver runs down your spine.

“No… I guess not. I… fuck, okay, yes. Go down on me, Levi. Green, so fucking green.”

Levi takes a step back, using your name to usher you into execution. “On your back, then, and put my cloak on. You’re not catching a fucking cold from this.”

I don’t think I’ll be getting cold with what's ahead, you think to yourself.

Nonetheless, you comply with his orders. You slide his cloak over your shoulders and prop your elbows down. Before you can blink, Levi pulls you towards him by the grip of your thighs, causing your back to lie flush with the ground. You glance at him, bewildered.

Levi has wrapped his hands around the meat of your legs, parting them to have full access. There's a wild glint to his eyes, like what you have between your legs is making him lose himself. Before you can blink, Levi begins to heed kisses on the inner parts of your legs, his touch slow and treacherous. It makes your hips buck, twitching beneath him.

“Sensitive, are we?” Levi tuts, his warm breath tickling your skin.

Any clever answer you might have given him is snuffed out as his warm breath falls on your sex. His hot tongue dips into your folds, something almost wicked in the way he rams in. You jerk up, calves sliding out of the water to wrap themselves around his neck.

You shoot up to grab a fistful of his hair.

But Levi stops you in your tracks. He pulls back, gathering your wrists in one hand. “Stay put. You can look but you can’t touch.”

And with that, he flings your wrists to your stomach, clinging onto you as his other hand pins one leg down. Then, he relishes in the wetness between your legs, slowing down in a manner that’s oh so sensual.

That wicked little man.

“Captain,” you complain, trembling beneath his touch. You can’t take it anymore—not being able to move, being held down as he unravels you, and now he teases you with his tongue?

It’s too much and at the same, it's not enough.

In response, Levi doubles down on his efforts.

“S-s-shit,” you breathe out, your mind going into overdrive from being pinned like this.

You knew of Levi’s strength, of course. Everyone within the Walls knows about Humanity’s Strongest. You’ve even had the privilege to witness it firsthand on expeditions.

But seeing it used in his lovemaking, well… it's something else entirely.

“You fucking tease. You're doing it on purpose, aren't you?” you mutter.

His voice hums against your sex. “And what if I am?”

That’s when Levi hits your spot, tenderly sucking on your clit in a way that makes you heave. This time, you can’t help but release a louder moan, hips arching up to meet his lips.

But just as you're about to reach that bliss you've craved all along, Levi pulls away.

You're left cold. Aching.

You tilt your head to gape at him. Levi’s mouth glistens with your slickness, but it does nothing to quell down your frustration.

What the hell is he doing?

You’re about to mouth him off when his expression shifts, stormy eyes narrowing.

“Patience,” he grits out.

It’s painful, the way he just delayed your orgasm. In the absence of his touch, your core throbs, begging for some kind of release.

So despite him being your superior, you can’t help but let out disgruntled words, “I don’t like being delayed, sir.”

Levi scoffs as his hands travel back onto your dampened skin. “I always knew you’d get bossy in bed.”

Your brows raise, wondering if you heard him correctly. Does this mean your Captain has thought about you… in bed?

Before you can ask, Levi moves on, dipping back into the task at hand. He shoves your legs apart, pinning you in place with an iron grip. His other hand trails over your damp inner thigh, positioning one finger at the entrance of your vagina, a digit sliding in. You feel your walls clench around his finger, pleasure ebbing through you as he discovers that magic spot that makes your toes curl.

“Perfect fucking cunt,” Levi slurs against you, cheek pressed against your shaking leg as he glides his deft finger with steady movements, mouth nuzzling closer to your silky clit.

You whimper at his praises, hips bulking up to chase his tongue. You try to keep quiet, but the more your Captain learns where to hit your points of pleasure, the more you think you may not maintain this charade for very long.

You realize that the way he delayed your orgasm has made the buildup now so much more intense. Your muscles tense, like a spring about to let loose.

So the relief that comes from Levi’s mouth wrapping against your clit again brings tears in your eyes. Pleasure seeps in. You try to grind against him to chase it even faster, but Levi remains unwilling to allow you to assert your dominance here—he keeps you pinned, keeping complete control, like he said he would.

More—you need more.

“Please, Captain. Please, please, please.”

In response, Levi doubles down on his efforts. It's as if all he needed was to hear you plead to give you exactly what you want. His digit rams into you, the pad of his thumb moving to tease you while his tongue flicks your clit with increased fervency.

Your heart drums quicker than a horse’s canter.

“… shit, shit, shit,” you choke.

When you open your eyes again, you find that Levi’s face is locked on you already—his compact muscles tense, his usual steel-eyes now a smoky haze. If only you knew what this is doing to him. His mouth seals on your bundle of nerves with a groan, his digit curling to rub your g-spot, thrusting with well-timed movements.

And then, he hits the point you were begging to be touched all along, groaning into your folds…

Right.

There.

The coil splits and your climax flares.

Your mouth opens to release a silent scream, skull rolling back as tiny warm tingles swim through your body.

Holy hell.

Levi stays with you through the orgasm, riding the bliss with you. He takes in the sight of you coming undone for him—learning from it, committing it in his memory.

Legs shaking, you don’t even register Levi tending to you as you come down. He licks your wetness pulsating in his mouth, enraptured in the taste of it as he takes it all in. With meticulous dexterity, he slides his coated fingers into his mouth, watching you as he goes about it.

“Oh, f-fuck,” you stutter out.

In response, Levi only continues to pepper kisses over your trembling legs. A madman, you think.

After a moment, Levi’s touch slides away. The sound of water sloshing as he pushes himself out of the hot spring.

Your head lulls sideways to admire him.

Levi’s neck is flushed—whether from the stream or from going down on you, it’s hard to tell—but it’s about the most bewitching sight you’ve ever seen. He sinks to his knees, like a religious man kneels before the Three Goddesses, and your breath falters as you catch sight of his erection.

He’s hard, tip flushed red. A trail of black hair paves down from his navel to his erection, while the rest of his body glistens under the moonlight. Sinewy muscles and tendons, locked together—years of relentless training and surviving on display.

The sight of it makes it impossible to think.

“Captain Levi,” you say with some urgency.

“Mm?”

“I’m gonna need you inside me. Now.”

“Are you ordering me around?” There's slight derision in his voice, twisting your insides.

“Yes,” you lick your lip, eyes locking with his, “that’s right, I’m ordering you.”

Levi huffs, forearms flexing as he crawls towards you—slowly, like a predator does its prey. With his body still warm from the hot spring, it creates a fog around him, his pale skin gleaming like gossamer.

Levi's voice remains steady, eyes impassive, but there's a hint of something in his eyes that tells you he enjoys being spoken back to.

“Someone thinks highly of herself, ordering her Captain around,” he chastises.

“Said Captain has yet to say no.”

“And why would I refuse you?”

At that, your Captain captures your lips. Your savor the way his body molds into yours, tasting your muskiness on his tongue. A wonderful sensation overwhelms you then—knowing you allowed your body to succumb to his touches, knowing he wanted to taste you in this manner.

As he breaks away the kiss, you can't help but continue to ask for more.

“Sir…”

Levi tugs at your waist, sliding you back down with force. “What did I say about calling me by my name?”

He looms over you, his bangs dusting his face. Your lips twitch into a coy smile, sliding your fingers into his slick hair. It's so soft.

“And what if I want to call you by your title?” you ask.

“Oh, is that how it is?” Despite the neutral tone in his voice, there’s something dark in his stare, heightened by pink cheeks and red ears. He strokes the ball of your shoulder with his thumb. “You’re one of those people who gets off on authority, huh?”

You grip his arms, turning your head away. Levi rubs his cock over your clit, teasing you and spreading your wetness. You mewl.

“You're lucky I'm feeling generous,” Levi says in your ear. “You better use it well."

Your breath catches in your chest as the tip of his length enters you. His warm hands skim over the flesh of your body, letting you slowly adjust to him, cradling you.

“That will all depend on you, Captain Levi,” you manage to pant out, letting the l sound roll of your tongue.

He grates out your name. “So fucking mouthy.”

“Well, I learned from the best, sir.”

Levi’s stare locks onto you, gazing at you like he was in a trance. His Adam's apple bobs. He almost looks vulnerable for a split moment.

“You've watched me, have you?” he says in a low tone.

Your cheeks warm at the suggestion in Levi’s words, mouth parting to contest when you feel his forefinger run along your lower lash line. Your eyes meet his piercing gaze.

He leans close, mouth hovering close to yours.

“I've watched you too,” he confesses.

And then, Levi slams into you.

Your cry mixes in with Levi's groan. Reaching blindly for something to hold on to, wanting—needing—him to understand just what he’s doing to you, you settle on clawing at his back. Levi’s thrusts are treacherous—painfully slow at first, pounding with full intensity.

The way of a man trying to ruin you.

“Holy s-shit,” you breathe, puffs of white clouding the air.

Levi holds you close as his hips roll forward to settle on a cadence that matches your vices, his flushed cheeks pressing against yours. You hook your fingers, grinding into his touch—your mind edging towards complete absolution.

“F-fuck,” he mutters, voice decadent. "You're so. Perfect.”

His words cause something delicious to swirl within you.

Levi slings an arm around your back, the other hooking up one knee to position himself deeper, slipping out and back into your wanting heat. You watch as his lips press together like he were trying to contain back a moan, but it’s obscured by your vision blurring at the sensation of his length stretching you out.

With one traitorous jerk, your walls throb in pleasure, eyes brimming with tears as you stare at Levi’s pale skin and the snow mingling together. Your nails scratch his hips, leaving red marks on his soft, plush skin.

“Levi,” you plead.

Levi, what? You aren’t sure what you’re calling out to him for. You’re too forgone, too dizzy, to notice you used his first name, let alone find the words to finish that thought.

His back muscles go taut under your fingertips, his spine moving in accordion with the rolling of his hips.

More.

“Captain, please, please—.”

“Be patient,” he grits out. His tousled hair clings over his forehead, lips parting as your bodies merge into one. “Fuck, I’m gonna—”

Suddenly, he pulls out of you and flips you over so that you’re on all four. He angles your waist up, one hand pinning your neck down, the other holding onto your hair, as he slides back in..

Then Levi moves down on you and bites your right shoulder—hard. Pleasures ripples through your body, feeling his mark on your skin.

"Color?" he asks, voice shaking.

"Ngh... green, so fucking green." You whimper, nails scratching at the soil. “Do it again."

And Levi only delivers, his bite turning to something strong enough to bruise as he thrusts into you.

You wonder what Levi looks like up there, gripping at your waist while the rest of your body curves face down. You wish you could frame a picture for yourself to stow away.

If you could see your Captain, you’d see that his eyes are trained on the sight of your naked body glistening with sweat. You’d catch him fixing his cock getting lost inside of you, your walls clamping around him. You’d see the way his eyes marvel at your curves—how your body blends with valleys of snow over the horizon. You'd see the blush spreading from his neck to his ears, burning the way you are.

A state of euphoria.

“F-f-fuck. I can't get enough of you,” you hear him confess.

Can’t get enough of you? Are you hearing him correctly? Since when does your Captain speak like that?

Still, his words seem to ignite something inside you, emboldened to see more of this side your Captain is revealing.

“Tell me,” you murmur, pleasuring building and building.

His answer doesn’t miss a beat, straightening up to pound into you harder. “You drive me crazy.”

Levi’s fingers dig into your flesh, something needy, something bruising, about his grip.

“Yeah? Then let me let you in on something, Levi… Captain, ah,” you mutter, eyes fluttering as he continues to fill you up. “The reason I came out here in the first place was because… ngh, I wanted to imagine your fingers touching me. Wanted to imagine it was you fingering me.”

“F-fuck,” Levi hisses.

He grips your hips with full-blooded vigor, siphoning into you with a quickened pace.

“Captain, I—”

But your words die out when three fingers find a place on your swollen clit. Your brain short-circuits.

Your orgasm splinters into the night.

You go boneless, sagging into pure bliss, while Levi continues to thrust into you. Feeling your walls clench so tightly, creaming his length, he follows soon after—the rushing heat of his climax answers your own, his pulsing cock engulfed by your heat.

And your brain? Your brain is numb.

For a moment, all the two of you can do is pant and attempt to regain your senses. One of Levi’s hand rests on the small of your back, while you slowly uncurl your fingers from the ground.

Eventually, Levi slides out of you. He uses the towel to help you clean up. You watch him go about it, mind still delirious, something almost coy about the way he handles the aftercare of your lovemaking.

When all is said and done, a comfortable silence fills the air.

It’s now well past twilight, and both of you only have a precious few hours before you’re back on the road.

Neither of you are particularly tired. You let your sore body slide back into the warm water with your Captain by your side. You watch the mountains slope down, elbows perked on the edge of the hot spring, basking in the utter peace that comes from this sort of silence.

You lean a cheek on your propped hand to watch him. A light breeze tousles Levi’s black hair, faint snow dusting the air. You count the scars twined on his torso, wondering about the story behind each one.

Maybe one day, your Captain might open up about each of them.

"Did it work?" Levi interrupts the trembling silence, watching as you draw circles over the smooth edge of the hot spring.

Your eyes circle around to meet his cloudy stare.

You raise a brow. "Did what work?"

"Did you stop thinking?"

You snort, recalling your pleading request. "Yeah. I stopped thinking. And... thank you, by the way."

Levi hums. There's another lull in the conversation, filled with comfortable silence.

“I guess I don’t need to tell you that this should remain between us,” he says.

That makes you roll your eyes. “Aw, you wound me, Captain. Here I was hoping to gossip with everyone about the way you like to eat people out.”

Levi shoots you an unimpressed look.

“I’m not stupid, Levi,” you add.

Levi clicks his tongue. “No, just too fucking ballsy. Never knew your mouth ran so wild.”

You smirk. “Well, sorry to say, sir, but you’ve not seen half of what my mouth can do.”

You swear a a rosy hue dusts the ridge of his nose. “You're a shameless thing, you know that?”

You laugh, tilting your head sideways. “I told you. I know what I want.”

“Clearly,” he remarks, eying you. “And you’ve wanted this for a while.”

Despite having just had his face buried between your legs, you can’t help but feel a little embarrassed at that comment and the confession it demands of you.

“Never said that,” you dismiss.

“No? What were your exact words? That you—”

“Don’t repeat what I said!” you hiss, glaring at him. “It was in the heat of the moment. You can’t hold it against me.”

Levi grunts in an amused way, a ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. You watch him through half-lidded eyes, unsure how he might use this knowledge. You didn't think about any of it before, but where do you go from here?

Levi gives you that answer seconds later. He raises a hand to your face, tugging a strand behind your ear and swirling his thumb over your jaw.

“Well, next time you dream of my fingers, just come to me,” he says simply.

There’s an intensity in his gray eyes that wasn’t there before.

You go still.

Next time?

Is that a promise?

His thumb presses over your neck, feeling you gulp against his fingertip. Your stomach contracts in anticipation.

Oh, it is a promise.

You could get used to this new side of your Captain.

And then Levi retreats, eyes never wavering from yours, and bobs his head towards the chalet.

“Now to the shower, we’re not reeking come morning.”

“But—”

“That’s an order, soldier.”

You sigh.

There’s the Captain you’ve grown to like so much.

— Masterlist / Join my taglist / Spotify Playlist that inspired this fic Heart divider by saradika-graphics - the rest is by me ~

Taglist: @l3visthighs, @bejewelledd, @nube55, @thephantomtheory, @levilxvr, @halloweenmedic, @notgoodforlife, @sixpennydame, @youre-ackermine, @starrylevi, @loyal2rin, @levistealeaf, @queen0sharena, @levisecretgfblog, @bitchymanlet

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highvern · 6 months

Text

Heart of the Sea

Pairing: Jeon Wonwoo x fem!reader

Genre: angst, romance, adventure, pirate!au, royalty!au

Content Warnings: weapons, graphic depictions of violence, blood, mentions of drowning, prostitution, depictions of parental abuse, torture, drugging, alcohol, death, eventual smut, unhealthy relationship dynamics/toxicity, they're pirates and not the peter pan silly goofy kind.

reader warnings: reader has breasts, long hair but i try not to describe more than length, she/her pronouns, and referred to as "princess"

Length: ~22k

Note: ITS FINALLY HERE!! longest fic I've ever written. my pride and joy. this is a dark fic and i tried to make the warnings as clear as possible. the romance is a slow burn. please do not interact if you may be triggered! take care of yourself first!

extra warning: MINORS DNI! 18+ ONLY! You will be hard blocked!

read more here

Old Friends

Salt water on the stale air caresses your senses awake, rousing you from your deep slumber as the gentle rocking of the tide tempts you to return to its depths. In the belly of the ship, only the gentle flame of an oil lantern hanging from the ceiling illuminates the dark closet you call your room. Just wide enough that your palms lay flat against each wall when your arms are extended, deep enough to hang a hammock for restless dozes through the night.

Something is wrong.

A ship full of thieves, criminals, and other degenerates never quiets to an eerie silence such as this. The lap of the ocean at the wooden sides of the vessel drowns most noise but she seldom comes away with a clean sweep like she does currently.

Something is very very wrong.

Twisting out of the hammock, your feet hit the floor with a slash. The black oily surface of water reflects in the dim light, consuming the entirety of your boots, soaking up to the middle of your shins. A quick survey of your space shows your only possession, a small leather trunk, bobbing in the corner.

The real prizes decorate your figure. Daggers tucked in their sheaths, littering their usual hiding places: one tucked under each cuff of your shirt, the largest one strapped to your thigh, one in the lining of each boot, and several strapped to the leather belt across your chest. Your revolver sits on your hip, golden neck polished, loaded like you left it before dozing off.

The door to this room is one of the few that sits less than an inch off the ground. Meaning the water in here is likely nothing compared to what's beyond the thick piece of wood. You need to get out of here. Out of this room and out to the deck.

Steadying yourself, you plant your feet in a fighting stance, preparing for the force that will race in once the door opens. Barely a turn of the knob, a click of the latch and the door is blown wide; smacking into the wall behind as the sea rushes in, informing you that the water beyond is up to your thigh as it threatens to knock you off your feet.

The worn wood of the threshold threatens to rip your nails as you hold on for dear life. If you fall into the flood, it's over. You won’t be able to get back up, crushed under the weight of the ocean’s will. It's the first thing you learn on a ship: the sea takes and takes and she doesn’t return what she’s claimed no matter how much you plead. And if you do get away, she’ll come to collect eventually.

Arms straining and thighs burning, you force forward against the onslaught. By the time you exit the confines of your room , the water is at your chest. Caressing your collar bones, lapping at your neck like a crude noose. The jostle of your movement claps waves into your face.

I’ve got you now. The sea whispers. Finally ran out of borrowed time, little bird.

Salt water burns your nose with each bob of your head as you work towards the stairs leading up and out. The tang floods your mouth, pooling in the back of your throat; choking you, silencing your scream for help.

Give up. The seductive voice purrs in your ear. Come to me. Let me give you oblivion.

When the ocean finds home in your lungs, you let her take what she’s owed.

A knife to the throat is a less than friendly way to greet your second but Wonwoo should have expected it. His mistake for standing too close to wake his captain.

Wild eyes stare up at him, cataloging his features as the cool metal point pinches his airway. Sharp eyes, firm mouth, scar from temple to chin. He doesn’t flinch as you press a little firmer, forcing the dagger into the pale skin of his neck. Finally, safe triggers in your head.

Still, it takes a few seconds before your muscles relax enough to let you retract the small piece of steel.

“You’re needed on the deck.”

A shuddered breath is all the response he gets before you wave him out.

Wonwoo refuses to move, pointed gaze burning yours.

“Handle it.” You bark.

“Told me not to make deals in your name.”

That peaks your interest.

“Who is it?”

“Stragglers from a sinking ship.” He reports. “Seokmin pulled them from the wreckage.”

“Of course he did.”

If Wonwoo was a stupider man he’d mistake the exasperation in your tone for fondness. But he’s not. If Seokmin was less valuable then his ass would have been at the bottom of the sea months ago. But the strikes against him are stacking higher and higher, and your goodwill is running out.

Today, you’re in one of your better moods. Seokmin will probably end up back in the wreckage with the sorry sailors he saved if none of them prove to be of any use. That is, if you let them take a breath after finding out just who exactly is standing above you.

“What colors?”

Their allegiance. The flag had been long gone by the time the three men were pulled from the chilly depths. But the brands on their necks tell it just the same. A circle with a vertical line through the middle.

“Krakens.”

You're out of your bed and up the stairs before Wonwoo can blink.

Face cold as the winter wind that screams from the north, you hone in on your target the second you're in the daylight. Seokmin doesn’t see it coming as you round on him. The brass knuckles swirling around your fingers rips a sizable gash across his cheek as the crack of your hand rings out, silencing your audience.

He falls to his knees as his own hands move to protect his face, a pained “Fuck!” leaving his lips.

“You’re lucky I don't shoot you!” You spit, lips curled and teeth bared.

Garnet blood dripping from his chin to the wooden planks only furthers your disdain for the man in front of you. The gun on your hip sings like a siren but you have bigger problems to deal with. Seokmin won’t get the bullet with his name engraved on it today but tonight he should pray to whatever powers be that it finds another target first.

Whirling to the three strangers backed against the main mast, you eye them up and down. Wonwoo was right to wake you, because looking you in the eye with a shit eating grin is the demon you’ve been avoiding for years. The reason for your nightmares. The reason for the lump of hardened charcoal where a beating heart should be.

“Miss me?” he smirks.

In a flash, the revolver is in your hand. The shot hits dead center of the scant inches between his feet, smoke rising from the hole embedded in the surface of the deck. Whisps still rise from the muzzle of the gun as you cock the second bullet and raise your arm to aim for his heart.

His cocky facade slips for a fraction of a second, but it pulls the infamous bloodthirsty smile to your lips.

“You’re a dead man, Jeonghan.”

The hesitant rap at the door rips your attention away from the creased parchment sprawled across your desk. Tallies of loots, debts, bribes, and more litter the ledger in tight neat script; providing nothing more than a swelling vein throbbing across your temple.

“Come in.” You beckon, eyes glued to your ledger.

Tracking his movements in your peripheral, Seokmin’s entire presence screams terror. He doesn’t dare look up when he cracks the door to your office open, barely enough for him to slip inside. Even the click of the latch is silent as he shuts it, releasing the twisted knob once it’s back home; attempting to make himself as small as possible, like a mouse trying to escape a snake’s nest. He knows it’s judgment day and he’s been found wanting. The weight of his sentence hangs around his heart where he just might find a bullet in the next few minutes.

“Sit.”

He isn’t a horrible crew member. Bad pirate? Absolutely. But he’s loyal as they come, works hard as anyone else with something to prove to the world.

Seokmin was a farmer's son. One of several and the last in line to inherit any crumb of wealth his family could ever offer. At least that's what he told everyone. On the Hydra, a person’s story was their own. You didn’t care who they were before they inked their loyalty onto the base of their skull, just that no one would come for them with a debt to settle while aboard your ship.

The farm hardened his body but his heart was soft as wax under a flame. In spite of the obvious flaw, it’s why he’s the best at collecting information. Pure face and a familiar warmth, naivety rolling off him in waves. A few cheap secrets swimming out his mouth, misinformed beliefs regarding the way the world worked spoken a little too loud and viola! Some fool would step up to the plate to correct him, spilling their guts on the table just before Seokmin’s knife spilled them on the floor.

Despite what he cost you in sanity, he’d been worth his weight in gold when it came to finding leads on loose lips. Sometimes even loose legs. The women at brothels adamantly refused to take the coin you padded his pocket with. Always sending him back hours later than expected with the familiar jingle of a full purse and an unmistakable swagger in his step. You swear the velvet pocket is sometimes heavier than when it left.

You deliberately drag your gaze up to Seokmin’s face, unhurried in pace, blinking lazily, almost sleepy. Jaw relaxed, and shoulders loose; your entire posture screams threat. Each of your crew needed a different captain when it came to reprimands. Soonyoung, eager to please and prove, suffered most with silent dismissals. Jihoon, the rare times he earned your ire, only responded to direct threats.

Seokmin’s master and executioner was guilt.

“Do you know how Wonwoo got his scar?”

Schooling your face into a neutral expression, you wait for his response. Providing nothing, refusing to allow him comfort in this moment.

Seokmin doesn’t raise his gaze from his worn leather boots as he mumbles, “No.”

“It was my fault.” You share, picking your nails as the weight of your admission settles. “I thought I was helping a kid escape some cons. Told her she could follow us to town but after that, she was on her own. Turns out she was leading us into a deathtrap. One of her little gang took a swing at Wonwoo’s face and almost took his eye with him. Luckily, Wonwoo got him first.”

Apparently, this was one of the rare instances Seokmin had the sense to stay quiet.

“He’d thought it was a bad idea, but I tried to help her anyway. Didn’t listen to his advice that some things need to be left to the fates.”

Standing from your desk, you snag the bottle of whiskey resting on the cluttered bookshelf behind you. One of the few luxuries you afford yourself. Pouring two glasses, you slide one across your desk to the frightened man before continuing.

“I didn’t listen, and he got hurt.” Your tone so sharp it bites with blood stained teeth. “Wonwoo almost lost his eye, Min. Tell me, what kind of shooter would he be with one eye?”

“Not a very useful one?”

“Just about as useful as a spy you’d be without your tongue.”

Seokmin’s pale face balks at the implication. Hands wringing in his lap, you think he might piss himself.

“I’m not in the business of charity so I say this once: pull another stunt like you did today, and I’ll have Shua make you wish I killed you this morning.” Sitting back into the ancient leather chair, you jut your chin hauntingly. “Understand?”

“Yes, captain.”

“Get out.”

The door clicks shut before your next breath.

Your head drops with a heavy thud against the wooden trim of your seat, eyes sliding shut. Holding the stretch of your lungs as you inhale, attempting to do the same to the stiff muscles corded around your shoulders as a squeak alerts you to a new presence.

“That went well.”

You don’t have the patience for Wonwoo's taunting tonight.

Sprawling in the now abandoned chair, he leisurely sips at Seokmin’s untouched glass of amber liquor before speaking again..

“I didn't almost lose my eye.”

“I fail to see how that's of importance.”

“Too many rumors flying around means someone will eventually ask for the truth.”

“Do let me know when they approach you, I’d pay good money to watch you stutter your way through the story.”

In truth, Wonwoo’s trademark scar came as the result of too much lager and a very short pier. You both were still fresh as spring lambs to the cruel world beyond the high walls of the marble palace, but quickly figured that anything you could use to your advantage needed exhaustion. The rumors you’ve stirred up around the jagged silver mark spanning half his face granted him a reputation beyond the edges of the ship, carried further by those who managed to escape your wrath.

Legends across the seas of the Viper’s second painted a terrifying character. Wonwoo’s quiet nature and intimidating features served to fan the flames further. He was mean with a blade, even meaner with a gun. Only those with a deathwish knowingly went toe to toe with him. Those unfortunate enough to cross his mark were dead before they could even hear the cock of the pistol.

When Wonwoo doesn’t answer, you continue. “If anything, you should be thanking me.”

“Oh?”

“How many fights have you gotten in since I started telling people your scar was because you made a deal with a daemon?”

“Several.”

“Which is certainly less than otherwise.”

“Certainly.”

“And I don’t even get a thank you.”

“Thank you, Your Grace.” He grovels, cocking his head forward.

“I’m not in the mood for your poor humor.”

“You seemed to be generous with Seokmin.”

Knocking back the remnants of your cup before pouring another drink, you respond. “When he fucks up and I let Shua cut him to a million pieces he’ll see generous as I am, I’m good on my threats.”

That’s why they called you the Viper. Lethal. Calculating. Even when things don’t appear to be in your favor, luck seems to find you as a friend. Everything could be a lesson or another method for you to strengthen your alliances.

Even Seokmin’s fatal mistake of pulling Jeonghan on board would serve a purpose.

“Speaking of threats. What are we doing with those Krakens?”

“Eager to take a swing?” You jest, ignoring the sheen clinging to his lips.

“I have no interest in hearing them screaming at all hours for the next week. Kill Jeonghan, dump the other two and let the sharks claim them.”

“But then Jeonghan won’t see how we greet old friends. The other two are insurance.”

There isn’t enough time in the universe for you to deal Jeonghan what you owe him. The hunger to see him suffer would have terrified you in a past life. Even the hit on Seokmin this morning came with a swallowed trickle of sympathy after your rage cooled to a smolder, but no room for regret on the sea. Strike first and strike hard. You’ll pay for it all in the end and guilt wouldn’t spare you.

But what grows in you now isn’t concerned with what you’ll face on the other side of the light. The poison you’ve collected in your veins for years pleads for the chance to fruit in his blood and stop his cold heart.

“You think he cares that much?”

“He’s captain, they’re his crew.”

“So you’d squirm if Seokmin got under the knife?”

“Ask me in a few days.”

Silence finds the space between you like a familiar companion. Wonwoo is the last piece of home you have. You’d grown up together, run away together. Found each other again and again, no matter how long you ended up separated. A friend like him was difficult to come by when everyone had a price. Wonwoo’s turned out to be too high to ever hang you out to dry, and you the same.

“Tell Jihoon I want us at port by midday tomorrow.”

A humorless breath leaves his nose, “Oh, he’ll be thrilled.”

“I don’t pay him to be happy, I pay him to get my ship where I want it to go.”

You’re snappier than usual. The fury you feed in front of the crew protects you from the whispers and speculations. You’d won the vote fair and square when your processor had been ousted, a man nothing more than a relic from the old days, lazy and more than willing to let others do his dirty work while he soaked in riches. You’d sewed patches of discontent after years spent aboard, earning favors and friends along the way, mastering every job to be done on the once dingy ship.

Tentative friendships were easily gained, but respect? Respect was on the bidding block everyday. It wasn’t enough to stain your hands whenever needed; the price for respect was razored words and padded pockets.

Unfortunately, Wonwoo earned his fair share of both.

“When we get to the pier, we’re dropping Chan.”

“What?” Now anger heats his tongue.

“He’s not making progress.”

“Guns take time.”

“I've got enough mediocre gunslingers, I don’t need another.” Your focus is on the parchment again, searching for the cost the youngest member of your crew is having you foot. “He’s wasting ammunition and gunpowder as if it falls from the sky.”

“No.”

Occasionally Wonwoo argued with you, pressed you to see different perspectives but rarely did he disagree completely. Even more rare was flat out refusal.

“Pardon?”

“We’re not dropping Chan. He’s better than Vernon, and better than I was when I’d been doing it as long as he has.”

Your eyes slink to his, slow and purposeful. A lioness toying with her prey, gaze sharp as the knife you raised to his throat earlier that morning. Head tilting to the side, you open your mouth with a venomous smile.

“So when he catches up, I drop you?”

The threat is empty as the decanter perched on your desk, but there is always a sliver of Wonwoo’s heart that freezes at the possibility you’ll make good on it.

“You’ll never drop me.”

“After today, I might.”

The charade drops in an instant. Eyes closing once again, you scrub your face until stars burst against the black backdrop of your lids.

Nights like these rip open the place in your mind that rains endless questions. What if you remained in your little piece of the world? What if you accepted the frilly dress and silly parties? Allowed your father to make your marriage match as he saw fit for his own gains, a marriage to the cold Duke of Nas-Shost’s son or one of the brutish princes of Uspar. Perhaps you’d only be subjected to the violence of one man rather than dozens. Certainly there'd be less blood, fewer scars climbing your body like grotesque ivy. The warm arms of lavish life would embrace you, dull your mind till you were pliant as your peers. Produce babe after babe for whatever loveless man you’d been bound to, allowing nannies and wet nurses to care for your children while you indulged in cards and gossip like your mother.

Destined to be a mirror image of her dreamy smiles and distant eyes. A glance at your mother’s face showed her spirit miles away, blissful nothingness constantly clouded her features. Perhaps it was her own method of surviving your father.

She mindlessly prattled in the few hours you spent with her as a child, typically spewing tattles of the neighbors and other society ladies as if it was of great importance. Laughing at her own quips and snarks that you couldn’t quite grasp the humor of. Only one conversation of substance ever occurred amongst dainty tea cups and porcelain plates of biscuits and cake.

During one of the numerous lessons with your pious governess, Madam Atina, a hunched woman with a face like an old leather satchel; she’d hauntingly informed you everyone was born in the world with a cardinal flaw sealed in their soul. You’d run right to your mother, sharing the new knowledge with electrifying excitement. Her jeweled fingers brushed your hair as you sat in her lap, recalling the seven faults like it was an examination.

Your governess is right. She smiled.

What’s father’s? Pride. And yours? Envy. And me? You, my little bird, were born greedy as they come.

Barely seven at the time, you squealed as her fingers tickled your ribs, joyously unaware she bared your deepest secret so easily. But now, you understood why she always had a heavier hand in your upbringing than she had in your older sisters’.

From the moment you left the womb, you’d wanted. Even with every luxury available, any whim granted, you’d always been greedy for a different sort of satisfaction. A different life. What use was having anything if you needed the approval of another to get it? Even as a child you’d resented the way your father had the final say on your mother’s choices. On your sisters’. On yours.

Imagination taking you to the stables every morning, pulling the shy stable boy from his chores to appease your need for a new identity. Finding freedom in the far edges of the palace gardens, pretending you were soldiers on the front line between roses, using the bushes as cover before shooting make believe pistols at a fictitious enemy. Or two warring monarchs set to duel, branches becoming gilded swords as the day lilies provided their rapt attention. Sometimes you played pirates, forcing each other to walk the plank before breaking into maniacal giggles at the ridiculous accents you donned by the crystal lake.

The garden’s behind the estate remained a stage until your mother had you moved out of the nursery at twelve and into a private room down the hall to prepare you for balls and parties. New lady’s maids combed your hair up and tailored the hem of your dress down to brush the ground, signaling to everyone in court you were now of age. And then you were tasked with mastering a new kind of performance. The type that ends with your hands, neck, and crown covered in diamonds and your name on a contract to the highest bidder.

You and Wonwoo didn’t play anymore after that.

But now, even as misery loomed like a cloud over your head, at least you were alive with the knowledge that you created your own destiny. Now, the entire world is your stage, the gods your audience.

Wonwoo crosses to the door with a few long strides, the shuffle of his feet intentional to alert you to his movement.

“Make sure Hoshi checks on Seokmin. Don’t need his face getting infected.” You mumble into your glass, attention on the flame jumping from the black candle to the left of your desk. “And no food for our guests.”

“How long?”

“Three days, longer if they start fighting. Only enough water for them to stay alive.”

Wonwoo’s exit is silent but his absence prickles the back of your neck, threatening to rip you to shreds. You try to focus on the pop and crack of the fire burning in the hearth across the room. How your throat burns raw with another swig of booze. Even the habitual press of your thumb across the silken abalone handle of your revolver does nothing to numb the world inside your head.

Waves crash below the windows of your office as you cut through the endless sea, pounding surf singing their nightly hymn of the souls you’ve banished from this world. The haunting tune echoes louder with the knowledge that their master is shackled in the belly of your ship. An atonal ballad filled with the ghostly rattle of the chains crossed around his wrists and throat.

Ventparsk

Sunlight glares from the vast waves, the harsh beams attempting to blind you, as an infinite blue sky supplies nary a cloud of reprieve from its brutal warmth. You’d never speak ill of a scarce blessing such as the weather of today. Glittering open sea as far as the eye could see, not a single blip in sight save for the dark mountain rising from the horizon.

Your crew has stripped their torsos down to their scarred and inked skin, only keeping the dignity of pants as they trudge back and forth below your watch from the quarterdeck. Braving the threat of a scarlett backside rather than risk fainting over the sides of the ship and into the depths. The roughspun linen of your undershirt tears across your skin as wind breathes and snaps into the white sails above, propelling the vessel closer to the crowded harbor of Ventparsk.

Weeks at sea had depleted the stock of provisions and riled the crew. Only so much entertainment to be had when surrounded by nothing but endless ocean and air. Even you found the monotony of the days tiresome despite the never ending responsibilities of being captain. Drinking and merriment kept everyone content enough, card games as well before Soonyoung inevitably ran his mouth directly into someone’s fists. He might have maintained a tight ship under your command but when everyone gathered at night to loosen their limbs and cheer their minds, a hit on Soonyoung was fair play. Sometimes encouraged.

But the typical vices were no longer keeping their grumbles quelled. The gash on Seokmin’s cheek only fanned the flames higher. It was understood why you dealt him that hand, but their fondness for the newer member of your crew bred unconscious resentment. You’re not a physician but even you knew if you let the disease of discontent fester, it’ll kill the entire body.

The cure was simple enough. A few days wreaking havoc across dank gambling dens, cramped taverns, and numerous brothels in the great pleasure city would easily alleviate the tension rankling on board. Ventparsk opens its doors like an old friend to anyone with a few coins in their purse and your latest voyage ensured each of your crew would be welcomed like an emperor.

Ventparsk marina is a hodgepodge of every style ship and boat imaginable. Steel military ships from the cold north of Uspar tower above humble longships no doubt belonging to eastern traders of Truyso. Even oared ships from the dark days speckle through the thick rows of docks, Proera’s trademark. Your ship resembles one of the military fleet from Nas-Shost, swift and agile unlike the large square-rigged ships flying the blue and silver of the Islearain navy visible on the opposite end of the marina.

A cacophony of colors sail high above. The privateers and pirates aren’t stupid enough to announce their colors so boldly, but the armies foam at the mouth for a chance to intimidate the easily impressed. Amongst the other sheets flying in the wind, you recognize ally as well as foe. The sullen gray of the Usparian army here, a sheet rich maroon from Proera’s northern waters there. A rare flash of orange announces the Gulls, a band of Shostian mercenaries, are a long way from home. Even the maroon flag of the Seven Sirens flies high. If the Krakens had a ship to sail, the royal purple complete with a white circle and vertical slash would snap in the wind above all others. Cockiness bordering on stupidity, a bold challenge to anyone willing to follow them out of the harbor borders. But that tacky piece of cotton had been returned to the depths of the sea, finally resting where a Leviathan belongs.

The lush green flag with a golden ouroboros is hidden in the navigation room of the Hydra, far away from any prying eyes that may look your way. Men may be eager to have a public pissing contest, but you appreciated the fine art of minding your own business. The element of surprise and stealth could never be undervalued, only underappreciated.

The hodgepodge of pirate crews, merchants, and soldiers neighboring one another along the decrepit docks only exist in the assumed neutrality of the city. If you’re caught fighting in Ventparsk, breaking the delicate truce that exists within its borders, there is no trial. Your entire crew is sentenced to hang as gull food above the gate that separates the docks from the city; staked with an iron rod through one end and out the other. And anyone is willing to sell out those that defy the rules, eager to abide by the code for the guarantee of a good time without the cold sweat of a knife to the back.

After securing the Hydra, a portly man with watery eyes and a thick mustache waddles aboard. The worn olive green of his wrinkled uniform means he’s the customs master of this section of the marina.

He sidles up to Wonwoo, assuming his status of captain based on who can say what. Frustration lights a flame to simmer your blood, but it's better this way. The old men who run the ports won’t respond to a female captain, and if they do they’ll rip you off before finding a reason to banish you back to the open water.

“Cargo?”

“Nothing to sell.”

“Crew?”

“20.”

“Captives?”

“No, sir.”

“What’s the purpose of your visit?”

Wonwoo gives a lazy charming smile, “Just some men looking to enjoy the unique pleasures your lovely city has to offer.”

“Seems like you have something already on board.”

The desire to send a bullet through his skull swells riots but you reign her in. Last thing you need is to get your crew barred from the island city. Wonwoo would kill you himself.

Ignoring his comment, Wonwoo tosses the bag of coins at the officer. The old man fumbles to catch them but his assistant, a nimble tawny skinned boy who can’t be more than eleven, snags the jumbling coins before they hit the deck. In silence, they count and mark the toll in their book before smiling at the crew.

“Welcome to Ventparsk.”

You’ve tasked Wonwoo and his first mate, Seungkwan, with stocking up at the trading post. The younger man could barter with anyone and you only trust Wonwoo with the extra store of coins. It’ll take them the better part of the day to haul the crates down the docks and oversee the other crew organize them in the hold.

The night crew remains on board, dozing in hammocks strung between heavy cannons below deck in the berth to avoid the blaring sun. Jihoon remains on the quarterdeck, straw hat tucked low to cover his eyes; content to stay in his corner of the ship while others explore, never one to be tempted by the pleasure houses or bidding halls. The rest of the crew looks at him with pity for not lacking the desire to hand over his time to the intoxicating pulse of the city, but you know better.

Back home, Jihoon has a lady. He hasn’t seen her in years but sends her a stiff share of his wage at the end of every job. The few letters he’s received during his time on your ship are kept in a wooden cigar box tucked under scrolls of parchment in the navigation room just above your own quarters. You’re only aware because the box was stashed with an abandoned codex you’d needed regarding the islands dappling the eastern waters of Truyso. In haste, the small wooden trunk clunked to the floor, spilling several envelopes stamped with a teal wax seal. Skimming the first few words of swirling script, the woman was rather…descriptive in how much she missed him. Jihoon chose that moment to shuffle into the space, fuming as you gapped over his private collection of personalized smut.

Leaving the treasure of your heart in his capable hands, you stride through the rusted iron gate welcoming you to the much tamer southern district of Ventparsk.

Rickety buildings line the streets, each advertising their services. Thick crowds bubble out of rowdy taverns and into the street, patrons unashamed to imbibe so heavily under the midday sun. The mismatched symphony of music pouring from open windows and crevices in the slats to greet them, seduce them back inside. Scantily clad brothel workers curl around banisters and press out windows, beckoning customers with a curl of a finger and twitch of the lips. The independents work hard to lure those with less pocket change to the shaded alleyways for a quick tryst against the dirty walls. Perched on the corners of cross streets, conmen rob those stupid enough to get tangled in their cheap card tricks.

The kid pressing past you barely makes it a foot before you snatch their wrist in an iron grip. Whipping the little pickpocket back to your person, you twist their arm at an angle that’ll force it to break if they so much as breathe the wrong way. Anyone looking, and no one does, will see a dotting sister ushering their younger sibling through the crush of the crowd.

“Where I’m from, thieves lose their hands.” You snarl down at the grubby face glaring up at you.

“I didn’t take anything!” She cries, voice thick with faux tears under the tattered hood of her cloak.

Your other hand reaches into her pocket to retrieve the polished silver dagger usually kept strapped to your side, flicking it into view between you. The cheap piece of steel was worth next to nothing. Best way to keep your coin is to let a thief think they bested you by giving them an easy target, too hard to resist.

“Liars lose their tongues.”

The fury at being caught brands her features. She’s barely skin and bones, moth eaten velvet cloak weighing more than her but blazing in her eyes is fire. The same fire that burned in your own as you learned the ways of the streets when you’d first left the cushion of your father’s kingdom.

If you rat her out to the city guard she’ll be used as fish food. Or worse, one of the brothels will bid on her bond.

“Next time you wanna lift something, think about why it’s so easy before letting your hands get sticky.”

Retching her hand away, you brush her to the side, refusing to look at her face as you slip back into the crowd. She’ll find the coin you slipped in her pocket quick enough.

Each room of the Lion’s Den is draped in tacky swatches of gold and all variations of red. In this particular keep, a plush mattress is perched in front of the blazing fireplace. The garnet velvet bedspread trimmed with gold tassels clashes with the blush pillow cases, both jarring against the white oak bed frame and sheets of pale silk floating down from the bars. But the design of the room interests Wonwoo far less than the woman who inhabits it.

“How’s our little friend?” Yeseul calls over her shoulder.

She’s perched at her vanity, using the light of an oil lantern to carefully fix the greasy smudges of red staining her lips. Wonwoo isn’t sure why she’s bothering with it. He’s paid for the entire night, she might as well remove wretched stuff. Laying back in the satin sheets of her bed, he lets one arm prop up his head as he watches the woman he’s visited for years tsk over her reflection. The swirl of smokey incense hazing her figure.

Yeseul was a few years older than he, versed in the ways of the world and determined to educate the once bright eyed boy he’d been. She’d imparted him with the knowledge of how to pleasure a woman even though he’d only fallen into bed with one other person. Taught the value of secrets in this world. Most importantly, Yeseul was the one who let Wonwoo know that the desire and devotion he feels towards Y/N was love, not just friendship.

“As pleasant as a spring breeze.”

“Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Wonwoo.”

“That gunk doesn’t suit you either but I settle for it.”

“You don’t pay enough for me to remove it.”

“And that’s my fault? You try to send me back with half every time I visit.”

“You’re more of a friend than a customer at this point.”

“You’re growing soft.”

“Mingyu says the same.”

“He wrote you?”

“Bribed a guard to get a letter out. Probably had to bribe him to write it too since he never learned to read.”

Wonwoo doesn’t ask if Mingyu will get out of the Iron Isle. Even with the guarantee of a fair trial, it takes years, sometimes decades. More men die waiting than in the gallows at the base of the prison.

Yeseul isn’t a fool but she is a romantic. Consumed too many novels where ill suited love wins over all and anyone can be together if they just believe it. All wrapped up in a couple hundred pages. Her way of dealing with the ugly truths of the world. Yeseul is chained to the Lion’s Den the same way her lover is chained in prison. The same way Wonwoo’s heart will always be chained to his princess. Useless in hoping to be free.

“But she’s well?”

“A stretch of the word but I guess as content as she can be.”

“So you still haven’t told her.”

“If I was, do you think she’d allow me to run to your bed?”

“With how quiet you were earlier, I assumed it went poorly.”

“It would go poorly. Especially now.”

“Perhaps it's best to give her time.”

Wonwoo knows time isn’t what she needs. The only hope for anything beyond swift rejection would be a miracle performed by the gods themselves. If he were a smarter man, a stronger man, he’d stay away. Wouldn’t submit himself to the torture of her presence, her trust and reliance. But he’s not. Wonwoo is weak in all the ways it matters when it comes to Y/N. Ever since she walked into the stables when they’d both were barely knee high and demanded he submit himself to her friendship. He’s listened to every command since.

Few things in the world were certain but the one constant Wonwoo relied on was the sure way to lose Y/N was giving himself permission to want. Want her the way he has since they were teenagers, running away from curses of her father and his servitude and towards the unknown. Since she’d pulled him down into the hay in that dilapidated barn after too many swigs of the wine swiped from a merchant stall. Wonwoo never saw the smile she’d flashed him that night again. Bright and hopeful, a little shy as he covered her mouth with his own. Now the only stretch of Y/N’s lips carried a coldness, the gleam of teeth sadistic and sinister.

Hope is a fragile thing. Like a blooming spring flower just before the last frost, or a house of cards. Delicate. It has no place in this world he’s landed in. So Wonwoo doesn’t let himself hope for a chance to be free of the love in his heart. Accepts that in this life, there was never a chance for him to have Y/N the way he wants. Because the way he wants her fundamentally opposes who she is.

So Wonwoo allows himself the memories of before. Before they became Serpents, matching stains of ink at the base of their skulls. Before Jeonghan snatched her away; the scars marring her body nothing compared to what he’d done to her mind. Before Y/N found her way back, to him, to the crew, to the world of the living.

Memories of the palace and her uncanny talent for finding him wherever he was on the grounds. The way she snatched him away from whatever task he’d been charged with to play her silly games, allowing him to be a boy instead of an indenture. How she snuck into the servants quarters and into his bed the night Jeonghan finally came to visit the kingdom. When she called him her friend for the first time. When she’d let Wonwoo hold her to his chest, warming them both against the frigid air after laying each other bare.

“Time won’t change anything.”

Wonwoo can never have anything more than what he has now. So he settles his heart at Y/N’s feet, and lets his body find distraction in another.

Always privy to his moods, Yeseul crosses back to where he lies. Perching herself in his lap, her ebony robe splits open to show the creamy skin of her stomach, the soft swell of her breast peeking out from behind honey waves of her hair, long neck split with the ruby choker all girls at this pleasure house wear.

Maybe in another life, Wonwoo would still be a stablehand. In that life, Y/N would have married Jeonghan and the childhood friendship between a stable boy and the youngest princess of Iaslera was nothing but forgotten memories.

Yeseul’s finger traces from his lips to his chin, following the dip of his scar to his ear. It had taken him years to stop flinching when someone touched it, the sting of that rusted blade still haunting him. When her nail scrapes the hollow of his throat, Wonwoo shivers for an entirely new reason.

Flipping her beneath him, Yeseul’s flit of laughter tickles Wonwoo’s lips as he claims her mouth.

“Another.” You beckon the woman behind the mahogany counter, tilting your empty cup her way.

“What’s a lady like you doing in a place like this?” A disconnected voice murmurs too close to your ear, a waft of booze and snuff slipping around your cheek.

Rolling your eyes, the same dagger the orphan girl tried to claim is in your hand and pressed to the soft wood in a second. The presence behind you disappears when it catches the lantern light.

The Twin Star is one of the better taverns in this part of the city. Drinks are cheap enough, other patrons keep their heads down and the barmaids tend to turn a blind eye when one needs to implement less than friendly means to ward off drunkards.

“Keep it up and I’ll have to cut you off.” Inri snarks but fills your cup with brandy all the same.

“You’re a cruel woman.” You mutter, cradling the cool glass to your chest.

“They say the same about you.”

“I’m flattered.” you mumble with a mock salute, loopy smile splitting your mouth.

She leaves you with a sigh. You’ve been here all afternoon, hoping to drown your dread at the bottom of a bottle. So far, you’re failing.

For the first time in years, you have no desire to return to your beloved vessel. The warm fondness for the Hydra replaced with frigid unease. A drunken stupor is the perfect excuse not to go back, at least for the night. Even with the unbending laws of the island, an unaccompanied woman roaming the streets of Ventparsk was unlikely to make ten paces before she ended up pushed into an alley. One under the influence of several hefty pours of whiskey might make five if she’s lucky.

“There’s my favorite captain.”

You’re in no mood for company. Soonyoung must have been born under unlucky stars.

“Can a woman not enjoy a drink in peace?”

He’s in the chair next to you before you can object, signaling Inri to bring him a glass as well.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you this drunk before.”

“What are you doing here, Hosh?”

Soonyoung has the courtesy to look bashful. Just down the street is the theater you know he favors, the Temple, with dark mahogany walls and swaths of dark blue silk curtains hiding what takes place beyond the doors. The shanty building housed dozens of artists, dancers, and singers. Acrobats and fire tamers. Entertainers and actors. He had been one of them before you'd lured him away with promises of adventure and riches unknown to a poor merchant’s son. Everytime you stop at the isle he walks right back home to greet his brothers and sisters.

“In the neighborhood.”

“Your family?”

“My ma is finally speaking to me.” He lights up. “Something about a fortune teller telling her to let go of old grudges or some other nonsense. But my sister is starting to do high ropes without a net! And my younger brother, San, he’s gotten better with the knife throwing and—

Soonyoung continues to ramble as you tuck your smile into your cup. At least one person has a good relationship with their family. If someone asked, you couldn’t confidently say which of your sisters were still breathing; only aware your mother and father were alive from the whispers of Iaslerian merchants complaining about royal levies to pay for the queen’s jewels.

“One of the younger kids showed me some slight of hand with a coin and it looked alot like the ones we lifted from those traders in Uspar.”

Swallowing a mouth full of liquor you stay quiet. The little bastard just had to be one of Soonyoung’s kin because why not? The gods had a strange sense of humor.

“Strange.”

“I thought so too. Probably just a coincidence.”

“Probably.”

“Would my captain do me the honor of escorting her back to the ship?”

Pointedly ignoring the knowing smile Soonyoung flashes, you take the arm he offers.

Nightmares

The three days in Ventparsk pass quickly. More booze, a tumble with a nameless man at the Winter Garden, and enough snuff to kill a horse provides a blissful mindless haze. You even managed a quick scrub down at one of the bath houses. Soaking in the heated tub for hours, muscles loose and pliant from the herbal steam and hot stones. Jeonghan’s rotting body in the moldy damp brig of the Hydra is nearly forgotten.

Nearly.

Dreams always have a way of reminding us of the realities we wish to forget.

“You’re a dead man, Jeonghan.”

The bullet is screaming to make a home in between his ribs. Every muscle in your body pleading for the same. Sink the shot in Jeonghan’s heart and be free from him forever.

“Take them to the brig.” You instruct Jun.

“Never could just get on with it, could you?”

The next sound from Jeonghan’s mouth is a shrill scream as blood gushes from his thigh. It swirls with the sea water still dripping from his soaked clothes, scarlett inking through the growing puddle, opaque tendrils soaking into the wood.

“Shua’s gonna have fun with you.”

Finally skating on the waves of the vast ocean, you descend into hell.

The consuming stench of stagnant water and mold invades your nostrils as you transverse through the cargo hold to reach the brig. A rat squeaks as it scurries past, looking for its next meal no doubt. You loathe this part of the ship. Too deep, not enough exits, no clear path up and out. Just another gift courtesy of Jeonghan.

Three bodies hang from their hands, bound up and over their heads, feet barely brushing the ground as the sway with rhythm of the tide. Burlap bags obscure their faces but you know which lithe form belongs to him.

Shua sits at his desk, a collection of mismatched knives organized in neat lines like soldiers prepared for battle on one side. Jars of different poisons clink against one another in the wooden tray in the middle, the rainbow array of liquids each lapping at the sides of the vial for the chance to escape. On the far corner rests crude torture devices he’s collected over the years. Thorned strips of leather, several cat-o-nine-tails, and a lump of metal looking like a fruit with a knob attached at the narrow end.

The entire aura of Joshua’s corner of the ship screams anguish. A slaughterhouse for those unfortunate enough to stumble his way. It’s why no one visits him of their own volition. Not that he seems to mind, more than content to study the ways of the body than talk to one.

You take a seat across from the man dangling in the center of the room, nodding to Joshua to remove the sack from Jeonghan’s head.

Dark circles shadow his bloodshot eyes, cheeks sullen and pale, chapped lips bleeding. Nearly four days on board without food and possibly longer before they were rescued from the hunk of drift wood they’d been floating on while waiting to die has certainly done a number on him. You’d ordered Shua to provide the barest sips of water, just enough to keep them on this side of consciousness.

A metal goblet brushes against Jeonghan’s lips, urging him to tip his head back and swallow the cool liquid. Gulping down the contents without a thought, Shua refills it as fast as he can from a crystal pitcher. After a few shuddering breaths, another full cup is brought to his mouth and he downs it as well.

Idiot.

When Jeonghan eyes finally adjust to the pale light of the solitary lantern illuminating the cramped space, he sees you. Raising your chin, you know he won’t resist the opportunity to try and knock you down a peg despite his compromised position.

“Just couldn’t stay away.”

Joshua busies himself with arranging the necessary odds and ends on an empty wooden tray. He’s meticulous in his grisly craft, hands sure and perfunctory. The jostle of metal fills the room as he sets down the curated set on a stool next where you sit.

Not deigning to respond, you simply flash a sweet smile. The kind of smile a girl throws a man she wants something from, woefully out of place in the dark room you're standing in. But that’s precisely what throws Jeonghan off.

Standing, you snag one of the smaller double sided blades glimmering like a prized jewel amongst the collection. The ring at the bottom sits loosely around your pointer finger as you spin it round and round. Your steps are slow and calculated as you circle him, surveying his form from head to toe. Jeonghan is smart enough to try and keep his eyes on you but the metal collar around his neck prevents him from turning his head as you round him. Someone had the sense to remove his shirt before tying him up. Even if the shirt he came with was tattered to gossamer shreds, the fabric would find a use somewhere amongst the crew.

A clammy sheen glosses his dull skin, the ring of red around his bound wrists blistered and raw. Curls of dark hair stick to Jeonghan’s forehead and the column of his neck, matted to his scalp with sea water, sweat, and blood. A spray of dark bruises along his ribs are slowly healing, no doubt from whatever destroyed his ship. They labor his breath, his chest barely moving with the shallow swallows of air. The dark stain of blood is dried near black around the hole in his left thigh.

As you stand back in front of him, toe to toe, your gazes meet. Frigid steel tip of the dagger dips into the valley of his throat before you trace it down his sternum to the soft flesh of his belly. Muscles twitch as he clenches away from the sharp bite of the blade, freezing his breath to avoid pressing into it.

Slowly blinking you don’t turn away as you ask, “Shua, how long did you say it takes for the draught to take effect?”

“At least a few minutes, but on an empty stomach much less. He should already be feeling it start to kick in.”

“Do you Jeonghan?” Digging the knife in the soft flesh just above his naval, “Can you feel it?”

Shua had explained the effects when he brought the vial to your office. An oily concentration of some exotic herb from the deepest reaches of the Proera, tasteless with only the faintest smell of damp earth. Typically used as a mild sedative, fond amongst those looking to see beyond the veil of reality and into the curtain between worlds. But a heavy enough dose tortures whoever ingests it with terrifying visions, nightmares come to life. Not fatal in the slightest but after the walls melt and the person in front of you turns into a demon, one might wish it was. Unknowingly, Jeonghan took a large enough dose to incapacitate a third of your crew.

An emotion you never imagined he felt takes root on his face. Eyes wild as he focuses on the copper cup now sitting at the corner of Shua’s desk, before they flash back to yours. You can see his brain turning, attempting to decipher what you’ve slipped him, how long he has before entering the unknown.

Jeonghan’s shuddering breath puffs against your cheeks, a small whiff of the herbaceous tincture carried along it. His feet roughly scrape against the floor as he tries to maintain his footing, chains around his wrist and neck relaxing for a moment before pulling taunt again as his damaged leg buckles under his weight.

Jeonghan quakes with the effort to remain quiet. Even with poison flooding his veins, he clings to years of training to resist succumbing fright. But nothing has prepared him for this.

A crack in the facade spreads soon enough. Broken pleas force past gnarled lips, chest heaving as he struggles to inhale. Soon he’s nothing more than a child lost in a crowd. Frantic, panicked, desperate.

Horror consumes his face, the whites of his eyes visible as his eyebrows arch to his hairline, mouth opening to scream. Air rushes from his lungs as he wails, thrashing in his shackles without concern for the way the bitter metal rips into the flesh of his wrists and neck.

You’ve already pocketed the knife that was pressed into his stomach. No satisfaction in killing him when he’s out of his mind, but watching him descend into madness will bring its own pleasure.

“What the fuck did you do to me?”

Turning to return to your seat, he screams again, “What did you give me?”

Jeonghan’s voice is shredded and raw already.

In the corner, Shua is rapt with macabre attention. Carefully jotting down notes in his journal for later examination. If one person on the crew terrified you it was the fawn eyed man sitting next to you. Being handy with a weapon was nothing when someone knew how to destroy your spirit by barely lifting a finger, dead before you knew what happened.

You observe as Jeonghan’s expression grows distant. Fear festers along the surface, bubbling under his skin. Muscles flex and twitch painfully. Ugly fat beads well in Jeonghan’s eyes to spill down his cheeks, wads of snot dripping from his nose. Splotchy red patches bloom across his pale skin, fevered flesh prickled with goosebumps. The rusted shackles bite into his skin again and again as he attempts to shake free, nearly strangling himself in his effort. Silent pleas for relief, for mercy from whatever phantom of his subconscious haunts him now.

The two other men in the back of the room thrash in their chains as well, bashing their skulls back and forth to cast off the hoods over their heads. Frenzied as their brave captain’s curdled screams pierce their ears.

The nightmares chasing Jeonghan follow you up to your room that night.

“My little bird tried to leave the nest, did she?” Your father snarls.

The piece of cloth tied around your head doesn’t allow you to answer beyond muffled groans as you struggle.

“Perhaps I should teach you what happens when a bird leaves its cage.”

“Captain!”

You wake with a gasp, the sound of gunfire and cannons shaking your core. Jun stands in your doorway, soaked to his skin with soot covering half his face.

“Captain, we’re under attack!”

The deck is a flurry of activity. Bodies running to and fro, some headed below for the gun deck to return fire. Walls of water pour from the sky, obscuring the view beyond the corners of your ship. In the distance, flashes of light from cannons on the ship attacking yours is the only indicator of a presence beyond the moon and tide. They’re running diagonal to your port side, that much is clear. The mainsail is shredded to pieces over head, damp canvas whipping from cruel winds. The Hydra won’t outrun the ship attacking, the only end is to fight.

Scrambling to the quarterdeck, you join Jihoon at the wheel. He does his best to steer clear of enemy range, careful to maintain momentum you can’t afford to lose.

“Cut the wheel!”

“Are you crazy?”

“They’ve got too much speed, they can’t turn. Cut the damn wheel!”

Jihoon launches the wheel clockwise, shifting the rudders to turn starboard. The attacking vessel continues their path straight, unable to correct in time to cut you off as you slip behind them. But a second too late you both realize another ship lies in wait.

The second enemy ship attacks from behind, capitalizing on the attention monopolized by the first ship. The crew launches grappling hooks tangling around the Hydra’s rigging for them to swing aboard. They flood the deck like ants emerging from their hill, easily out numbering your crew.

You pick off two swiftly, bullets wedged deep in their skulls the second their feet land on the quarter deck. Rain stings your eyes, blurring your surroundings. Friend and foe indecipherable as you jump to the fray on the main deck.

Chaos runs free as blows are exchanged back and forth. It’s impossible to tell in the crowd of bodies who has fallen and who remains below deck to continue cannon fire.

Wonwoo and Soonyoung are back to back, facing off against five enemy fighters. Soonyoung nimbly dodges the swords aimed at his throat, returning his own killing blows with incredible fluidity. Charges of gunpowder sting the air as Wonwoo deals his own damage, sinking the shells into hearts and bellies before moving to the next.

Whipping around, you catch sight of Seokmin pinned down against the main mast, a giant of a man exhausting him with a sword. On reflex, you duck under a swinging arm as you charge forward. Sinking your dagger between the oaf’s shoulder blades you drag down with all your strength, ripping through the muscles tethered to his spine. The scorching gush of blood slips between your fingers, freeing the handle from your grip. Kicking out a leg, you land your foot along the back of his knee and bring him down. Over his head your eyes meet Seokmin’s. You barely catch the flash of horror on his face before the crack of a fist lands against your temple.

Blood and rain and sea water soaks the deck, nearly sending Wonwoo to his knees. The wretch of death fills his nose, sulfurous gunpowder and bile sharpening his mind. He’s surrounded on all sides, the glint of steel flashing as lightning splits the sky. The teeth of a sword split his side open from the bottom of his ribs to his navel. Wonwoo can tell the damage won’t kill him but he’ll have a hell of a time recovering. The sting only dulled by the rush of a fight flooding his veins.

Soonyoung is on his left, picking off enemies one by one, dodging the most damning blows and weaponizing their momentum to his benefit. Wonwoo would stop to watch if he wasn’t busy preserving his own life.

Pushing his way to the center of the ship, he spots the door below deck fly open; Jeonghan and the other two prisoners ushered out by a small group armed to their teeth. In the same second, Wonwoo locates Y/N in his periphery; just in time to watch her crumple from a cheap punch to her head.

Rage thunders through Wonwoo’s veins. In a flurry, he cuts his way to the main mast, prepared to kill whoever he needs to. Seokmin rips his knife out of the person who knocked Y/N out but another of the enemy crew manages to drag her body over to the side where their ship is latched to the Hydra. They rush to get her aboard their ship, sensing the change in tide of the fight behind them.

Clearly they’d been hoping to have the entire ordeal dealt with swiftly, not prepared for the force the Serpents are capable of. Minghao is already working to cut the ship away from the Hydra, nimble feet carrying him along the thin bulwark as he slashes the ropes snaring them.

Jeonghan and his cellmates are already securely on the opposite side of the gangplank, but the man holding Y/N’s body hasn’t crossed yet. If Wonwoo can provide enough of a delay, then Jihoon can get the Hydra back to the open sea.

In this moment, Wonwoo decides to commit the most ill-considered act of bravery he’s ever mustered. Launching himself on to the enemy ship, he lands with a thud on their deck, guns blazing. He’s able to pick off one, two, four crew members before they realize what’s happening. Bodies dropping to the floor around him in quick succession.

A final shot rings out before his ammunition runs dry and he switches to his dual swords strapped to his back. Wonwoo swings in wide arches, forcing his opponents back and away from the side of the ship to avoid the tips of his blades. Using the brief reprieve, he turns to kick the plank away, sending it to the crevice between ships just in time for Jihoon to tear free. Leaving his captain and her captor on the Hydra, and Wonwoo marooned with the enemy.

Saying a silent prayer, Wonwoo turns back to the crowd of what are no doubt Krakens, only managing to sink his sword's edge into one more before he’s overwhelmed.

A Tale of Two Ships

The Leviathan

“Wonwoo, Wonwoo, Wonwoo,” Jeonghan says, shaking his head. “Always running to save the princess, aren’t you?”

Standing before him, Jeonghan resembles a rotten pile of horse shite. Y/N’s torture strung him out, made him weak and unstable. Wonwoo watched the strain in his muscles, the moisture on his brow, the labor of his breath. Fresh, angry halos circle his neck and wrists, blisters drying and scabbing to an ugly assembly of yellows and browns.

With his hands shackled above his head and his feet chained to the floor, Wonwoo attempts to calm his breathing. Jeonghan wants him worked up, wants him to slip and play right into his hand.

“What she sees in you is beyond me. Bastard stable boy, with nothing to his name except a whore mother and drunk father.”

In four beats, hold four beats, out four beats, hold another four. Repeat.

“She’d sell your soul the second it became advantageous for her. You know that, right?”

In four beats, hold four beats, out four beats, hold another four. Repeat.

Wonwoo desperately tries to zone in on the lantern, to let his mind wander in the vast recesses of emptiness. Anything to spare him from the lies Jeonghan spews.

“I know you love her. Pathetic how obvious it is, Wonwoo. Reminds me of a story actually. Once upon a time, there was a stable boy who fell in love with a princess. Now the princess was clever and made the stable boy believe they were equals, friends even. Can you believe that?”

Jeonghan rounds to face Wonwoo, a sickening smirk spoiling his face.

“She knew the stable boy cared for her and would do whatever he could to protect her. So when it was time for her to stop playing make believe, she let the stable boy take her punishment. She let him die for her and the princess never lost a second to sleep. Because the princess, no matter how she sullied herself, knew he wasn’t worth the dirt under her fingernails.”

In an effort to stay quiet, Wonwoo grinds his teeth so hard they are on the verge of shattering.

The defiant tilt to Wonwoo’s chin sends a flash of fury across the shorter man’s face before a serpentine smile curls on his lips.

“You don’t need to speak, stable boy.” Plucking a knife from his belt, Jeonghan flashes it into Wonwoo’s view. “But you will scream.”

And Wonwoo does.

The Hydra

Crowded around the large oak table of the Hydra’s navigation room, Jihoon, Soonyoung, Jun, and you spread over the atlas of the world. Attempting to decipher what Jeonghan’s plan for Wonwoo proves to be more difficult than anticipated. Even more so when you refuse to provide details on why Jeonghan would stage such an elaborate effort to capture you.

Your crew knows he’s disavowed and wanted by the Atterast, Nas-Shost’s military. They know you’re the reason why but you’d carefully smothered any true details of how you and Wonwoo were involved. Rumors of Jeonghan being a disgruntled lover, while half true, were enough to satiate their curiosity.

“He hates Wonwoo but he hates me more. If his desire is to torture me then he’ll leave Wonwoo alive somewhere I’ll never get him.”

“Iron Isle?”

“Do you think he plans to have himself arrested too?”

“Nas-Shost is unstable. Would he take advantage of that?”

“They’ll kill him before he speaks.”

“He’s in no shape to attempt crossing to Uspar or Truyso.”

“What about Iaslera?”

Iaslera.

Jeonghan isn’t a fool but he is ambitious and vindictive. If your father promised him something in exchange for his original target then Iaslera is a likely place for him to go. And Jeonghan knows you’ll fall right into his hands.

The knife you’ve been spinning into the wood grain digs a fraction deeper.

“How many days till Iaslera?” You ask.

“With the damage…at least five.” Jihoon breaths.

“Five?”

“At least. And that’s assuming it’ll only take us three to patch the hole in the sail and get it rigged again.”

Five days. Wonwoo will be Jeonghan’s captive for five days.

“Set course for Iaslera.” You bark, “And I want every spare hand helping patch that hole!”

The days of skidding across the ocean proved fruitful. If you didn’t keep yourself busy then a rut would wear into the wooden planks of your office from the endless pacing.

If Jeonghan is truly in your father’s court then you owe the crew an explanation of what exactly the Pearl Palace of Iaslera holds. You were no artist, but luck shined on you once again with Minghao. Even the barest memories regarding the servant’s quarters or the stables were included. He sketched every detail, every crevice you could remember with shocking clarity. Reworking sections over and over until the proportions equaled out. Finally, the drawings resembled your home.

Home.

No, not exactly home. Maybe when you’d been a child, when the pearl and silver tiara felt like magic instead of a lead weight; eager to spend days lounging in the library, mind lost to far off lands and tall tales; riding along the familiar beaches, outpacing your chaperone; hiding in the gardens with Wonwoo, playing whatever new game your imagination supplied you two with.

Iaslera was the place you grew up, but the sandy shores and rolling hills only held beauty, not familiarly, the sleek marble walls bearing no warmth or fondness. It wasn’t the place you longed for when out at sea or deep inland.

Home is the worn wood and white sails of the Hydra. Home is your mismatched crew of criminals, ex-soldiers, circus performers, and farmhands. Home is a stable boy who has been by your side since you decided Iasleria was home no longer.

Hours spent in the navigation room, your best fighters and strategists circled on either side of the heavy table, scanning the map detailing each floor of the palace.

“What do you know about the guard rotation?”

“Nothing. Princess, remember?”

“Hard to forget. Can’t believe we didn’t realize before.”

“The way you strut about the deck did always seem particularly royal.” Jun scratches his chin, as if picturing you flouncing about with a tiara on your head.

“Would you like to know what princesses do when they’re angry?”

“Huff their nose in the air?” Soonyoung laughs.

“Maybe if I didn’t have a gun.”

“The guards.” Jihoon reminds.

“I don’t know. My father knows we’re coming and he’s cocky. He’ll probably let us walk right in and assume we’re weak.”

“Sounds like an idiot.”

“So if we walk right in, what do we do?”

“Kill them.” Enea offers from her end of the table.

“If he hasn’t killed Wonwoo already he could have him hidden.”

“If he’s cocky enough to let us walk through the front door, do you really think he’d go through the trouble? He obviously isn’t thinking you have a chance of walking back out.”

“We probably don’t.” You say solemnly.

“What?”

“Best case scenario, my father dies and we walk away wanted by the throne. Most realistic outcome is I’m captured. If that happens, you grab Wonwoo and leave me behind.”

More than a few voices protest as the room descends into yelling.

“I’m your captain and you will listen!” You roar, silencing any objects with a swat of your hand. “Either we all die or I do. I will not pull you into this mess.”

“Not to seem uncaring but do you honestly believe we want to deal with Wonwoo with you not here?”

“He’ll be fine.” You assure.

Wonwoo would have to be whether he liked it or not.

“He won’t.”

“The month the Krakens had you? Wonwoo shot me. Twice.”

“He got into a brawl with Soonyoung.”

“He didn’t talk for two weeks.”

“We leave with both of you. Or we die trying.”

“No one is dying for me! This isn’t some silly brawl in a washed out tavern or a rival crew we’re ambushing. My father is capable of suffering worse than anything you can imagine.” You pause, nearly choking on the horror twisting out of your stomach as you remember the king's most egregious acts. “When I was a child, I spoke out of turn at dinner once. Would you like to know what my punishment was?” Circling your gaze around the room. “He put a poker into the fire until it glowed red—”

“He hit you with it?” Seokmin opens his mouth in horror.

“No,” you swallow, “He couldn’t do anything that might leave a mark in case it made us…undesirable. We had servants assigned to take our beatings while we watched. I was five, and so was she. He hit her across the face with that poker. When I cried, he did it again. When I screamed, he hit her harder. Even if he can’t touch me, he will make sure someone suffers and I watch. I will not damn any of you to the cruelty he’s simmered on in the past ten years. Am I clear?”

The wooden door claps shut as you exit without waiting for their response.

The King of Iaslera

Wonwoo doesn’t remember summers in Iaslera being so cold. Perhaps the bloody purple bruises blooming like a grotesque garden across his flesh have made him susceptible to the biting chill clogging the air. Or maybe the blood coating the inside of his mouth and nose. Or the cold dig of gray stone in his side.

He recognizes the damp dungeons of the king’s palace from the guards uniform, pale blue smocks with a silver lotus blossom embroidered on the back. They haven’t chained him to rings jutting from the floors or walls. Unnecessary given that Wonwoo’s right shoulder is dislocated and his ankle is broken, jutting his foot out at an awkward angle. Even if the planets aligned and the gods blessed an escape, he wouldn’t make it three paces before collapsing onto the ground.

Wonwoo doesn’t have enough knowledge of anatomy to set his shattered bones, likely to do more harm than good if he makes it out of this cell to see another day. Perhaps he should have paid more attention to Shua’s ramblings on the intricacies of the human body when he had the chance.

But he knows his arm can be saved.

The webbed pain coming from his shoulder is familiar enough. When Wonwoo turned thirteen he’d been assigned with helping break a new stallion for the captain of the guards. The stable master only let Wonwoo watch from the fence of the ring, eyes locked on the magnificent midnight steed. Proving to be a fatal mistake when the horse, Balius, charged right at Wonwoo, knocking him off the fence, down to the hard ground below. Once wind returned to his lungs, Wonwoo got a taste for the pain of a dislocated joint for the first time.

It'd happened twice since. Once thanks to the same dock he owed his scar, and another courtesy of the first time Jeonghan tracked Y/N across the waves to Uspar. Wonwoo knows what he has to do, but he craves to postpone the inevitable until the last possible moment.

The guards patrol in front of his cell every time the clock in the palace yard gives a large chime to signal the top of the hour. Shuffling to the bars on his bum, he uses his good foot to push himself across the weathered stone of his cell, before leaning his damaged arm between the thick shafts of iron.

Folding the bottom of his shirt between his teeth, Wonwoo prepares for the sear of pain. Even the faint memory of agony shoots gooseflesh down his spine. No matter how many times he’d done this, tears stung his eyes for hours till the pain sent him into a dark abyss.

Wonwoo knows if he screams, the guards will come running and eagerly dole more damage. A deep breath to corral any rogue shout that may escape his throat, and then he gives a sharp twist at his middle till he hears the sickening pop! A hefty grunt escapes into the fabric as fat pearls well in Wonwoo’s eyes, leaving clean streaks down his filthy face. Vomit rises in his throat as his vision blackens and whisps float through the haze. The surging throb curdles through his blood in time with his pulse as it rushes through his veins to every inch of his body.

The pain eclipses any of the other injuries he’s sustained so far but he tries to count his breaths, sucking in four beats and trembling out another four. His jaw feels as if it might break from how hard his teeth clench, fighting to keep the groans of agony on his tongue at bay.

Folding in on himself, Wonwoo attempts to focus on how he will survive. At least he has the advantage of secrecy on his side. Perhaps he can get in a surprise swing if it comes down to it. Wonwoo won’t die without a fight. He’s come too far.

“I brought you the boy, now give me what you promised.”

“Our deal was for you to bring my disgraceful daughter, not some pathetic peasant.”

“If he is here, she will come.”

“You better pray to the gods she does, boy. Because if she doesn’t, I will show you there are worse punishments than death.”

Two days pass before a soul outside of the guards visits Wonwoo’s cell. A fever claimed him yesterday, sending his body into a fit of chills and muddling his brain. The thin fabric of his bloodied shirt and trousers stick to his clammy figure like a second skin. Wonwoo figures it’s finally gone for the kill when Y/N appears in front of the bars. Back in the finery of court, gown and jewels pristine. Hair tamed on top of her head in a style Wonwoo knows she hated, beautiful face weathered with age.

No it wasn’t Y/N. It was her mother, Queen Demetria.

Wonwoo had no quarrel with the Queen. She’d been as powerless against the king as everyone else. But even in her limited ability, she’d cared for him and his plight. When his parents dumped him at the palace gates as an infant and allowed him to find refuge within its walls. Tasked a maid, Miss Ele, with his care. When he turned five, Wonwoo was brought back in front of the queen. He remembers how the queen asked him his name, told him it was the name of a boy who would grow into a strong man. And she let him stay, working in the stables to earn his keep.

There were worse fates for orphans.

With great effort he tips his head in a bow, nearly toppling over as his balance abandons him. “Your Majesty.”

“Is she alive?”

“I—”

“Please, is she alive?”

“Yes.” Wonwoo breathes. If Y/N was dead he’d like to think he’d feel it somewhere in his gut.

“What is she like?”

Wonwoo isn’t sure what to tell her. Few things are as solid as his loyalty to Y/N. But he owes the Queen his life. If she hadn’t been there, he'd have been dead long before he’d met her daughter.

“She’s,” he pauses, trying to figure what he can say without telling too much. His mind working at half speed under the fever, thick as molasses. “She’s incredible.”

The Queen gives him a watery smile, prodding him to continue.

“She’s brave, and smart. And she looks just like you. She’s a lot like you actually.”

“Really?” She swallows thickly.

“She tries to be like the king, but she… She’s…”

Good? Wonwoo knew the extensive lists of crimes and cruelties Y/N committed, the unknowns easily assumed. Good was a stretch but she wasn’t bad. She fell somewhere in between, beyond an easy answer. It's the only way to describe the princess turned pirate. A low bar to say she hadn’t been as cruel as she could have been but it's true. She’d done horrible things but at her core she was as good as someone in her position could be. Like a flame. Able to burn down villages if left unchecked, but eager to keep a freezing family warm if given the opportunity. Fire burns because that's its nature, but you can’t damn candle for the crimes of the pyre.

“I remember when you were brought here, Wonwoo. Just a baby. I’d still been carrying my daughter at the time. And I knew once Y/N came, she’d find you. A mother just knows.” The clamor of keys tickles his ears. “Your mother asked me to protect you and I promised the gods I would. She risked her life to save her child. She inspires me to do the same.”

The door to his cell swings open, ear splitting as rusted metal scraps against stone.

“I can’t walk,” Wonwoo pants. “they broke my ankle.”

The Queen pauses at the sight of his foot and Wonwoo can’t help but stare at her. The furrow of her eyebrows and twist of her lips remind him of her daughter.

“I have several guards that are loyal to me, not the king. I’ll try to have one fetch you and help you through the tunnels.”

“I don’t know where I’ll go after.”

“Even when she was little my daughter had a talent for finding you. I’m sure she’ll be here to collect you soon enough.”

“Thank you.”

“I should be thanking you, Wonwoo. You’ve taken care of Y/N all this time.”

“She makes it easy.”

“Love has a peculiar way of doing that, doesn’t it?”

Before he can say anything else, she’s turned to exit down the same hallway she’d come, heels echoing as she goes.

Jeonghan paces in front of the cell like a tiger circles its cage, like he is the one trapped inside and not Wonwoo. His hair is disheveled, eyes wild, tension stringing his muscles tight. Agitation consumes Jeonghan, even Wonwoo’s infection riddled mind can see it.

The sting of vomit and other refuse in the corner of Wonwoo’s accommodations stains the air. This morning, his urine was tinged pink. The sliver of hope of seeing anything beyond these walls ever again left when the Queen turned her back to him yesterday. No guards came to help him. Only ones providing small buckets of water for him to clean himself and drink from.

“She’s going to let you die in here.”

No reply. Not that Wonwoo has the energy to open his mouth, let alone goad the man. Let him drive himself mad for all Wonwoo cares.

“It was supposed to be her!” Jeonghan’s nostrils flare as he presses his face between the bars. His hands shake as they squeeze around the biting steel. “You ruined everything, you stupid piece of filth!”

The pieces of the mysterious puzzle click. Perhaps its infection induced delirium but Wonwoo finally understands why Jeonghan despises him so.

Jeonghan hates Wonwoo because he has what Jeonghan can’t get. No matter which way Jeonghan tried to rub his unworthiness in his face, she didn’t want him. Y/N chose Wonwoo, or that's what Jeonghan believes. A peasant-born bastard beat the son of a Duke. In Jeonghan’s world it was unimaginable.

In Wonwoo’s world, it's unimaginable too.

He can’t help but laugh. Scratchy and unpleasant given his condition but full bellied laughter fills his mouth, splitting the silence of the dungeon.

“You think it’s funny? You’re going to die here and no one is going to care.”

Snorting around caked blood and snot, Wonwoo’s hysteria continues at Jeonghan’s words. Wonwoo is laughing at his own funeral. Wildly inappropriate, but the irony of the gods sends him into a fit.

Jeonghan turns to the guards, furious at Wonwoo’s inability to respond to his attempts to instigate a fight. “Move him to the throne room, the King is waiting.”

The guards manhandling him upright might have hurt if Wonwoo’s body wasn’t begging for death. He’s slipping away into the recesses of his mind, barely able to snag the thread of reality that continues to unravel before him as he giggles manically. The jostle of his ankle sends bile to his mouth, acrid burn flooding his tongue.

Spots paint his vision, the movement fatiguing him quickly. His head lulls to and fro, muscles retired as they carry Wonwoo out of the dungeon and through the palace. Wonwoo’s eyes refuse to open, but he can listen. Every footstep thuds like a pulse, whispered words coming to him as if he’s deep underwater. A sharp gasp greets him when the guards finally pause.

The crack of his skull on marble is the last thing Wonwoo registers before he returns to darkness.

Onyx skies weep as a small dingy enters the harbor of Amesstino, welcoming the long lost princess home after years of separation as angry waves attempt to claim her for the tide.

Disguised as a gang of traders, you and your crew silently dock and flee the tiny craft. Thick sheets of rain provide plenty of cover to sneak to the palace unseen. No one speaks, crashes of thunder shaking the earth and bolts of lightning splitting the sky. Even the wind whips against your body, lashing at your back. The gods are angry.

Your fury is more dangerous.

The King anticipates your arrival, welcoming you with abandoned guard posts and open gates. You walk through the front door with baited breath, not even a servant ghosts through the empty quartz hallways.

Several pairs of eyes take in the finery that is the Iaslerian palace. As if sculpted from a single piece of white marble, smooth ornate columns support the massive structure, free from any blemishes or ware. Pale blue tapestries embroidered with silver lotus blossoms hang from the ceiling in even rows like icicles. Exactly the same as the day you left, frozen in time, eagerly awaiting your return.

Imposing silver doors seal off the throne room, gleaming like two teeth waiting to bite. Their thickness prevents any sound from breaking free, leaving you woefully unprepared for what will greet you on the other side.

A single beat of breath passes before your crew heaves the doors open to meet your maker.

Guns cocked and teeth bare, your eyes quickly scan the throne room. In the center, your father lazes in his throne, eyes alight with cruel mirth. Your mother is poised next to him, mouth wide in shock, face pale as if she’d seen a ghost. Guards line the walls, swords drawn; tense for a fight.

But the heap sprawled to the right of the lotus emblem on the floor stops heart. The familiar mop of hair inkling across the braided silver and blue veins of the seal. His chest doesn’t move, almost unrecognizable through bloody bruises swelling half his face.

Denial shrouds your mind. Wonwoo isn't dead. You’d feel it. In your gut, in your heart. Somewhere, you’d feel his soul leave this world and escape to the next.

“I gave you the princess, now give me back my title!” Jeonghan demands, emerging from the line of guards to the left.

“You’re as much of a fool as your father Jeonghan! Did you truly believe I’d let you roam Iaslera? You ruined any chance to return to civility when you took that brand on your neck!”

“You said—”

“Silence!” Carnos bellows, voice echoing between the walls. “My dear daughter has finally returned.” he smiles, “I wish to welcome her back.”

Your breath stutters in your lungs. You’ve had countless knives to your throat, guns to your back, brawled with the rowdiest of thieves and criminals. But the bravery curling around your edges shrinks back in the face of your father.

Suddenly you're five again watching Dirce cowering on the floor, with a bloody welt across her face. Helpless as your father unleashes the monster that lurks under his skin. It’s all your fault. Your greed. Your pride. Your envy. No one is to blame but yourself.

“You wanted me here.” You manage to steel your voice. “ He’s of no use now. Let him go and I’ll do whatever you want.”

If your father wants your submission, to see you beg, you’ll do it. He can break you if it means your crew will be left whole.

“What I want is for you to finally learn your place. And you will, in due time. But first, you’ll watch your little bastard lose his head.”

“No!”

“Be silent!” He demands, guards taking a threatening step forward. “You insolent little bitch! You thought you could escape me? I am a King! You are nothing. Less than nothing. You couldn’t even escape that pathetic excuse of a pirate on your own! You needed a peasant to—”

A gunshot rings through the room. A hole in the king's chest releases a trickle of blood down his front, staining the creamy linen shirt. King Carnos shakes as he dips his chin, mouth open in shock as he realizes he’s been shot.

The smoking revolver in Jeonghan’s hand quivers, his eyes wide at what he’s done.

An eerie smile creeps across your father’s face, blood staining his teeth. His last words are indecipherable as he chokes on the next rush through his mouth.

Not even a mouse squeaks to break the fragile silence hanging in the air, bodies frozen to the floor as the great King of Iaslera falls.

Then chaos explodes.

Your mother wails as she registers what's happened, guards rushing in an attempt to aid the king.

Every muscle in your body screams to flee but your mind keeps you on your knees. The king is dead. Your father is dead. Mouth slack, you shiver as death brushes past you, her chilled hand resting briefly on your shoulder before she steps forward to claim his soul. The once faint whispers of the sea trickling into your ears again. I’ll collect you eventually, princess. But not tonight. Death will have to wait once more for you to trail behind her.

Soonyoung drags you by your armpits, screaming something in your face that you can’t hear, the ring of the bullet replaying over and over; as if you’re under the waves and life is happening far above on the surface. Wonwoo’s limp body still rests in the corner, face bruised and caked with flaking patches of deep maroon.

Everything rushes you at once.

“Come on Y/N!”

“Wonwoo, get Wonwoo!” You shriek hysterically over Soonyoung’s shoulder as he pushes you out.

“We’ve got to get back to the boat!”

“Please!” You beg, voice horse as tears streak your face.

Hand iron tight around your wrist, Soonyoung doesn’t let you break from his grip. You barely make out Jun and Jihoon carrying a third body before you’re outside and nearly falling down the cliff to the shore.

Seokmin fights to keep his hold on the dingy as it batters against the sand. You and Soonyoung are the first to make it. Minutes pass by as you watch the remaining members of your crew fly down the stairs, slowed with the added weight of another. You can’t breathe.

Jihoon hauls Wonwoo into the ship first, followed by himself and the other men.

Nothing else matters, just the weak rise of his chest. It’s the tether your sanity latches on as you return to the sea.

Dreams

In the liminal space between life and the abyss, Wonwoo dreams.

He dreams, and he remembers.

The first time Wonwoo meets the princess, he discovers she’s insufferable.

The little girl glides his way, the self-righteous air of importance swirling her stiff shoulders. “What is your name?”

Wonwoo just gives her a slow blink, she’s woefully out of place amongst the smells and sounds of the stable.

Turning to the older woman, the snobby girl asks, “Is he simple?”

“I’m not simple!” Wonwoo objects.

“Then what is your name? You have one don’t you? Or do you prefer I call you ‘stable boy’?”

“My name is Wonwoo.”

“Nice to meet you.” She says, nose high in the air as she extends her hand.

Wonwoo hesitates before shaking it like he’s watched the older men do when they settle a deal.

“No!” She objects, snatching her palm away. “You don’t shake a lady’s hand.”

Her scolding confuses him, twisting his face.

“You do know what a lady is?”

“Of course I do!” He stomps. “You’re just a girl!”

“Ladies are girls, you idiot!”

An older woman steps in, “Ma’am, your horse is ready.”

Huffing indignantly, the little girl twirls to flounce to the other side of the stables. She walks as if the ground only exists to rise and meet her foot with each step. The princess is headed where the caramel colored mare that bit Wonwoo two days ago waits. Figures. Crazy horse for a crazy girl.

—

“Would you like to play with me?”

“I have chores.”

“They can wait until after we play.”

“Go on, son.” urges the older groomsman Wonwoo assists. “I’ll take care of your stalls.”

His eyes shift as he stammers for another excuse. Play with the crazy girl? He’d rather shovel the entire stable twice over.

Wonwoo doesn’t get the chance to speak before she snagged his wrist, pulling him towards the wide entrance. “Come on!”

Once tucked away in a secluded corner of the garden, both panting, Wonwoo looks at her. She looks about his age, only an inch shorter than he is at seven years old. Wisps of loose hair float around her face with a few tiny braids and twists pinned here and there. Delicate threads of silver intertwined throughout. Her dress is simple stormy blue but the fabric clearly indicates it isn't a hand me down like all his torn and patched clothes are.

“Do you know how to play soldiers?”

“Yes?”

“Teach me.”

“Huh?”

“My sisters don’t know how and when I ask the boys in court they won’t play with me.”

Wonwoo spends the rest of the afternoon running around the garden with Y/N. She’s decided they’re nations are at war, and this is the final battle.

“Yield!” She cries.

“Never!”

“Your majesty! What are you doing?” The shrill voice of an older maid rings out. “Young ladies do not roll in the dirt with servants! Certainly not princesses!”

The wrinkly woman grabs Y/N’s wrist, shooting a glare at Wonwoo.

“And you! Don’t you have chores that need finishing?” The maid spits before whipping around towards the palace.

The little princess mouths a silent apology over her shoulder, remorseful round eyes only leaving Wonwoo when she’s dragged behind a hedge.

“No way to behave! Your governess will have my head when she sees you…”

—

“Do you like burnt sugar cake?”

Wonwoo continues to ignore any effort for conversation, focusing on raking the new hay he’s laid down in the stall. Now that he’s twelve he’s given more responsibilities than just tossing the soiled hay into a cart.

“How long will you be angry with me?”

More silence. It’s the only thing Wonwoo can control in the unbalanced dynamic between himself and the youngest princess of the court. If she wished, she could command him to do whatever she wanted, the threat of whips at his back. But she allows Wonwoo to be angry. To be silent. She’s sat and mopped for the past two hours, huffing and sighing as Wonwoo refused to acknowledge her bids for attention. He ducks into the next stall and begins the same repetitive steps he has all morning, allowing the sweat on his brow and pull of his body to dull his mind.

What business was it to the princess that he couldn’t read?

When he exits, he finds the piece of confection wrapped in a silk handkerchief on the wall of the stall, Y/N nowhere to be seen.

The stables aren’t warmed with her presence again. Wonwoo never admits to missing it.

—

“I’m going for a ride!”

“My lady, Muriel has oyspox and there is no one else to escort you.” A stammering maid attempts to placate the fuming princess.

“If my mare is not saddled this instant I will take someone’s head!”

“You cannot ride without accompaniment!”

“He will escort me.”

Wonwoo knows she’s referring to him without looking away from the saddle he’s rigging onto one of the guard’s horses. A rambunctious sandy colt named Athos with a penchant to buck at strangers. He’s one of Wonwoo’s favorites.

“Ma’am, he is a stablehand!”

“Which is of no concern to me.” The rich timber of her voice is decidedly royal. “He will be my escort and that is final.”

Handing over the reins of the stallion to another servant, Wonwoo sets towards the tack room for the appropriate gear. The dark leather saddle and matching bridle is in perfect condition despite going years without use. Wonwoo would know, he’s the one charged with oiling them.

The familiar caramel colored mare is clearly excited for a ride, baying over the door to her stall. Wonwoo can’t stop the grin from spreading to his lips. Over the years, Kalsta had become as familiar as the back of his hand, only nipping his shirt when he refuses her a treat.

Once Kalsta and another stone gray mare are prepared, the fuming princess mounts her and dashes from the stable. Her hair blasting behind her as she pushes into a dead sprint across the hills leading to the coastline below the cliff housing the dazzling white palace.

Wonwoo’s eyes roll, but follows nevertheless; careful to remain several paces behind, even when the horses tire to a trot. From this distance, Wonwoo catches a few muttered words about some royal from the next continent over the crashing waves.

“If you were to marry a girl, wouldn’t you care to know more about her than which season she prefers?”

It takes Wonwoo a moment to realize she’s finally addressing him directly. When he does, he fumbles for an appropriate answer.

“I–,” he stammers, “I don’t know. I guess.”

“Then it is of no coincidence if you disagree with her about other more important topics?”

“Such as?”

“Such as… well I’m not quite sure but certainly there are more important things than my preferences in tea.”

“Surely there is, Your Grace.”

“Are you mocking me?”

“A humble servant would never mock their sovereign.”

“Humility is a virtue you lack in spades, Wonwoo.”

The grin pulling at the corners of his lips wins the tug of war with his mind. “Ahh, so she does remember me.”

Rolling her eyes, the first smile Wonwoo has seen all afternoon blooms on her face. “Of course I remember you. A girl never forgets the first boy she beats up.”

“You didn’t beat me up!”

Her warm chuckle brightens the atmosphere despite the nipping autumn breeze.

“So you’re to be married?”

“If my father has his way, yes.”

“What’s he like?”

“My father?”

“No, the prince you’ve been mumbling about.”

“He’s not a prince, he’s the son of a duke in Nas-Shost.” Y/N picks at the seam of the saddle. “We’ve been engaged since I was twelve, but I’m not sure what he’s like. We’ve only written a few letters.”

“A few letters since you were twelve?”

“Marriage wasn’t as looming when I was a child.”

“And you haven’t learned anything about him in all that time?”

“He tries to charm me but I find it quite dull.”

“Picky princess.”

“Is it so wrong to want a man of some substance?”

“Like what?”

Wonwoo hadn’t thought much about marriage at all. He’d caught a few of the younger maids staring at him when he worked without his shirt on but paid them no mind. No one ever gave him reason enough to think of anything more than some lighthearted touching. He was barely sixteen after all.

“I don’t know. His words tell me nothing about who he is or what he enjoys. Only that he is an incorrigible flirt who takes interest in trivial matters of taste.”

“You don’t want a man who charms you?”

“I want a man who has meaning beyond a made up title.”

“‘Made up title’,” he rolls the words around his mouth. “I believe that borders on treason.”

“Does it count if I’m referring to myself?”

Wonwoo continues to ride with you in silence, this time matching your pace.

—

Wonwoo wakes to whispers of his name, urgent calls for him to break the delicate surface of dreams. He fights a shout when he finds Y/N hovering over him, hand covering his mouth. Brushing it aside, he throws his gaze around the tiny space of his quarters before returning to her.

She’s cloaked in a gauzy dressing gown, the thin cream cotton of her nightgown peeking out between the deep blue lapels where the soft skin of her chest disappears; bedraggled tendrils of hair curled around her shoulder. The gentle flicker of candlelight casts her face in a hazy glow, flame reflecting in the dark center of her eyes. The princess is in his room, perched on the side of his bed, face inches from his own. Wonwoo must still be dreaming.

“He’s here.”

Wonwoo’s brain is thick as cold honey, the day in the stables more grueling with the additional horses the king’s guest brought. “What?”

“Jeonghan. He’s here.”

“And you’ve come to my room to tell me this?” Wonwoo turns his back towards her and closes his eyes.

“He’s horrible.”

Her admission gives Wonwoo pause. Glancing over his shoulder, he catches a wet trail of tears glossing Y/N’s face, chin tucking to her chest to hide her visage amongst her hair. Pitiful whimpers spill from her lips. Wonwoo nearly chokes when she throws herself into his chest, hot beads streaming onto his bare skin as the walls of control crumble.

“He’s awful, Woo.”

Wonwoo has never navigated such an emotional response from Y/N, from any woman really. When they’d been children, she’d stomp her foot and storm away when upset. Or sometimes tackle him to the dirt and pin him under her till he apologized and begged for mercy. He’s completely out of his depth..

Remembering how his mother would comfort him, Wonwoo lifts a hand to stroke the top of her head. A fresh round of tears erupt, shaking her against him. A loud bawl escapes Y/N, freezing Wonwoo’s blood. He cannot get caught with the princess in his bed. Not in this state; thin cover pooling around his waist, his chest bare and her’s barely covered by thin scraps of fabric. Both states of dress were courtesy of Iaslera’s brutal summers. But a coincidence wouldn’t save his sorry hide if another servant walked in.

“Y/N,” Wonwoo whispers gently. “It will be okay.”

The lie does nothing to stifle her sobs.

Trying again, “It will be fine, I promise.”

Wonwoo has never been a master of words.

“It won’t!” She shudders. “He’s awful, and rude. And he looks at me like nothing more than some prized horse.”

“They’ve only arrived today. Surely he cannot be that bad already.”

“He’s exactly like my father.”

Y/N’s father. Less of a man and more of a waking nightmare. Wonwoo barely interacted with him but the King’s reputation was well known across the kingdom.

Any words of comfort die in his chest. There’s nothing Wonwoo can do. That anyone can do.

“I wish I’d never been born.”

If Wonwoo had been born in her position, he’d wish the same thing.

“You’ve always wanted to see Nas-Shost.”

“How wonderful it will be from the confines of a palace.”

“Perhaps he’ll allow you to travel. You said the King hardly visits the Queen since you came about.”

“So I’m to pray he takes up a mistress after he’s had his fill of me?”

Telltale signs of her fury take root. Huffed breath and shaking hands, a husky scoff punctuating each sentence. Perhaps anger is better than sorrow. Wonwoo has placated her many times when the princesses' temper emerged. This would be no different.

“I’d pray he takes up several, then he’d be too busy to bother you, and let you do as you please.”

“I’d do as I please anyway. He’s barely a duke and I’m a princess.”

“Yes, as you’ve reminded everyone with every breath you take.”

“Jeonghan is the one who acts like his title is of importance! ‘Future Duke’ this and ‘when I am Duke’ that. He squawks like a bird.”

“You’re not quite dazzling to be around either so he might bore quickly.”

“I could have you arrested for speaking ill of the royal family.”

“And what do you plan to tell the guards, your highness?” Wonwoo smirks. “That you forced yourself into my chambers past midnight for some gossip and found yourself offended?”

Wide eyes glace down to his naked chest, jumping to her own as she pulls her dressing gown around herself tighter. The apples of her cheeks warm enticingly as she realizes the precarious position she’s arranged them in, still half in Wonwoo’s lap, perched between his legs.

As if burned, you jump away from his bed to the wall only a foot away. “I—. I didn’t, it isn’t.”

“Isn’t what, princess?”

A pause before indignation takes flight. “You truly are insufferable!” She quietly shouts. Spinning to exit his room with a dramatic sigh.

—

“I wish for a ride.”

“I’m occupied, ma’am.”

“Well make yourself un-occupied.”

“Her Majesty wishes it, so it will be.”

“How I hate when you call me that.”

“What would Her Royal Highness prefer?”

“For you to shut your trap!”

“Such foul words from a lady.”

“I have several more for you if my horse isn’t ready soon.”

“Your Highness, would you mind if I accompany you for your ride?

“I prefer to go alone.”

“You’re going with the stable hand.”

“It’s required that I have a chaperone. Since he’s a servant, he doesn’t count as company.”

Wonwoo tries not to take offense to the subtle insult to his station. He knows she doesn’t mean what she says but the words resemble the same ones he’s heard from other, less friendly, lips many times before.

“I see. Well, I hope to speak with you when you return.”

“Of course, Jeonghan.”

—

“You want to what?”

“Leave. Go somewhere else. Anywhere else.”

“And just how do you expect to do that? You’ve never left these grounds.”

“That’s a lie! I visited Anlehm when I was thirteen!”

“With a royal escort! A girl on the road by herself is completely different.”

“I won’t be alone.”

“And who will join you?”

“You.”

“Me?”

“Please keep up Wonwoo, we don’t have much time to discuss.”

“Why me?”

“You are the only person in the world I trust.”

She speaks as if the admission is little more than declaring the day's weather, but the weight rests heavy on his shoulders. The only person the princess of Iaslera trusts is a bastard stable boy with nothing to his name.

“And as such, I will need your assistance.”

“I’ve never left the palace.”

“But you understand peasant things like money.”

It’s not a slight, simply the truth.

“So I am nothing more than a guard for you?”

“Of course not, you’re my friend.”

Friend. Friends with the princess. Gods help him.

“A friend would tell you your plan is madness.”

“And you?”

“You’ll do it anyway.”

“You know me well.”

“If we’re caught, I’ll hang.”

“Then we won’t get caught.”

“Because it is as easy as that.”

“‘If her majesty wishes, so it will be.’ Remember?”

“So it will be.”

—

“What do you know about sex?”

Wonwoo chokes on the large bite of apple he’d been munching on. “Pardon?”

Rolling to her side next to him under the shade of the lush fruit tree, Y/N starts again. “Sex. What do you know about it?”

“I— This isn’t an appropriate conversation for a lady.”

“Well I’m no longer a lady, considering I’ve run away with a servant. I’m thoroughly disavowed from the crown. No need to worry about corrupting me.”

Corrupting her. Him corrupting Y/N.

Oh.

The thoughts were already there, smothered by his own guilt of imaging his friend in that way. Wonwoo suddenly pictures the first time Y/N wore trousers, the roughspun fabric hugging her rolling hips as she glided by. Worse, she didn’t even realize what she was doing, having his tongue nearly hung out of his mouth like a panting dog. And now she’s asking him about sex? Perhaps leaving the palace was a bad idea.

“It's something people do to pass the time.”

“I know what it is, Wonwoo. What is it like?”

“I don’t know. Probably like kissing I suppose.”

“And what's that like?”

“You’ve never?”

“Princess, remember?”

“Well it’s…sort of wet? And feels nice. It’s hard to explain.”

“Show me.”

“What?”

“Show me what kissing is like.”

—

“Wonwoo.”

“Yes?”

“You’re really quite handsome. Do you know that?”

The burn of whiskey on an empty stomach loosens even the lips of royalty, it seems.

“High compliment coming from a princess.”

“I’m not a princess.”

Y/N huffs, stumbling back into the mound of hay Wonwoo collected for sleeping. Fall looms on the horizon and the chill of the evening air requires sharing the ratty blanket. Wonwoo would happily sleep in his own pile but her disposition after a cold night left much to be desired.

“You’ll always be a princess. You still walk like a princess, talk like one, even order me about like we never left the palace.”

“I do not order you around!”

Shrilling his voice in mockery, he does his best impression of what he dubs her ‘princess voice.’ “Wonwoo, fetch us breakfast. Wonwoo, teach me to fish. Wonwoo, show me how to use a knife.”

“Well you listen so well it’d be a shame to waste a talent.”

A pause.

“I like when you order me about.”

Perhaps he’s indulged too much as well.

“Wonwoo.”

“Yes?”

“Will you teach me about kissing now?

That night, Wonwoo teaches you everything he knows. He also learns sex is much more than passing time.

The Edge

Dark. Wonwoo registers darkness and warmth first. As his soul slowly returns to his body he realizes he’s laying down in a cot, the unmistakable sway of the sea rocks him to consciousness. And then, Wonwoo realizes he hurts.

A sharp pounding echoes through his bones in time with his weak pulse. Each breath stretching his lungs to the point they feel as if they’ll shred. One of his eyes is swollen shut and the other waters uncontrollably under the pain.

A squeeze around his hand anchors his attention. Using whatever reserve of strength he has left, he tries to squeeze back.

“Wonwoo?”

The voice is familiar, buttery smoothness pleasant to his ears. Wonwoo hopes the Voice will continue saying his name. Maybe it will lull him back to sleep and away from his torment.

“Wonwoo?”

How lovely the Voice is. Perhaps he is still dreaming, the smooth slide of a warm palm against his forehead comforts him before the roughness of a damp cloth wipes at his brow.

A pause before the Voice removes what Wonwoo assumes is her hand. He calls on the reserve of strength again to protest, coughing a weak groan into the space above him.

“You’re awake!” She says, as if it's some marvel.

When she dives into his chest, Wonwoo nearly screams. His ribs protest her weight, his lungs on the verge of collapse. But on his skin he feels her hot wet tears, her nose digging into his breastbone. Even her lips brush against the sensitive flesh as she cries his name over and over. The desire to wrap his arms around her is quelled by protesting muscles. It feels as if he’s wading through wet sand.

She must sense his pain because she removes herself from his person and coos for him to sleep, raking her fingers across his scalp gently as something foul and oily slips between his lips. Sleep, what a wonderful idea.

The shallow rise and fall of Wonwoo’s chest has been the subject of your attention for three days. A part of you fears that the moment you look away it will stop.

He’d woken for the first time in the early hours of the morning a few days ago, the sun barely rising from his bed beneath the horizon as Wonwoo breached consciousness. Shua lectured on and on regarding the significance of rest to healing. Better for Wonwoo to sleep fitfully than wake in agony. But the more frequent he broke the surface of slumber the more anxious you became.

A brief shift of your focus to the vial of murky sedative Shua left for you to administer gives Wonwoo enough time to wake with a heart wrenching groan.

“Shhh,” you coo, settling the cool cloth back on his forehead. “You’re alright.”

“Y/N?” Wonwoo mumbles, eyes firmly shut but his eyes moving rapidly behind his lids.

“I’m here.”

You move your free hand to his own on the side of the bed, thumb stroking the backs of his fingers in an attempt to sooth him.

“Princess.” he slurs.

The pained sobs you’ve released quietly over the past few days return, watering your entangled hands as you rest your forehead against them.

Even in death, your father still torments you.

Wonwoo becomes fully sentient after a week. Weak from hunger and dehydration, but alive. Shua fusses over him at all hours like a mother hen, mixing vials and brewing all types of teas to speed his recovery along. Luckily, with all of the commotion from the crew to see Wonwoo with their own eyes, you’ve been able to fade to the shadows.

Taking the wheel yourself gives Jihoon a chance to descend below deck. Or offering Soonyoung the opportunity to share a meal with Wonwoo as you man the rigging. Anything to stay away from the room next to your own.

Somehow Wonwoo awake and aware is worse.

But only so many distractions exist in such a small space as your ship. The crew begins to brush aside your offers of assistance, urging you to have time with Wonwoo now that he’s healing. You’re at the end of your rope when Seungkwan informs you of Wonwoo’s request to see you.

You can feel Wonwoo’s eyes watching you in the corner of his room, your own tracing the whorls in the wood grain of the floors, walls, and ceiling.

You break the silence first, “Are you angry with me?”

“When have I ever been angry with you?”

“I’m angry with myself.”

“That’s why you’re you and I’m me. I chose to go on his ship.”

“It’s my fault he was here in the first place!”

“Do you think I’m incapable of making my own choices?”

“I’ve never,”

“If given the same chance, I’d do it again. I don’t regret it.”

“I—”

Wonwoo cuts you off before you can protest. “Why have you been avoiding me?”

This is the start of the conversation you’ve been running from.

“I haven’t.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

He’s right. And rather than continue to lie, your feet carry you out the door and back in the safety of your office.

Two more days pass before you gather enough courage to brave him again. You’ve never been afraid of Wonwoo; never shied away from his presence. Even after tense moments, having him around was a comfort and he indulged your desire to ignore whatever bubbled between you two. But not anymore. Wonwoo is demanding answers you don’t have to questions you're terrified of asking.

He sleeps thanks to the sedative Shua slipped in his tea before re-sewing some of the garish stitches along his ribs.

Resting in the chair next to the top of his bed, your eyes catalog his features. Even through the swelling and bruises, Wonwoo’s still handsome. From the sharp tilt of his jaw to the gentle pout of his lips, even his scar warms your heart as he dozes. It's hard to settle the panic hanging over your shoulder, a swirling mass of fear and dread.

So lost in your own mind, you don’t realize his good eye is open and glaring straight at you.

“You’re back.”

Jumping at the rasp of his voice, you launch to your feet. “I was just leaving.”

“Of course you were.” He scoffs.

The venom in his tone freezes you as your fist clenches around the doorknob.

He continues, “I asked Jihoon to take us to Ventparsk. I’m going to find a new crew.”

“What?” You’re trembling.

“You don’t want me here.”

“I never said that!”

“You don’t have to! You can’t even look at me without running in the other direction!”

Wonwoo just stares. He’s patient in the worst ways and the injuries littered across his face obscure any emotions he may be experiencing himself.

“I don’t know how to do this, Woo.”

“You’re too scared to try.”

“Maybe I am! But if I’m a coward, what does that make you?”

“A fool.” he spits. “I can’t pretend to not feel for you. Not anymore. If you truly do not want me then I’ll make it easier for the both of us and allow you freedom from any guilt.”

What can you say? The man you’ve bound yourself to in mind, body, and spirit, who has risked his life for you more times than you can count, is willing to walk away for your comfort; unconsciously taking half your heart with him. The idea saps the oxygen out of your lungs. You without Wonwoo. Like a flower without the sun. The sky without stars. Ocean without a tide.

Wonwoo has never asked, only allowed you to take endlessly. Perhaps it’s time you give something to him.

Tears are welling in your eyes before you can speak. “I don’t want you to go.” Shaking your head, your voice breaks as you cry like the little girl you were so long ago. “Don’t go.” Quivering like a leaf in a storm you beg. “Please.”

Through the blur of tears you can make out Wonwoo attempting to rise out of his cot. The extensive wounds and injuries make it a Herculean effort, causing him to nearly topple to the floor before you approach him. Strong arms tangle around you as you bury your face into his neck, pleading for him to stay.

“I don’t know what else to do.” He whispers into your hair.

You continue to bawl, plagued by images of your lonely figure, missing the better half of your soul. The only steady presence in your life, the one person who played witness to your weakest moments. Months of separation at the hands of fate were child’s play considering the bleak future Wonwoo suggested. Nothing sacrificed or gained would be worth the pain if he isn’t there to share it with you.

“Please.”

“You’re being selfish.”

“If this makes me selfish then yes I’m selfish! I’m selfish and I’m cruel because I can’t imagine a world where we separate. Please!”

“You’ll make do.”

“No I won’t.”

“So you ask me to stay by your side, knowing how I feel, and do what? Ignore it? Pretend it doesn’t exist?”

“When have I ever asked you not to feel?”

“When have I asked you for anything? Any wish or whim in my power I do. Why can’t you try?”

“I do not know how.”

“That’s a lie.”

“What do you want me to say?” Your voice cuts like glass, tears of sadness transforming into tears of frustration.

“I want you to tell me the truth!”

“I am! I have no idea what any of this means!” Your back up and pacing, hands nearly ripping your hair out in an attempt to ground yourself. “I thought you were dead Wonwoo. I thought my father killed you! And for a moment it felt like I died too.”

“And you don’t think that means something?”

“My apologies that I’m not able to write sonnets about feelings I don’t understand!”

“You refuse to even try. I nearly died and you can’t even stand to be in the same room as me!”

“Because it’s my fault! I decided to leave the palace! I decided to pull you into my mess! How can you even look at me?”

“Because I love you.” His eyes burn. “For years, I’ve loved you and I tried not to but—” Wonwoo swallows roughly. “It’s become something I live with.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“Because telling you served what purpose? You had one of the crew tortured and tossed overboard because he guessed we rolled around in some hay when we were children. Didn’t inspire confidence you’d be receptive to the idea!”

“So you decided for me?”

“Impossible as it might be, please attempt to consider how I felt.”

“And now I’m selfish? You decide to keep secrets and it’s somehow my fault?”

“Then it's my fault for not being brave enough to face your rejection?”

“I wouldn’t—. I haven’t rejected you.” You blink. “It’s terrifying. Want you the way I do. I can’t think, I couldn’t breathe until you woke up. What happens to me if I let myself have you, and you disappear?”

“I would nev—“

“What if someone comes for you again and this time they do kill you? When I saw your face at the palace, I felt…” Another hot wave of tears emerges. “I couldn’t do anything. All I saw was you. I begged my father to kill me so I wouldn’t have to live without you.”

Silence.

“Did it feel like no matter how many breaths you took there wasn’t enough air? Like you were drowning on dry land?”

“Yes—“

“Like the sun fell out of the sky and the tides stopped? Because that’s how I felt. When Jeonghan took you. My body was here but my soul was with you.”

Of course the one person who understands you is Wonwoo. He sees and he knows. And for all his claims that words aren’t his strength, he gives you courage.

“I wasn’t raised to understand this. My mother told me the most I could hope for with a man was friendship, maybe fondness. Love isn’t a privilege I’d learned to understand.”

A pregnant pause passes.

“Then we learn together.”

Sitting back on the cot, you allow the warmth of Wonwoo’s calloused palm resting on the knobs of your spine to calm you. Sniffling pathetically, you listen to his heart drum in his chest. It reminds you all the times you pressed against him for warmth when you first ran away. The beat of his heart lulling you to rest better than any lullaby your nanny sang in the nursery.

Wonwoo breaks the delicate silence shrouding his room.

“A liar and a coward. What a pair we make.” He chuckles, humor in the irony.

Releasing your own puff of air, you hesitate before asking.

“What do we do about it?”

“About what?”

“These… feelings.”

“I don’t know.”

From all the stories you read as a child, confessions of love and wanting meant joy and happiness. But in its stead is something like sorrow, a firm pain of a crossroads without a clue where either path led.

“Wonwoo?”

He hums.

“What do you want to do about it?”

Wonwoo is silent as he ponders.

“Right now, I want to hold you.”

Moments pass as you trace shapes along his chest, careful to avoid the bandages crossing over his shoulder. The pressure of his lips against the crown of your skull turns your head up.

Wonwoo’s face is soft, staring at you with undeserved fondness. The same way he did that night in the barn, the same way he has always done in private when he thinks you aren’t looking. If Wonwoo is brave enough to tell you, then you owe him the same.

Tracing his features with your fingers, you carefully avoid the wounds still dappling his face. Starting at the temple where his scar begins, you follow it to the plush of his lips, the skin chap under your touch. Before following the loop of his nose and the curve of his brow.

“I love you.”

Your whispered admission floats in the air above your heads.

Wonwoo shuts his eyes and lets you do as you please, leaving a gentle kiss to the pad of your pointer finger as it returns to his mouth.

The smooth slide leaves you craving the contact across your own mouth. Rising up, you gently brush your lips across his. Barely a ghost of flesh but Wonwoo chases the contact. Lips slip against one another, soft passes filled with tender longing.

One the next stroke, you suck his lower lip between your teeth and allow the tip of your tongue to trace it. You faintly register the copper taste of blood and the salt of the sea. The drag must ignite something in his blood because Wonwoo attempts to twist you underneath him before he yelps in pain.

“Stop! You’ll tear your stitches!”

“Damn the stitches,” he grits, claiming your mouth again.

Carefully maneuvering out of his reach, you break the kiss as you rise from his cot. A genuine smile of joy returning to your face after years of drought.

“When you’re better,” you whisper.

“You’d have us wait?”

“I’d rather have you when your face no longer resembles the wrong side of a horse.”

He fails to make a grab for your sleeve, huffing as he rests back into the mattress. “I thought I charmed you with more than my looks.”

“Unfortunately, I’m quite shallow.”

“There should be an old scarf in my desk drawer, perhaps that can be of use?”

“Woo,” you gently coo. “You can’t even sit up straight.”

“I believe that’s a matter of opinion.”

You chuckle. “When you’re well enough, I’ll lock us in here for as long as you wish.”

The simmering displeasure is clear on his face. Wonwoo isn’t angry with you. He’s angry with his injuries. With Jeonghan and your dead father. With the fates.

“As long as I wish?”

Humming in agreement as you rest one knee onto the bed, you lean over his form before whispering.

“You should try and listen to Shua so I don’t have to wait much longer.”

“Fine.”

“It’s a deal.”

Three months.

Three months of silently mourning the death of your father in the dead of night, when you’re safe from prying eyes and your mind wanders free. You hardly knew him, he was as much of a stranger as a merchant you stumbled passed in a busy market. Guilt whispered across your mind as each tear slipped down your face. Mourning the man who terrorized a nation and his family, who paid for your execution, who tortured Wonwoo.

Three months of Wonwoo downing every greasy concoction and bitter remedy Shua prescribes. One month for the bruises to yellow and fade into memory, for his cuts to scab and scar. Two months for his shoulder to cease its insistent throb. Two months of keeping his body firmly planted in his cot until he’s cleared to rise with the assistance of a mahogany cane courtesy of Jihoon. Another month of hobbling along the deck, relearning his center of gravity under the threat of toppling into the sea.

Ninety two days of heated gazes and longing brushes of hands in passing, conversations littered with double entendres verging on obscenity. More whispered confessions and declarations. Twenty four nights of you visiting his room under the cover of the moon, sitting by his side, clasping his hand while he slept fitfully, administering more oily sedative when the nightmares chase him awake and one night he pulls you down beside him. Then seventy two mornings blinking wake, curled against one another under the thin sheets like you had all those years ago, whispering promises in the gentle dawn.

The first night Wonwoo shuffles across the deck without the assistance of the familiar piece of wood, you nearly take him against the main mast. Instead, you settle for pulling him to your cabin as the oil lantern begins to burn low, when the eyelids of the crew droop from exhaustion and their heads turn away in consideration.

A choked groan leaves your throat as his hips settle between your thighs, molding together so tightly there’s no deciphering where you end and Wonwoo begins. Mouths refuse to separate as you roll against one another, a cacophony of breathless whimpers and husky moans blending between lips.

Your bodies burn with the inferno of a pyre, every hair stands on edge like lightning is about to strike a hair width away. There’s no air to breath, but the space you’ve descended into thankfully requires none. Only you and Wonwoo exist, not time or the sea or the stars.

“Say it again,” he whispers into your mouth.

“I love you!” You gasp back, eager to seal the words with another suck of his tongue.

Calloused hands palm your chest, breasts heavy and full, nipples growing to stiff peaks as deft fingers brush and pluck. Wonwoo laps at the smooth dip between before latching onto one, nipping and sucking as you writhe in the sheets, thrashing wildly against him. Your own hands make busy twisting and pulling his hair, nails scraping against the dip of his neck and across his broad shoulders.

“Again.” Wonwoo bites into your skin, punctuated with another harsh curl of his hips into yours, so deep he’s in your lungs.

Sobbing your reply, eyes closing as your forehead presses to his, you nearly choke on air as he drives into you again and again.

“I love you.”

“Again.” He pants desperately.

“Wonu!” You keen, back of your head pressing into the pillows as your chest collapses from his precarious rhythm. Streams of light rupture across your vision, tension swelling in your veins and ripping you apart.

“Love you, I love you,” He mutters like a prayer into the crease of your shoulder, face buried in your neck as he snatches your wrist, twining your fingers with his next to your head, grip so tight nails sting into the back of each other's hand.

Another prayer of his name rips from your throat, cannoning Wonwoo into a frenzy. He pummels into you with such force the crown of your skull knocks into the headboard. His hips stutter as he finds his release, filling you with his seed as he cries your own name into your lips.

Stuttered breaths settle for a moment.

“Again, Woo.”

He eagerly follows your orders, just as he’s always done.

Epilogue

Once upon a time, an unlikely friendship between a princess and a stable boy bloomed in the gardens of a king’s palace. The stable boy followed the princess wherever she decided to go, and the princess knew that if she ever needed to turn back, the stable boy would welcome her with open arms. Even when age led her to the other side of this life like an old friend, the stable boy couldn’t help but follow. Though he was eager to return to her side once more, the princess had remained behind to welcome him with a smile when he walked over the hill.

Some say that when the moon dips below the horizon of the sea each day, it's the princess returning to the warmth of her lover's embrace. Always destined to find one another in each life, never to be kept apart, no matter what came between.

#svthub #svt x reader #svt imagines #svt fanfic #svt wonwoo #svt jeonghan #svt angst #seventeen fanfic #jeonghan x reader #jeonghan angst #wonwoo x reader #wonwoo angst #seventeen angst #svt #wonwoo smut #🫡 highvern

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woso-dreamzzz · 4 months

Text

Heart III

Mapi Leon x Ingrid Engen x Child!Reader

Summary: You get adopted

The day you get adopted, you wear a special dress.

You've got lots of clothes now that you live with Mapi and Ingrid. You didn't use to have so many before because you lived in the hospital but now you have lots and a new, super special dress for your adoption.

It's a busy day, Ingrid says, so you have to wake up early to get to the court. Ingrid's got a super special dress on too and Mapi's wearing a suit in the same colour so you can all match.

The judge who's signing the papers is kind of old with a big white beard and a happy smile. He goes through boring things with your case worker before he beckons you all over to sign the papers.

A picture is taken with you holding the adoption certificate as you stand between your new mummies.

It's still a busy day though so Mami stops off to get ice cream as you and Mama get nice and bundled up in the car. She pulls down the front of your dress to check your scar.

She does that a lot when something big has happened. She did it the first day you came home from surgery and after the first time you went out again.

"You're my mama now," You giggle when Mama pulls away, happy that nothing has changed with your scar.

"Yeah, I am." She's beaming at you and, even though you're strapped into your car seat, you lean forward to kiss her cheek.

She kisses your cheek too and Mami climbs into the car with a tub of ice cream for you.

"Oh, Mapi," Mama says," Don't you think that's a bit too much?"

"No such thing as too much," Mami laughs," Besides, it's a special day. She can have as much ice cream as she wants."

Mama rolls her eyes fondly as she starts the car and drives off.

Today's a very busy day. It was your adoption ceremony and the El Clásico so Ingrid makes sure to get to the stadium as quick as she can. They've been prepared for this ever since the date was confirmed.

Mapi's got a bag packed with a change of clothes for each of you so your special adoption clothes don't get dirty and Ingrid's also got a surprise waiting for you at the stadium.

She picks you up easily when you arrive and walk you straight into the changing room. Everyone else is already out doing the pitch inspection so Ingrid gets you changed into the shirt and shorts Mapi packed.

She kisses you on the cheek before pushing you over to Mapi, who has already changed out of her suit.

"Come on," Mapi says," Let's go and see the others."

You've never been on a pitch before. A few weeks, when you started coming with Mama and Mami to practice, you sat in the stands and coloured. You were still healing from getting your new Santa heart so Mama wanted to make sure that you didn't stress it out.

This is your first time on grass and it's a little scary. You wiggle your feet nervously as you stand on the side, grasping tightly to Mami's hand.

"It's okay," Mami says as if reading your mind," It's just grass. Nothing to worry about." She points over to where Pina and Patri are waving at you. "See? How about we head on over?"

Mami holds your hand as you jog over to her teammates. The grass is kind of springy under your feet and still sort of firm like if you were walking on the floor of the hospital.

You kind of like it.

"Mami," You say, puffing out your chest," I'm walkin' on grass."

"You are," Mami laughs," Feels good, huh?"

"Uh-huh!"

Mama shows you your special surprise when you return to the changing room. You reach out to touch it. It's got your new last name on it, 'Engen-Leon' for everyone to see.

"Do you like it?" Mama asks even though she already knows your answer by the way that you try to pull it over the shirt that you're still wearing.

"Love it!" You turn to look at Mami. "Look, Mami! It's got my name!"

"It does," Mami agrees as she helps you put it on," You'll look extra good when you walk out with me."

"With you?" Mama laughs with a shake of the head," You mean with me."

Mami laughs too as she laces up her boots.

"For what it's worth," Patri says from across the room," If you guys are struggling to choose, she can walk out with me."

"No chance!"

"Rock paper scissors for it?" Mami offers, holding her fist out and Mama rolls her eyes but still agrees.

Mami must regret choosing to play because Mama wins happily and walks out with you in your brand new jersey.

Both Mama and Mami are starting off on the pitch so you're left with Pina and Patri on the bench.

It's an El Clásico so it's very important Barcelona wins and Pina and Patri are eager for their own chances on the field even as the team go two-nil up within the first fifteen minutes.

Mami takes a free kick that flies straight into the goal from distance and instead of celebrating with the team she comes straight over to the sidelines to hug you.

You giggle as she presses a kiss to your cheek before returning you to your babysitters.

The score goes up to five-nil in the second half and Real Madrid concede a corner.

The team all line up to take it but it's Mama's head that hits it into the goal. She jumps and pumps her fist into the air before coming to the sidelines towards you as well.

She rains kisses down on your face and kisses the Barca crest on your chest.

"Mama!" You giggle as she keeps kissing you," You have to play!"

She kisses you one last time before cradling your face in her hands. "We'll finish up here," She says," And then we'll go get dinner, okay?"

You smile. "Okay, Mama!"

#woso x reader #mapi leon x reader #mapi leon #ingrid engen x reader #ingrid engen #woso community #woso fanfics #woso imagine #woso

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utterlyazriel · 1 month

Text

whom the shadows sing for — (and the thief's echoing hymn)

a/n: apparently it is easier to push out a new chapter when its a juicy one!!!! sorry for this but did you really think i was done with the angst? oh naur babey we're just setting up the scene i envisioned when i had the original idea <3 strap in babe!

word count: 2.4k

synopsis: A secret you vowed to never reveal gets uncovered and Azriel struggles as all he's known is turned on its head. An unfriendly adversary from the past comes knocking.

CHAPTER SIX :: BETRAYERS

One glimpse at your shelter as he winnows into the forest, the snow crunching loudly underfoot, and Azriel knows it deep in his bones.

Something is wrong.

He stands amongst the pines of the forest behind your shelter and even from the distance, he can sense the change in the air. The wind, wilder than usual, tastes faintly like danger. It's snowing. His shadows wisp about, whispering and twittering, doing nothing to ease the twinge of panic.

There are boards in the back window.

Azriel stalks forward through the snow, his ears keenly sifting through the noises of the forest around him but nothing gives way. Just like he had felt all those days ago, there’s a warped agony that clings to the sides of your shelter.

Last time, there had been blood in the snow. A trail, that led him right to you.

Today, there are only the boards in the windows.

His mind jumps to the other warriors in the camp, wondering if this is their doing— trapping you inside as some sort of sickening test. See if the bastard can fight his way out or starve to death in his own four walls.

Something like pure malice glimmers just beneath his skin, ready to rear up, but—

—But no. As he gets closer, Azriel realises he’s wrong.

This is not the work of the brutes in camp, this is you. The boards have been put up from the inside.

A series of emotions stutter and slam into each other, wrestling with one another in his chest. Confusion shares the top spot with an unwavering concern that seems to grow with every step closer. Boarded up from the inside... what possible reason could warrant you to do this?

Uneasiness coats his every nerve, an uncomfortable prickle rolling along his raised hackles. Something stirs in his chest. Azriel stalks closer to your shelter, snow slushing beneath his boots, torn between calling out and biting his tongue. He goes for the latter.

His shadows glide around him agitatedly, circling his hands where they hover over his weapons. His wings are pulled in tight. He slows as he reaches the front of your shelter.

There's no sound coming from inside. No scent of blood, no crackle of fire. Yet somehow he knows, without question, that you're in there.

As his concern winds down a notch, his rational brain begins to tick. There might be someone else in there with you. As the different scenarios get considered and discarded, Azriel lands on the most likely one. It's a trap.

The reasoning builds up the motive, spinning a story that makes sense. A Shadowsinger, the Spymaster of the Night Court, caught off his guard by using his latest confidant against him.

Azriel turns over the idea slowly and decisively, thinking of Brudam, of Lord Mylind, wondering if they've been buying their time all this while— and he's been too distracted with you to even notice.

Azriel curses himself for being so careless.

There's still no noise from within the shelter.

If it's a trap, it doesn't matter; the only way out is through.

Letting his hand curl around the Truth Teller, Azriel grips it tightly and pretends that the loud thump in his mind isn't the echo from his afraid heart. He can't afford to be afraid — not with what it would mean, not with how it betrays how he feels for you.

Not when it distracts him from doing what is needed from him.

His shadows spiral up around him and Azriel weaves the darkness, folding the fabric of the world til it aligns as he needs, his anger sharpening his resolve. He steps through the rippling darkness and into your boarded-up shelter with one swift motion.

It's dark inside. There are slivers of light that curl around the planks of wood, reaching in the dance upon the floor, distorted by the motion of falling snow. The air is stale, undisturbed.

Azriel's gaze scours the environment for enemies, his grip tight around his knife, prepared to unsheathe it without hesitation. His shadows fly around wildly, whispering the details of the room— each corner empty, except for the one he knows your bed is tucked in. Something loosens in his chest just a fraction.

There's no one else in here but you.

His eyes go right to your bed. It's hard to see within the darkness but your figure is there, hunched up even tighter than the last time he had found you wounded, wings pulled up in an uncomfortable hold around yourself.

As the possibility of a trap tapers away, another scenario creeps in — you've been attacked and holed yourself up before they can finish the job.

Almost as the thought crosses his mind, the scent of blood reaches his senses. Azriel stills, each limb locking up as the information filters through his mind, aided by the murmurs of his shadows. Blood, they chant, new blood.

Not blood from an injury, not from an enemy.

A sickening type of surprise coils up Azriel's spine.

"Y/n?" He dares to speak. Your name comes out like it's completely foreign in his mouth.

There's a stunned web that seems to cling to him, dulling all his usually keen senses, as the pieces of this puzzle whiz around and begin to slot into place. New blood— new blood means— it means—

"Azriel?" Your voice sounds from the darkness in the corner. It's smaller than usual, thick with emotion.

There's the sound of you shifting. Azriel can't move at all. Even his shadows have slowed in their surprise.

With his eyes rapidly adjusting to the dimness, he can just see the features on your face as you untuck it from your curled-up position.

Someone is beating loudly against the walls—or at least it sounds that way with how hard his heart is beating in his chest, valves working in overdrive. Is it his heart? It feels like something else, something deeper.

New blood, new blood, new blood. A thousand different instances burst from his memory, glazed in a new light.

"He tells me that your absences during training have come to be somewhat expected,"—

—"You're smaller than usual Illyrians,”—

—Hands, weathered and much smaller than most males—

—You're small but your wings are still large and beautiful, tucked up neatly behind your back. Most warriors in camp must have at least a head of height on you—

—A Fae with long hair like Cassian's, chopped at the shoulder and scraped back — and a voice softer than most. A Fae with eyes that burn with a promise for retribution, with icy fury like his own.

Each one threatens to send him staggering to his knees. How the Cauldron did he miss it? How could he have missed it? He's the fucking Spymaster of the Night Court. You've been lying to his face from the very beginning and he's believed you hook, line, and sinker.

You're smaller than the males in camp because you aren't one at all.

You're so driven to help the others, to mend the clipped girls because... because...

His hazel eyes catch on your wings, snaked around yourself protectively and Azriel suddenly feels very, very sick.

You seem to realise all of a sudden that he's real and not just some hallucinated fever-dream version of him. Despite the efforts to keep everyone out, he's here, on the inside with you. He knows.

"Azriel," You say his name again, like a plea this time. Wings uncurling a fraction, you make a move to stand but an invisible pain cripples you and he watches as you shudder, a pained whimper leaking out your mouth. An instinct within him roars to rush to your side but his feet are rooted to the floor.

"You..." He begins, his voice far away.

Something is unravelling in his chest with an alarming speed, something growing and churning, fiery hot. It feels like dread—panicky, horrified fear boiling in his stomach. He doesn't realise that it isn't his own.

"You're not a male."

His words look like they cause you more pain, agony shifting across your features, and Azriel wishes he could take them back the moment they leave his lips. But he's not wrong.

Even from across the room, he can see the quiver in your bottom lip. You're frozen in fear, he realises.

Tentatively, you shake your head. "I'm- I'm not."

You're not. Perhaps, he was wrong about you and you're not some beaten-down warrior, striving for justice against the tides that try to hold you back. Maybe you're a snake in the grass, hiding yourself, cocooning in a lie. You've been lying since the first moment you met him.

Azriel can't tell why it hurts so much in his chest, why it feels so close to betrayal, why it feels like his heart is bleeding. Who are you really?

"I—" Your words get cut off with another wince as you slump over, your cycle ravaging your body with pain. "Azriel, wait—"

He's taken a step back without even realising.

Who are you? Stranger, ally, friend; all the titles you've earned feel like they're getting stripped back forcibly and his heart warbles agonisingly in response. His shadows have picked up speed, darting around him. His wings have risen an inch, flared a little wider.

"Please," You gasp, trying to shuffle forward again but halted by the waves of pain. One of your hands grips around your midriff tightly and there's a sheen on your face that tells him you're crying. He's never seen you cry before.

Who are you? Is your name even your real name? Azriel doesn't know where the hurt is coming from, why it's so strong— except he thinks he does.

He's known from that first week with you. Known from the first time he laid eyes on your face and his very soul seemed to call out in response. He's known and he's been ignoring it all this time. His mate.

"You— you have to understand," You're still grasping at words desperately, even as you give up trying to move through your afflicted torment. Azriel takes another step back. What is he doing? "Please, I- I just wanted to keep my wings."

Choked sobs begin to claw their way up your throat and Azriel feels the thickness in his own throat, connected from the inside. You're connected. The pounding on the door, on his chest, in his heart, is the only thing he can focus on, getting louder and louder. Bile threatens at his throat.

He can't be here.

"I just- just wanted to keep—" The words keep coming, even as he steps back once more, shadows swirling. Words lurch up his throat, questions, explanations, accusations. None of them escape. His mouth is dry.

His wings rustle as he tucks them in and forces his gaze down to stare at the floorboards. He's been here, lived here, in your lie for how many months? His mate, a liar.

He shifts the space between inside and elsewhere, scrunching the fabric so it aligns with somewhere, anywhere he can think of.

"P-Please, you have to understand—Azriel!"

Your call echoes as he steps through his magic, letting it carry him away from your shelter, from your agony that he can feel from the inside, from the lie he's been fed.

He lands on a hilltop and when he opens his eyes, he's looking at a familiar cabin. His shadows move about almost limply, his magic and siphons depleted from overuse in such a short time. He can feel the chill of snow on the tips of his wings which drag behind him.

He's...drained. Stunned.

And where he's always dreamed of a golden thread, a lover's tug, rooted deep in his being that connects him to his mate... there is only a pull of utter misery.

—

You had thought of this before; what it might be like to have him find out.

The trust severed. Your friend, the only one you've ever truly had, lost to your betrayal. The first couple weeks in his company as you learnt slowly to let your guard down had been the first times in decades you had been freed from night terrors.

You had thought of it then, during one of those nights—you did not want to lose him in any way.

The cost was too high, the sheer magnitude of your secret that you never intended on him finding out. You had promised yourself you couldn't, you wouldn't tell him, no matter how much you yearned to.

You wonder now if you would have been better off if you'd never met him at all.

Never trusted him, never took his hand, and stood by his side to learn how to fight. No learning how to trust after years of desolate solitude, just to have it ripped from you. No shared smiles in the dim light of the evening, glancing away when you're caught looking for too long.

No hurt, no pain, no replaying the look on his face as he uttered the secret you had kept hidden for nearly three decades.

The burning spasms of your cycle seem almost dull compared to the ache in your heart. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts. You feel like you're burning up from the inside, like there's a hurricane of regret building in your chest and its' howl is as torturous as it is loud.

Time passes. Outside, the snow turns to heavy rain.

The painful throbs that wrack your body ebb and flow but the heaviness in your heart never seems to fade. You can't decide between being angry at Azriel or at yourself.

How could he be so... so unfeeling? So merciless, not giving you even a moment to truly explain?

There had been a time where you thought when he looked at you, he saw beyond the surface; more than a mutt, more than just another bastard. You half hoped he saw through your facade and didn't care anyway.

You're a fool for that, you realise now.

Your consciousness wanes as you burrow as deep as you can into your blankets, wanting them to swallow you whole, wrapped in half-hearted warmth and ribbons of pain. He's never coming back, you realise. The tears start up all over again, your heart sobbing out for a piece of it that's missing. He's never coming back.

You know that for sure— so when there's a slushing of feet through the snow and a pounding knock on your door, your hackles rise in pure fright. Your wings tuck around yourself a little tighter, right as another spasm of agony rocks through your bones. You cry out weakly, teeth gritted tightly.

There's someone at the door who's come sniffing for a fight. It's not Azriel.

[NEXT PART: MATES]

tags below!

@strangerstilinski @janebirkln @itsswritten @mischiefmanagers @hnyclover

@waytoomanyteenagefeels @idkitsem @illyrianbitch @jeweline16 @fightmedraco

@iamjimintrash @maendering @spideytingley @aneekapaneeka @cassianswh0reeee

@viciane @astarlitsoul @mybestfriendmademe @archiveofcravings @reputaytionn-13

@bionic-donut @chessebookgirl @itseightbeats @littleblackcatinwonderland @twsssmlmaa

@fanworrior @skysayhi @vintageoldfashion @tequilya @fabulouslyflamboyant5

@rhysandorian @laughterafter @brieftriumphnightmare @hirah-yummar @some-person-somewhere

@scooobies @sfhsgrad-blog @cherry-cin @bookloverandalsocats @megscabinetofcurios

@doodlebugsblog @landofpetrichor @acourtofdreamsandshadows @florabelll @tanyaherondale

@aomi-recs

#forgive me.... hehehehehe >:)#but im not sorry!!!! its been planned from the beginning!!!!!!#azriel #azriel shadowsinger #azriel x reader #azriel shadowsinger x reader #azriel x you #acotar fanfiction #azriel acotar #azriel fic #azriel fanfic #azriel shadowsinger x you #whom the shadows sing for (and the thief’s echoing hymn)#whom the shadows sing for #notice how there’s no moon in the header this time? :)

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 4 months

Text

Dirty Work 24

Warnings: this fic will include dark content such as bullying, familial discord/abuse, and possible untagged elements. My warnings are not exhaustive, enter at your own risk.

This is a dark!fic and explicit. 18+ only. Your media consumption is your own responsibility. Warnings have been given. DO NOT PROCEED if these matters upset you.

Summary: You start a new gig and find one of your clients to be hard to please.

Characters: Loki

Note: friday! coworkers last day!

As per usual, I humbly request your thoughts! Reblogs are always appreciated and welcomed, not only do I see them easier but it lets other people see my work. I will do my best to answer all I can. I’m trying to get better at keeping up so thanks everyone for staying with me.

Your feedback will help in this and future works (and WiPs, I haven’t forgotten those!)

I love you all immensely. Take care. 💖

You pass through the gate, cautious to close it without a noise. You trail past the hedges and around the side of the house. You enter through the back, as you did in those early days, only weeks ago, though it seems years.

You move slowly, leaving your shoes out of the way, disregarding the closet as you cling to the strap of your bag and venture warily onward. You pause before the kitchen door and peek around, finding it empty. You tiptoe on and climb the stairs one at a time, flinching at ever creak.

You reach the top and keep your eyes down. You go to the library and slip inside, like a ghost floating through your own existence. You set the bag by your feet and pull out the laptop to begin your day.

You don't think, not past the list of tasks. You boot the computer and wait for the screen to light up. You type in the pass code and open Excel. You lean your head in your hand, eyes glazing over as the glare sears your vision, stamping with endless columns and tiny numbers.

You feel yourself slumping, the strength whittling away by the second. Your eyes droop even as your ears prick at each noise. You shake your head, trying to ward off the needling fatigue. You yawn and sit up, rubbing your eyelids as you square your shoulders.

You let your head hang back and drop your arms into your lap. Your stomach wriggles as Mr. Laufeyson's looming presence creeps into your mind. He's here somewhere and surely, he already knows you are too. He's just waiting to pounce.

Your fears furl into faded dreams. A fractured series of scenes, twisted reflections of reality rippling into each other until you dizzy. You can hear your own snores yet don't quite realise you're asleep.

You wake with a start as you feel yourself slipping. You barely catch yourself before you flop off the chair. You spasm and grip the arm rest as a shadow lurks behind your laptop screen. You gape up at Mr. Laufeyson as he watches you with arms folded.

"Hm," he tilts his head, "that shirt is... not very professional."

"Sir," you keep your face down as your cheek thrums, swollen and bruised, "I'm sorry, I... I didn't sleep very well."

"Oh yes, of course, I hadn't even mentioned you sleeping on the job," he growls and uncrosses his arms, bringing his hands down to the desk. He leans in so his head is just above the laptop. "Look at me."

"Mr. Laufeyson, I'm just sorting out the expenses--"

"Look at me," he commands more firmly.

You wince and rub your neck. An ache radiates in your shoulder, another remnant of your father's wrath. You slowly raise your chin as your lip twitches just slightly. His eyes narrow and his jaw ticks.

He's silent as he stares at you. Angry, you can tell. You pull your hands back and fold them against your chest.

"Please, Mr. Laufeyson, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to fall asleep. It won't happen again--"

"What happened to your clothes?" He slithers darkly.

"Nothing, I... I wasn't paying attention this morning--"

"Don't lie to me."

"I'm not," you squeak unconvincingly.

His nostrils flare and he slaps his palm on the desk. You sit back, pressing yourself to the chair as you whimper.

"I underestimated that... scum," he spits out.

"I don't know--"

"Go on and lie again. What is it this time? You took a tumble?" He reaches out and you shy away, expecting him to put another swell in your cheek. Instead, he touches the thrumming skin, stroking it, "I didn't think..." he takes a breath and withdraws his hand, standing stiffly, "I believed him a coward, but not that sort."

"It's not--"

"Hush. You make your excuse for him, I will not swallow them," he flicks his fingers at you dismissively.

He rolls his shoulders and pivots on his heel. He paces across the patterned rug and stops, just before the sofa. He turns back, making another line across the space. He brings his finger up to tap his chin.

"Yes, very well, I see I do have somewhere to be," he states as he drops his hand, his lips curving at the corners.

"Mr. Laufeyson," you stand.

"Never you mind," he tuts, "you have your work, I have mine." He cracks his knuckles.

"Are you--"

"Ah ah," he points at you tersely, "since when is my itinerary your concern? Mind the house, that is your job." He huffs and checks his watch as a pinch lines his forehead, "you may receive the expected parcel and leave it on my desk for now..." he lowers his hand and grumbles, "and you will stay here."

"Mr. Laufeyson," you murmur.

Before you can protest further, he's at the door. You're frozen in disbelief. Surely he can't mean what you think.

It doesn't matter to him, does it? You are his house manager, just another below him he can torment, he wouldn't do anything like that. Certainly, he won't harm your father, right?

You rush after him as your doubts bubble over. As he enters the hallway, you grab his elbow, not thinking, not hesitating for once in your life. "Please, Mr. Laufeyson, whatever you're thinking of--"

He faces you and rips his arm free, "don't."

"Please, it's-- I--" you sputter helplessly and wring your hands, "I deserved it."

He squares his chin and blinks. "Deserve... so it was him?"

"Mr. Laufeyson, it isn't... isn't your problem. He's my dad, I'll deal with him."

"As you have so far?" He scoffs, "pet, I mean to defend you. To do you a favour. Another. And now you overstep and try to command me?"

"No, no, I'm not... not commanding. I'm begging," you clutch your hands tighter, putting them up to plead, "don't make it worse."

He dips his head and closes his eyes. He pinches his nose and gives a nod, rubbing his lips together. He raises his head and opens his eyes again. He shrugs and lets a grin break through.

"It isn't your choice," he grabs your wrists, locking them together in his grasp as he drags you forward.

Your socks slip on the floorboards as he tugs you down the hallway. You struggle, writhing and sliding against his force. The same panic that struck you last night swirls again, thumping in your chest. He turns and swings you through the door of his bedroom. You stagger as he lets you go and the door swiftly snaps shut behind you.

You turn to face it and throw yourself against it, twisting the handle as you try to pull it open. He holds it shut from the other side and you hear the lock grind into place. You hit the door with your fists and cry out.

"Mr. Laufeyson!"

"I will return shortly, pet, never you worry," he assures, "don't miss me too much."

You slap the wood again and press your ear to it. You listen as he struts away, whistling until it fades to silence. You hear the front door below, shortly followed by the car engine rolling to life. You rush over to the window and look at as he steers up to the gate.

You can hear his knuckles cracking and see that sinister smirk. His intentions cannot be good.

✨

Your exhaustion slakes away to panic. You pace the room, bounce up and down on your feet, fidget incessantly, murmuring senselessly. You just can't be still. What is Mr. Laufeyson doing?

Your fears twist your imagination to terror. Is he going to hurt your father? He should just leave him alone. He's the one who got him so worked up. That last thought makes you stop short.

It's his fault. It's all his fault. He heard everything on the phone, he knew your dad has anger issues, he walked into your home and he ruined it all.

Your lashes flutter as you sway. You feel like you've been struck all over again. Mr. Laufeyson has done this all to you! He gave you this job, he took you away from your dad, he invaded your home, he made you wear those clothes.

And now, you're mad. You feel that hot streak inside of you unlike anything before. Vivid and venomous. You run to the door, throwing yourself against it as you beat with your fists.

He's locked you up here so you can't stop him from doing anymore. You're sleeping in a hotel because of him. You're not eating or sleeping, you can feel yourself going insane. Because of him.

You're dizzy and breathless. You lean on the door and try to calm yourself. Your head hurts.

You slide down and turn to put your back against the door. You hang your head, bending your legs to rest your arms over them. You heave and close your eyes.

You're just as helpless as you've ever been.

✨

The footsteps bring you out of your daze. You raise your head, wobbly on your neck, and blink several times before you get your bearings. You listen to Mr. Laufeyson's entry, his slow advance below, and his steady ascension up the staircase.

Your heart hitches but you don't move. Even if you had the strength, you refuse. You will not budge.

He comes down the staircase, a hum in the air. You tense and grit your teeth, eyes hot again with tears. Not sad but angry.

"Ah, pet, you will be happy to hear that I don't believe your father will have another cruel world reserved for you," he sings the handle shifts slightly above your head and the lock clicks. "How shall we celebrate your emancipati--"

The door jolts and you push back against it. You plant your feet and grunt as you force it shut. He lets out a noise and shoves back. You do it again.

"Pet," he evens his tone, "what are you up to?"

"Leave me alone!" You snarl, surprised by your own venom.

"Pet, now, let me in--"

"I said go away!"

He scoffs and stops pushing. He lets out his breath loudly.

"This isn't mature behaviour."

"I don't care, I don't want to see you."

He's quiet again. You hear his soles scuff and he gently taps on the door.

"Pet, please, we should talk. I think it's imperative that we do--"

"No, I don't want to talk. I don't want to see you. I want you to leave me alone!"

"You are being a child--"

"You ruined everything," you bark, "you ruined my life! You're a bad man and I hate you!"

You go weak as the last words escape you without a thought. You collapse onto your bottom and catch your head in your hands. You devolve into thick, choking sobs. Here you are, bawling like the child he calls you. He must be amused.

"Are you tendering your resignation?" He asks crisply, "because I believe you haven't anywhere else to go, my dear."

"I know! Because of you. I have nowhere, because you!" You shoot back through heaving breaths.

"Or... you could have somewhere, because of me," he says measuredly. "Pet, all you have to do is open the door and talk to me."

You fall onto your side and curl up. You cover your head, whimpering as tears trickle down. You sniffle and hide under your arm. Just like you did when dad wouldn't stop yelling.

The floorboards shift and he sighs again, "I can wait." He taps the door lightly once more and his footfalls retreat.

You tremble in a heap, nearly delirious with emotion. Through the chaos, you can see the truth. You don't have anywhere or anything without him.

✨

The world shifts under you, your body chafing across the floor as the door moves you. Not harshly but inch by inch. Mr. Laufeyson bends over you as you open your eyes, groggy and glazed over. His silhouette is fuzzy and distant as he slides his arms under you.

He lifts you and carries you to the bed. You groan as he lays you down, piling pillows behind you to prop you up. He sits with his legs over the side and pushes his head back. You come to, little by little, pushing through the fog.

You hug yourself and wiggle in place. He reaches to still you, his hand on your thigh. You wince and stare at his fingers. He draws his knee up and shifts to face you. He removes his touch as his eyes cling thoughtfully to the wall behind you.

"I see you've calmed down," he begins and lets his gaze fall on you, "so we will talk. I'm sure you're aware that matters are urgent."

"No..." you utter, "I'll... go."

You try to sit up and he nudges you back. You hit the pillows and do not try again. You don't have anything left in you.

"Where?" He challenges.

"I have a hotel room--"

"No," he shakes his head, "that won't do. What I'm offering, well, you can hardly deny it."

You drop your head and shrug.

"How many more nights can you afford? And without a job? I'm offering you both. Work, accommodation. I dare to say, I would offer you a home."

"No, you're my boss," you insist.

"Yes, I do expect you to shoulder some tasks," he assures, "but perhaps... we might remold this arrangement."

Your eyes stick blankly to your knees. You don't know what he wants or what he means. Just more. It's always more. Hasn't he taken enough?

"What more can you want from me?" You whisper.

He's quiet again. His fingers twiddle and he lifts his hand, touching your arm and slowly grasping it. He unwraps it from your torso and trails down to your hand, squeezing it.

"I made myself clear before," he pulls your hand closer, cradling it as he pets your knuckles, "but perhaps you still misunderstood me." He clasps your hand between both of his, "I want you. Entirely."

Your eyes flick up to meet his. Your mouth falls open as your heart tempos wildly. You still don't think you understand. Your search his face for the answer.

"I will grant you any wish. Clothes, jewellery, whatever you like. If you like to read, I will buy you books, if you like to draw, I will buy you paint. If you just want shiny things, I can get those too. All I ask is simple. For you. For your entire being. That you obey and serve my every need and you will have all you ever longed for. Things you never even dreamed of," he slips a hand away and lifts yours. He leans in and softly kisses your knuckles, "you say I am bad, but I needn't be.”

#loki #dark loki #dark!loki #loki x reader #fic #dark fic #dark!fic #au #maid au #dirty work #mcu #marvel #avengers #thor

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dee-writes-smut · 26 days

Text

DAFFODILS (Chapter One)

FEATURING Eris Vanserra x pregnant!reader

SUMMARY The Spring Court has gone to shit, and while you would normally be able to tolerate it, the new discovery that you were pregnant pushes you to the gates of The Autumn Court and unknowingly into Eris' arms.

CONTENT WARNINGS pregnancy, Eris being a slight douche (you know how it is yall), violence (reader is kicked in the stomach), and mentions of Tampon (Tamlin).

AUTHORS NOTE who's excited for the kick-off of yet another series? I am! Of course, I had to start an Eris series, I love him too much not to! Strap in, darlings, I have a feeling this is going to be a long one.

SERIES MASTERLIST

The once vibrant Spring court had gone to shit, a shadow of its former glory. Tamlin, the once revered and compassionate High Lord, had vanished, abandoning his people to suffer in the decay his negligence had allowed to fester.

Amid the desolation, there were attempts to salvage what remained of the Spring Court. Lucien's name surfaced as one who strove to preserve our home. I recall his desperate sacrifice on Calanmai, offering himself to Ianthe in a futile bid to rescue us. He still occasionally visits, perhaps clinging to a hope that he might stumble upon signs of revival, our High Lord restored to his former benevolence. Yet each return only reinforces the stark reality of our decline, leaving him unsurprised by the sight of our dwindling realm.

And now, here I stand, just beyond the borders of the Autumn Court, clad in nothing but the ragged remnants of my escape, imploring the impassive sentries to grant me sanctuary within their walls. They offer no response, their stoic countenances unmoved as I plead and weep at their feet.

In my disheveled state, I must present a pitiful sight—my attire threadbare and stained, my once-glamorous countenance marred by streaks of dirt and smudged cosmetics, my limbs adorned with bruises like macabre adornments.

As I teeter on the brink of desperation, a voice cuts through the stillness, emerging from the depths of the forest to my right. The guards snap to attention at its sound, their posture stiffening even further, if such a thing were possible, in deference to its commanding presence.

"What is the meaning of this?" The voice, smooth as silk and sharp as a blade, belonged to a man with cascading locks of fiery hair, who strode forth from the underbrush with an air of regal authority.

Gods, he was a vision to behold. Despite the earthy stains marring his attire and the tousled state of his tunic sleeves, he exuded an otherworldly allure.

"A mere denizen of the Spring Court, attempting to beg her way into our domain, my lord," one of the guards grumbled, offering a curt bow before callously nudging me aside with his boot. I winced as the blow landed squarely in my stomach.

"And what, pray tell, do you think you are doing, you imbecile!" The fiery-haired man's voice dripped with disdain as he strode forward, confronting the offending guard with palpable fury. "Can you not discern her condition, you fool? She carries life within her."

My heart lurched as I instinctively cradled my abdomen, a protective gesture born of maternal instinct. Though every fiber of my being yearned to retaliate against the guard's callousness, I forced myself to breathe deeply, refusing to succumb to the animalistic urges that society expected of Spring Court members in these desperate times.

"Are you alright?" the man inquired, his amber eyes ablaze with a captivating mix of concern and authority, their gaze so intense that it stole the very air from my lungs.

"I'm… I'm fine," I managed to utter, brushing aside the tangled strands of hair obscuring my face and inhaling deeply to steady my frayed nerves.

"I must apologize for the behavior of my soldier. Rest assured, appropriate measures will be taken, my lady," the man assured me, his smile radiant as he inclined his head with graceful deference. His charm nearly brought a wry laugh to my lips.

"No need for such formalities," I replied weakly, the weight of my displaced status as a refugee gnawing at my throat like a persistent ache. But I steeled myself with the thought of my unborn child, a beacon of hope amidst the chaos. "I am no longer a lady—well, not in the traditional sense, anyway."

"How so?" the man persisted, his expression a blend of curiosity and genuine concern, prompting me to draw my arms tighter around myself.

"I find it quite audacious for someone whose name I don't even know to ask such personal questions," I retorted, feigning a hint of indignation that rang hollow even to my own ears.

"Fair point," he conceded with a charming grin, though his adherence to formality still grated on my nerves. "Allow me to rectify that oversight. My name is Eris. Eris Vanserra, Heir to the Autumn Court," he declared, and I felt a strange mixture of relief and weariness wash over me at his introduction.

Eris. Lucien had spoken sparingly of his older brother during his time in the Spring Court, but whenever he did, a profound sense of affection tinged with melancholy colored his words. I shook myself from my reverie, extending a hand in a gesture of polite acknowledgement as I reciprocated with my own name. Eris repeated my name softly, testing it on his tongue, and my heart twinged at the striking resemblance in mannerism between him and Lucien, one so distant yet familiar, the other painfully close.

"Now," Eris began, his hands making a smooth, sweeping gesture that hinted at his readiness to delve deeper into the matter at hand, "what brings you to the borders of the Autumn Court, my lady?"

"The Spring Court is…" My voice faltered, and I let out a weary sigh, my hand instinctively resting on my still-flat stomach for comfort.

"It's gone to shit," he finished for me, his smirk sharp but not unkind.

"Well, I wouldn't have phrased it quite so bluntly, but yes," I responded, my fingers tracing small circles over my abdomen. "That place and its ruler are no fit environment for a child. Considering the proximity of your court, I was hoping I might find a new beginning here."

"What about the father?" Eris inquired, one eyebrow—a mirror image of Lucien's—arching skeptically.

I clear my throat awkwardly and look at my well-worn shoes. How does one tell the Heir to the Autumn Court that they are pregnant with his youngest brother's babe? How does one also explain how he is mated to another female, that they knew as soon as that brother found out about said babe, he would give up all hope to find his true mate in order to be there for his child?

"Not in the picture," I manage to say, my voice faltering slightly as I reach up to scratch the back of my neck, a gesture betraying my discomfort.

Eris hums, a low, thoughtful sound that vibrates with suspicion, his striking eyes narrowing as he scrutinizes my uneasy demeanor. The weight of his gaze feels like it could peel back the layers of my hastily constructed defenses, compelling me to confront truths I'd rather leave unspoken. Eris's scrutinizing gaze doesn't waver, and the silence stretches taut between us like a bowstring. "Not in the picture," he echoes thoughtfully, each word heavy with the promise of unasked questions.

I nod, feeling the weight of the moment settling around us. The air in the forest seems to hold its breath, the usual whispers of leaves and distant calls of woodland creatures falling into a hushed reverence. "And you must understand, my lord, that my child is my utmost priority," I assert with unwavering resolve, emphasizing his title with a hint of disdain, as if challenging the very foundations of our unequal stations.

The guards stationed behind me draw in sharp, anticipatory breaths, seemingly prepared for their lord to mete out swift retribution for my boldness. I steel myself against the expected blow, a silent rehearsal of defiance.

Yet, the expected strike does not materialize. Instead, Eris regards me with what could only be described as admiration. His gaze, intense and calculating, appraises me not as a threat, but as a formidable presence in my own right.

"Well, little fox," he begins, his voice carrying a playful undertone that belies the depth of his contemplation. He strokes his chin thoughtfully, his fingers tracing the lines of his jaw as if to physically underline his ponderings. "It appears you've presented quite the compelling argument for yourself here."

The use of "little fox" — a term perhaps meant to denote cunning and resilience — sparks a flicker of amusement within me, mixed with a surge of cautious optimism. His demeanor suggests a blend of challenge and respect, hinting at a dynamic that could evolve beyond mere formalities or supplications. This man before me is not just the heir to a court; he is a strategist weighing his next move.

"You seek shelter for yourself and the babe?" Eris inquires with a hint of slyness, as if to subtly test my resolve, though it's a point I've already made abundantly clear.

"Indeed," I retort sharply, refusing to waver under the weight of his penetrating gaze.

"Then shelter you shall have," he declares, pivoting on his heel to fix the guards with a stern glare. "You will allow her passage," he commands, his tone uncompromising. The guards, obedient to their lord's decree, quickly acquiesce, parting to allow me entry with a mere flick of Eris's wrist.

The heady scent of spices and autumnal freshness assaults my senses as I approach the threshold, beckoning me forward with its tantalizing allure. It's as if the very essence of this court implores me to embrace my true purpose, to seize control of my destiny without hesitation. The boldness of it all catches me off guard, stirring a sense of rebellion that courses through my veins like wildfire.

Pausing at the threshold, I find myself suspended between the tranquility of the wilderness behind me and the vibrant chaos of the court ahead. I hesitate, grappling with the weight of the choices that lie before me.

Eris slows his stride beside me, as if attuned to my uncertainty, and extends his arm—an offering both courteous and suggestive. His demeanor exudes confidence and assurance, as if he expects me to surrender to his lead without question.

But I refuse to yield to the expectations of courtly decorum. Chin held high, I meet his gaze with unwavering resolve, ignoring the disheveled state of my attire as I assert my independence. My feet remain firmly planted, refusing to advance until I am ready, on my own terms.

Eris's arm lingers in the air for a moment, a flicker of surprise crossing his features at my defiance. His amber eyes search mine, silently probing, yet beneath the scrutiny, I detect a glimmer of curiosity and… respect.

"I am quite capable of managing on my own," I declare, my voice steady despite the storm of emotions raging within me.

His expression softens, and he nods, gracefully retracting his arm. "As you wish," he concedes, gesturing for me to take the lead as we finally step through the threshold together.

The walk through the streets of Autumn was like stepping into a painting come to life. The cobblestone pathways wound gracefully between quaint buildings adorned with intricate carvings and vibrant splashes of ivy. Overhead, colorful banners fluttered in the gentle breeze, their designs depicting scenes of seasonal splendor and courtly festivities.

Stands and stalls lined the streets, each one a miniature wonderland of treasures waiting to be discovered. From intricately woven tapestries to gleaming trinkets and baubles, the offerings were as diverse as they were captivating. Merchants called out to passersby in melodious voices, their wares displayed with care and pride.

The smells that wafted through the air were a symphony of sensory delights. Spices mingled with the scent of freshly baked bread, their fragrances intermingling in a tantalizing dance that made my mouth water. Roasted chestnuts crackled and popped over open fires, their warm, nutty aroma floating on the breeze alongside the sweet perfume of ripe fruit and fragrant flowers.

Eris's sudden change in direction pulled me from my reverie, my gaze following his lead as we approached a magnificent structure nestled within the heart of the Autumn Court. The Forest House loomed before us, its grandeur and mystique commanding attention as we drew nearer.

Surrounded by a wrought iron gate, the house stood as a bastion of elegance amidst the bustling streets. Tall trees swayed gently in the breeze, their branches reaching out to embrace the ancient structure with a sense of reverence. Vines climbed the walls, their verdant tendrils weaving intricate patterns against the weathered stone.

The sight of the Forest House sent a shiver down my spine, a visceral reaction to the aura of power and mystery that seemed to emanate from its very core. It was as if the house held secrets untold, whispering tales of bygone days and forgotten legends to those who dared to listen.

"Wait!" I called out, the urgency in my voice halting Eris in his tracks. His steps faltered, and he turned to face me, a glint of amusement dancing in the depths of his eyes. The sunlight filtering through the canopy overhead cast dappled shadows across his features, lending an air of intrigue to his already enigmatic presence.

"Yes?" he inquired, his voice smooth and tinged with playful curiosity, his smirk hinting at secrets hidden just beneath the surface.

"What's going to happen to me? Where will I stay?" I blurted out, the fierce confidence I had summoned earlier dissipating like morning mist in the face of uncertainty. Nervously, I began to pick at my nails, the weight of the unknown pressing down upon me like a heavy cloak.

Eris regarded me with a knowing glint in his eyes, as if he had anticipated my question long before I had voiced it. "You will stay with me, of course," he replied simply, his voice carrying an air of nonchalance that belied the gravity of his words. There was a subtle confidence in his demeanor, a quiet assurance that spoke of his authority within the court.

I recoiled at his casual response, a surge of apprehension coursing through me. "But what about Beron? Won't he object to having a… a lowborn in his household?" I ventured cautiously, the weight of his father's disapproval looming like a specter in the back of my mind.

"Nonsense," Eris scoffed, his arms crossing over his chest in a dismissive gesture. "You are now a member of this court, and given your condition," he added with a subtle nod towards my abdomen, "it is only fitting that you reside in more suitable accommodations." His words were tinged with a hint of defiance, a silent challenge to anyone who would dare question his authority.

Despite his reassurances, doubt gnawed at the edges of my mind, uncertainty clouding my thoughts like a thick fog. "Absolutely not!" I protested vehemently, a surge of protectiveness coursing through me as I instinctively placed a hand over my stomach, as if to shield my unborn child from the absurdity of Eris's suggestion. "I refuse to stay in your chambers, Eris. It's… it's utterly preposterous."

Eris's eyebrow lifted slightly, his gaze holding a hint of amusement mixed with something darker. "Stubborn, aren't we?" he remarked, a smirk playing at the corner of his lips. "But if you prefer to sleep on the streets, far be it from me to stand in your way."

His words, though seemingly casual, carried a sharp edge that hinted at the depth of his cunning. It was a subtle reminder of his position of power, a reminder that I was at his mercy whether I liked it or not.

I bristled at his thinly veiled threat, my jaw clenching as I met his gaze with a glare of my own. "You wouldn't dare," I challenged, though a flicker of uncertainty danced behind my eyes.

Eris's smirk widened, the glint in his amber eyes turning predatory. "Try me," he replied, his tone dripping with promise and menace in equal measure.

With a frustrated huff, I reluctantly relented, realizing that I was in no position to defy him. "Fine," I conceded through gritted teeth, my hand slipping from my stomach to clench into a fist at my side. "But don't expect me to thank you for it."

Eris's smirk softened into a smirk, his gaze lingering on me with an intensity that sent a shiver down my spine. "Who said anything about gratitude?" he mused, his voice low and husky. "I'm merely extending a courtesy to a fellow refugee."

His words were laced with sarcasm, a reminder that his generosity came with strings attached. It was a stark contrast to the charming facade he wore, a glimpse of the ruthlessness that lay beneath.

I swallowed hard, a bitter taste rising in the back of my throat as I followed him towards the Forest House. It was clear that my time in the Autumn Court would be far from easy, but as I glanced back at the crumbling ruins of the Spring Court behind me, I knew that I had no other choice.

As we reached the grand doors of the Forest House, Eris turned to me with a smirk. "Welcome to your new home, little fox," he remarked, his tone dripping with irony. "Try not to get too comfortable."

My brows furrowed at his words, suspicion creeping into my mind. "What's the catch?" I asked warily, narrowing my eyes at him.

Eris chuckled, the sound sending a shiver down my spine. "Though I do have one condition," he said, his smirk widening into a grin.

"And what is that?" I asked, a sinking feeling settling in the pit of my stomach.

"You must walk with me once a day for the duration of your stay," Eris declared, his tone teasing yet firm.

My jaw dropped in disbelief. "You're joking," I exclaimed, disbelief evident in my voice.

Eris's grin widened, his amber eyes dancing with amusement. "Do I look like I'm joking?" he retorted, his tone challenging.

I narrowed my eyes at him, a surge of defiance rising within me. "This is ridiculous," I protested, shaking my head in disbelief. "I won't be your captive audience."

Eris's expression softened, a hint of something unfamiliar flickering in his eyes. "It's not about being captive," he said softly, his voice uncharacteristically gentle. "Consider it… a chance to explore the court, to clear your mind. Besides," he added with a smirk, "I could use the company."

I bristled at his suggestion, my pride warring with my better judgment. "And if I refuse?" I challenged, crossing my arms over my chest.

Eris's smirk widened, a glint of mischief in his eyes. "Then you'll miss out on some truly breathtaking views," he replied, his tone teasing yet earnest.

I sighed in frustration, realizing that I was fighting a losing battle. "Fine," I relented, though the words tasted like ash on my tongue. "But don't expect me to enjoy it."

Eris's grin widened into a smirk, his eyes alight with amusement. "Oh, I have a feeling you'll come to enjoy it more than you think," he remarked cryptically, before turning to lead the way into the Forest House.

As Eris escorted me to the grand Forest House, his steps were measured, exuding an air of regal confidence that was unmistakably his. His fiery locks seemed to dance with each movement, and his amber eyes held a glint of mischief, hinting at the cunning that lay beneath his charming exterior.

Upon entering my chambers, Eris's gaze swept over the room with a critical eye, a subtle smirk playing at the corners of his lips. "I trust the accommodations meet with your approval, my lady?" he inquired, his voice smooth as honey but tinged with a hint of sarcasm.

I nodded, unable to suppress a smirk of my own at his thinly veiled jest. "They're quite lovely, thank you," I replied, matching his playful tone with one of my own.

Eris's smirk widened into a grin, his amusement evident in the curve of his lips. "Excellent," he remarked, his gaze lingering on me for a moment longer than strictly necessary before turning away to survey the room once more.

As I explored my new surroundings, I couldn't help but notice Eris's watchful gaze following my every move. It was as if he were sizing me up, gauging my reactions to the opulence that surrounded us. I couldn't shake the feeling that there was more to him than met the eye, a depth of character hidden behind his charming facade.

Spotting the single daffodil on the table near the window, I couldn't suppress a chuckle at the sight. It was a quintessentially Eris gesture—playful yet meaningful, a subtle reminder of our earlier exchange. I picked up the note beside it, the elegant script a testament to Eris's attention to detail.

"I will be seeing you real soon, little fox. Wouldn't want you slacking off on our daily walks now, would we?" the note read, the teasing tone perfectly in line with Eris's mischievous nature. I couldn't help but smile at his audacity, the unspoken challenge sparking a flicker of excitement within me.

Setting the note back down, I turned to find Eris watching me with a knowing smirk, his amber eyes alight with amusement. "I take it you approve of my choice of decor?" he quipped, the smirk widening into a grin as he met my gaze.

I rolled my eyes playfully, unable to suppress a laugh at his antics. "It's certainly… unique," I replied, the hint of sarcasm in my tone mirroring his own.

Eris chuckled softly, a sound that sent shivers down my spine. "I'm glad to hear it," he replied, his gaze lingering on me for a moment longer than strictly necessary before turning away to hide the flush that crept across his cheeks.

TAGLIST

@purple-writer8 @defnotlucienvanserra @cherry-cin @julesofvolterra @mirandasidefics @mandziaaa @lilah-asteria @littlestw01f @skylarkalchemist @babypeapoddd

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frenchkisstheabyss · 2 months

Text

♥︎ ₵₳₦ĐɎ ♥︎

♥︎ Pairing: lead singer!boyfriend!yuta x chubby!fem!bassist reader (you get mark & johnny as bandmates too so that's fun)

♥︎ Genre: rockstar au/fluff/angst/smut

♥︎ Summary: Joining your favorite band was a dream come true. That is until you fell for the lead singer who has no shortage of groupies throwing themselves at him. He says he loves you but can you really trust him? I mean, you used to be a groupie too after all.

♥︎ Word Count: 4.1k-ish

♥︎ Warnings: Strong language. If you don't like curse words I'm sorry babes. I'm a potty mouth. Unprotected sex, creampie, shower sex, rough sex, a lil choking, nibbling, scratching, fingering, marking, oral sex (f receiving), tattoos/piercings, pet names (daddy, baby, etc), a lil drop of mutual possessiveness.

♥︎ A/N: I've really been trying to have more fun with my fics and just let my brain do it's thing so I hope y'all have fun with it too, darlings.

“Yuta, I fucking love you!” an obnoxiously tipsy female voice screams from the crowd.

A bra comes soaring from the sea of bodies packed into the pit at the edge of the stage. The pink lace fabric lands at Yuta’s feet, draping itself across his scuffed black combat boots. Any band knows that when you stop the show to do something — tune your guitar, take a sip of water — it’s prime opportunity for anything to happen. And it almost always will.

It’s not like you can blame her. Once upon a time you’d been one of those girls in the crowd, lost in the chaos of the night. There’s nothing like it, the rush that you get when your heart seems to sync with the violent bashing of the drums. The distorted guitars like electric coursing through your veins. Every lyric floats through the air, becoming more and more a part of you with each breath you take in.

Then there was him…

Nakamoto Yuta. When your friends were all drooling over him you’d pretend you weren't interested. You’d never be so basic as to fall for the lead singer of the band. Maybe he did have the sort of voice that makes a girl melt even when he’s growling the filthiest lyrics. Especially when there’s growling. And maybe he did have bone structure to die for.

Then there were the tattoos, piercings, and the way sweat glistened on his chest halfway through a show. You weren’t won over by any of that. It was all about the music, one artist appreciating another. So when Yuta’s bassist quit the band and your manager broke the news that she’d gotten you an audition your intentions were purely artistic.

In this industry, a girl’s gotta work twice as hard as the guys to prove she can do half of what they can. You worked your ass off session after session, easily demolishing any other bassist their label could’ve suggested. You earned your spot in the band ten times over. Made sure no one could question why you were there. Then and only then did you let Yuta fuck your brains out.

Before shows, after shows. Tour buses. Hotels. Airport bathrooms. Green rooms. Whenever. Wherever. However. In the studio and onstage it was still about the music but everything else? All of it was driven by how much you lusted for and, much to your dismay, loved one another.

Recalling the heavenly experience it is to be bent over a bathroom sink with Yuta so deep inside of you that you feel it in the back of your throat, you can’t really blame Ms. Pink Lace for tossing her bra at him.

Kneeling down to pick up the bra, Yuta takes a look back at you. The most innocent face in the world, his baby angel, geared up and ready to commit murder.

You can’t really blame her but—

Fuck it. You do.

“I think she wants to come backstage after the show!” a guy shouts from the other side of the stage, garnering laughter from the crowd. Yuta smiles as he approaches the mic stand, the bra dangling from his fingers by the strap. “I think she wants my girl to kick my ass,” Yuta laughs, pushing his messy hair back out of his face.

“Kick his ass” Johnny whispers into his mic from the safety of his drum kit. Nearly spitting out the sip of water you’ve just taken, you toss the rest back at Johnny. The years of experience he has over you come in handy as he expertly dodges it.

“Boo, she doesn’t like to share!” Ms. Pink Lace shouts, not quite ready to back down.

Yuta steps aside and turns to you once more, “You wanna come answer this?” You unplug your bass and stroll to Yuta’s side with the sweetest smile on your face. “Do I share him?” you ask as if it’s the dumbest question you’ve ever heard in your life. It is. You lay your hand flat on his chest, running it all the way down to the waist of his pants. Looping a finger around his belt, you pull him closer and into a kiss deep enough to make you both forget you’re on stage.

When you finally break away, you borrow his mic for a quick announcement. “Our next song is called ‘In Your Fucking Dreams’!” Taking the bra from Yuta, you put it on over your dress. Ever the supportive boyfriend, he clasps it in the back for you and plants another kiss on your lips before you skip back to your spot.

“Well, then…” Yuta sings, “This is ‘In Your Fucking Dreams’” Mark laughs, strumming his guitar to warm up, “In your fucking dreams, parenthesis, thanks for the new bra.” The crowd cheers, basking in the chaos of it all. You plug your bass back up, ready to shred hard enough that your fingers bleed. You’re pissed, all of the boys know it, but the show must go on.

There’s no crying in punk rock.

“Are you crying?” Mark asks, spotting you amongst the legions staff shuffling around the halls backstage. “No” you sniffle, wiping the tears from your cheeks, “The lights were just hot and—” He grabs you by the arm, turning you to face him. “You’re a shitty liar. You’re crying. What’s wrong?”

Overhearing the conversation as he passes, Johnny doubles back. “Are you—” Johnny starts but figures it out before he has to speak another word, “Wait, don’t tell me you’re upset about that bra thing.” Feeling cornered, you try to push them aside but they don’t budge an inch. “Look, no. I don’t know. I’m just—fuck just leave me alone okay!” you snap, another wave of tears stinging the corners of your eyes.

Yuta finally catches up, his exhaustion turning to concern when he sees you. If you’re upset, even over the tiniest thing, everything stops for him including the urge to pass out after a show. He takes you by the hand, bringing you into his arms. He’s sticky and wet but his embrace is comforting all the same. “Baby,” he says softly, petting your hair, “What’s going on? Talk to me.” With so many eyes on you, you aren’t quite sure how to admit that Johnny’s right.

You are upset about the bra thing. Upset, embarrassed, angry, hurt — every mixture of things — and you can’t make sense of any of it. “Can we just go back to the hotel?” you ask, gathering whatever composure you have left. Yuta hesitates but gives in when he sees your eyes begging “Please”. “Uh, yeah. You guys—” he sighs, looking to the others. Johnny and Mark nod, getting the hint.

Mark pats him on the shoulder before walking ahead, “Got it, bro. We’ll catch you tomorrow.” Johnny hangs back for a second, leaning in to whisper into your ear, “Don’t worry, he’s so whipped for you. It’s, like, super sad.” Johnny’s comment gets a giggle out of you which is all he needed to feel okay walking away.

Yuta leads you back to the green room where he stays glued to you as you wait for the okay from your manager to leave. You’re relieved when you can finally go, the fresh night air soothing the suffocating feeling that’s been terrorizing you for the past hour. The ride back to the hotel is quiet with most of your time spent zoning out in the kaleidoscope of lights cast on you as you pass the local shops.

You can feel Yuta watching you, his hand firmly and lovingly holding yours, but can’t bring yourself to meet his gaze. Not only are you the only girl in the band, you replaced someone fans already loved. Each night you have to fight for their respect, you knew this already. Now falling for him meant you had to fight for it in more ways than one. The girls will always be there in numbers your brain can’t even fathom, willing to do things that your brain, unfortunately, can fathom in nauseating detail.

“A girlfriend to a rockstar is like a bicycle to a fish. Fucking useless.”

That’s what one of the producers had advised him when you were supposed to be in the booth cluelessly recording your portion of a song. Those words crawled into the pit of your stomach, spreading doubt like a disease ever since.

By the time you’re done spiraling, you’re upstairs seated at the foot of the bed in your hotel room. Contrary to popular belief, your band’s not the type to trash hotel rooms. That’s why you get to book places as beautiful as this with little to no resistance. Everything’s sleek and modern with large three-panel windows that overlook the city. Abstract paintings adorn the walls making it feel more like an art gallery than a place you sleep but the warm overhead lighting saves it from feeling too stuffy.

“Hey, uh, could you shower with me?” Yuta asks, drawing your attention to the bathroom door. It’s only now that you notice the shower running and Yuta standing there in a towel. “I’d shower alone but I have a fear of showers” he adds, “Shower phobia. I’ve had it really bad since I was a kid.” “And Mark says I’m a shitty liar” you tease, flopping back onto the bed.

You can’t see Yuta but you hear him shuffling across the smooth carpeted floor. He stops at your feet, dropping to his knees and laying his head in your lap. Almost on their own, your fingers find a way into his hair and silky strands swirl around them. Yuta breathes in deep, hoping what he says next will soothe you. “You’re enough for me. You know that, right?”

Time seems to freeze and you along with it. Something you love about him, his ability to seemingly always know how you’re feeling, has finally come back to bite you in the ass. Why can’t he just be content pretending nothing happened?

“Yuta, I—” you say, sitting up enough to catch him staring at you the same way he had in the car. Only this time you don’t dodge his gaze, you let it pull you in. The man looking up at you isn’t the one in the magazines or on stage. There’s no act, only him and a heart pledged to you before you'd even known it. “What happened tonight, I’m sorry” he apologizes, “I can do better. I will.”

“What? No!” you gasp, bringing you both up so that you’re eye to eye, “Please don’t apologize. That’s not what I wanted.” Still on his knees, Yuta slips his hands beneath your dress, fingers massaging your plush thighs. Touching you isn’t always sexual. Sometimes he just wants to be connected to you. This is one of those times. Feeling your body warm against his palms eases the anxiety knocking around in his head. Even though you’re upset your body still responds with pleasure to him, giving into his touch. That’s how he knows he hasn’t lost you. The day it doesn’t—well, he tries not to imagine that.

“Do you think I’d cheat on you?” he asks, catching you off guard with his directness. You place a hand on each of his cheeks, squishing them together so his lips purse like the cutest fish you’ve ever seen. Yuta makes little smooching noises and you give him a peck on the lips. “I know you wouldn’t do that” you sigh, relaxing your hold on his cheeks, “But there’s a million girls out there who want you. I’m only one. What if someday you meet a girl and she’s everything you never knew you wanted?”

Yuta says nothing in response, simply staring at you for so long that you want to shake him to see if he’s alive. “There are a million other girls…” he admits, “Which is good for all of the guys I know want you because there’s only one of you and you’re mine.”

“Oh, Yuta, come off it—”

“I’m serious. I don’t give a shit how many girls are out there. You never have to worry about me finding what I never knew I wanted” he promises, gripping your hips to bring you in so tight that your legs are already wrapped around him. His lips brush yours, hitting you with a wicked mixture of chills and hot flashes. “I know who I want,” he whispers, nibbling at your bottom lip, “Who I love. I choose you. No one else. Can you trust that? For me?”

The sincerity in his voice, how it trembles with emotion when he says that he loves you, resonates more than anything he’s ever sung. His hands ease towards your inner thighs and they part for him instantly. The pad of his thumb brushes your clit through your panties and you shudder. “Yes,” you moan between his lips as his mouth captures yours. His kiss is like quicksand, the more you move the faster it drags you in. But there’s nothing to be done about it.

You’re ravenous for each other, your tongues performing an intricate dance that tangles you together. The movement of his thumb against your clit quickens, your hips arching to beg for more. “You love me baby?” he asks, trailing kisses down your chin. Tugging your panties to the side, his fingertips tease the slippery warmth of your entrance. “Yes, I…” you squeak, shivering when his fingers plunge into you, “Love you so much.”

Yuta’s tongue tickles your neck, love bites marking his way to your cleavage. “Tell me I’m yours,” he says, making no attempt to hide how desperate he is to hear you say it. Your walls clench around his fingers. He flexes them in response, the stretch so satisfying that your eyes nearly roll back. “I want you to own it so say it” he urges, pushing in deeper, “Tell me I’m yours.” Your arms come around his neck, your best attempt at staying upright.

“You’re mine. All mine” you moan, the faintest hint of possessiveness peeking through. It’s music to his ears, turning him on to the point that the towel’s virtually useless now in hiding how hard he is. Reaching between your bodies, you take him into your hand to delight in what you’ve done to him. Stroking up and down you feel the blood rushing up his shaft — veins throbbing, his arousal decorating your chipped nail polish.

“Is this mine too?” you joke, teasing the head of his cock with light circular movements. “Fuck, yes. You want it?” he mumbles, his face buried between your tits. He can barely breathe, he’s probably lightheaded, and it’s worth it. Gripping him by the back of the head, you bring him eye to eye with you again. “I want it” you grin, the fullness in your lower belly intensifying.

Yuta sticks his tongue out, curling it to wet his lips. Catching you off guard, he grabs you by the neck and pushes you back on the bed. Keeping you pinned by your neck, his free hand tears your panties to the side. His mouth latches onto your clit, licking and sucking at the sensitive bundle of nerves. You’re completely at his mercy, only able to shake and moan as he devours you. His tongue runs between the petal soft lips of your pussy, your juices the best drink he’s had all night.

“Find someone else?” he scoffs, taking a handful of your belly, “Who else’s pussy tastes this good, hmm?” His tongue slams into you, the hand around your throat bringing you flush against his face.

“Yuta, oh god — fuck — you can’t say things like that” you whimper, clawing at the sheets.

“Or what?”

Yuta pulls back, his face soaked with your juices, “Is my baby gonna cum if I tell her how good she tastes?” Refusing to wait for your answer, his tongue dips back inside of you. The ridges of your walls glide across his tastebuds, pulsing each time he swirls around and around. He’s relentless, letting up only for quick breaths of air. “So wet and so — mmm — fucking good” he groans, kissing your inner thigh.

When his tongue meets your core again you feel tingling in the tips of your toes and fingers. The tension in your stomach rises, your breaths growing shallow. Yuta releases your neck, locking his arms around your thighs to keep them spread. “That’s it, baby. That’s my girl. Cum for me.”

Pulling his tongue out, he drags it across your clit and sends you crashing over the edge. You throw your hand over your mouth, suppressing the incoherent moans that spill from your lips. Yuta snatches your hand away, holding you by the wrist just in time to hear those last few moans escape. Not missing a beat, he hops up and brings your limp body with him.

Disoriented, the rubbing of your thighs against your core causing some aftershock, you struggle to gain your footing. “You’re trying to kill me” you pout, leaning on him for support. “Why would I do that?” he asks, putting on his best innocent face, “We still have 10 more stops on the tour. The label would kill me.”

“I can’t stand you!” you say, slapping him on the cheek as softly as you can. Yuta winks, pinching you on the ass, “You’ll live. Now about that shower—” Shaking off the post-orgasm brain fog, you manage to hold yourself up enough to lock lips with him. It’s the clumsiest thing. Kissing, caressing, peeling away your clothes. All while blindly making your way to the shower.

You step into the shower first, expecting Yuta to follow immediately after but he stops short just outside of it.

“Were you, like, serious about that shower phobia thing?”

“No,” he laughs, “I just want to look at you for a second if that’s okay.”

Standing alone in the shower, steamy droplets of water running down the curves of your body, you’re pure perfection. A vine of cherry blossoms travels across your left shoulder, riding your love handles, your hips, down your thigh. He knows how long it took to finish that tattoo. All of the tiny gorgeous details missed by the naked eye. It’s been a secret mission of his to explore every aspect of it. And of you.

The admiration radiates off of him and you find yourself overcome with shyness. “Dude, come on. You’re making me nervous!” you say, hiding behind the shower curtain. Yuta jumps into the shower, hugging you from the side, “Oh my bad, dude. I call you ‘baby’ and I get ‘dude’?” Paying him no mind, you grab the body wash and begin to cover him in rose-scented bubbles.

“Don’t be a brat. I call you other things too. I call you baby—” Your fingers trace his collarbone. “I call you honey—” They travel across his shoulder, drifting down his back. You pause halfway down, “I call you…daddy.” You don’t even try to hide your amusement when your nails press into his lower back and he whimpers. “You—why would you do that?” Yuta asks, knowing very well why.

It does something for him when you call him that. Something that makes him want to tear you apart in the best way. Leaning against the shower wall, you play with his belly button piercing. “Did I do something wrong, d—ah!” Yuta lifts you up, bringing your legs around his waist. Catching your breath, you hold on tight, terrified to fall.

“I didn’t know you could do that.” Yuta giddily shifts your weight like it’s nothing, thrusting into you, “I know.” Still dripping from your last orgasm, he slips in easily. Almost too easily. There’s no teasing, no taking it slow. Every inch of him is buried deep inside of you. You can’t cover your mouth and the shower does nothing to conceal your overstimulated moans.

Yuta bounces you up and down on his cock. The water raining down on you causes a sharp slapping noise when your bodies come together. “Fuck me harder” you beg, knowing it’ll only make the sound louder. Always here to give you what you want, he fucks into you harder and harder. With every thrust you seem to get tighter, your body so needy for him that it can’t let go.

They say there’s nothing like it. The rush that you get from a concert. Your heart syncing with the violent bashing of the drums. Well, whoever said that, has no fucking idea what they’re talking about.

Yuta presses your legs back, the head of his cock thick and throbbing as he stimulates your sweet spot. “Baby, it feels too good” he pants, knowing he’s on the brink of coming undone. Purposely clenching as tight as you can, you rock your hips down onto him and he can’t hold out any longer. Now this rush? There’s nothing like this.

The fullness as he cums inside of you makes your second orgasm all the more intense when it consumes you. The two of you float in a state of euphoria somewhere between being out of your body and being hyper-aware of it all at once. Kissing you on the neck, Yuta carefully sets you down on your feet. Unable to hold himself up, he sits down in the bathtub. He holds his arms out to you and you make your way down, cuddling up to him.

“I love you, dude” he mocks, tracing the petals on your tattoo. You groan, rolling your eyes, “Yeah, yeah. I love you too.” You share a laugh at your mutual silliness and then…nothing. Only silence. Your breathing. The running of the water. Your heart and his. You may be in the business of noise but together you’ve found meaning in just being.

“Our band doesn’t really have a concept, you know? We kinda just do what we want. It’s a vibe” Mark explains to the journalist holding a mic way too close to his face.

When your label booked you for a weekend at one of the biggest festivals in the country they failed to tell you that you had interviews lined up. Let alone ones this painfully boring. So here you are, half dressed outside of your tour bus baking in the summer sun with a camera pointed at your faces.

“And vibes are important!” Johnny throws in, “People…they need vibes because without vibes, who are we? Am I right?” Mark stares into the camera, his mind truly blown, “Bro, that’s…deep.” The interviewer nods, pretending that he understood any of that, “Vibes. Right. So you guys are on another level and—”

Just that moment a group of girls pass by behind the camera. Dressed in their skimpiest festival gear, it takes zero effort on their part to reel Mark and Johnny in. “We are so sorry” Mark apologizes, quietly flirting with the girls, “We gotta go get ready for soundcheck.” “Soundcheck, yes! Gotta keep that sound checked” Johnny says, throwing up a peace sign.

As Mark and Johnny ditch the interview to recruit groupies, the interviewer turns to you and Yuta who’ve been praying that he’d forgotten you were there. “Well, uh, I guess it’s just me and the happy couple, huh?” the man asks, plastering on a smile. The two of you are collectively unmoved, though you’re a bit nicer about it than Yuta.

Like a shark, the interviewer smells blood in the water and the mic is in your face next. “Some would say you’re pretty brave dating a rock star. Aren’t you worried someone might try to steal him away?” You and Yuta share a knowing glance before you snatch the mic from the interviewer.

“No. I mean, have you seen me?” you ask, almost glowing as Yuta showers you with kisses, “Next question.” But there is no next question. You hand the mic to Yuta and walk off to avoid saying something you’ll regret.

“And then there was one. So I’m here with lead singer—”

“Yikes, sorry. I have…interview phobia? Yeah” Yuta lies, beginning to back out of frame before you get too far away. Nearly defeated and totally at a loss, the interviewer tries one more time to bait Yuta back in. “I was hoping we could finish this. Maybe I could ask a few more questions.” Yuta pretends to consider it for dramatic effect. “Better idea, you should pull out your phone and stream our new single ‘Don't Ask My Girlfriend Stupid Shit’.”

Noticing that Yuta’s still holding onto the microphone, you run back to steal it. “Parenthesis, thanks for the brand new mic, asshole!” you cackle, holding the metallic purple equipment up like a Grammy. You disappear again, this time with some new equipment. Yuta just shrugs, waving goodbye to the camera, “Love of my life.”

#nct 127 x reader #nct 127 x you #nct x reader #nct x you #yuta x reader #yuta x you #nct angst #nct smut #nct au #chubby reader #plus size reader

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corazondebeskar-reads · 9 days

Text

the art of breaking: part two

the art of breaking, part two: theory of decay

very dark!Joel Miller x f!reader

NOTE: DEAD DOVE: DO NOT EAT. this fic contains themes of abuse and extremely dark content.

words: 10k

summary: joel knows just how to make you his forever. a sequel to "the art of breaking"

warnings (new warnings in red) and story under the cut; reader discretion is advised.

also on ao3

dividers by @saradika-graphics

warnings: dead dove do not eat, non-con, dub-con, very dark!Joel, BAD bdsm etiquette, not SSC/RACK compliant, sadist!Joel x masochist!reader, coercion, corruption, manipulation, isolation, gaslighting, glory hole, reader gives tommy a blowjob (joel and tommy do not touch), body modification, permanent marking, captivity, sadism, masochism, pain play, extreme punishment, whipping, impact play in general, mentions of vomit (no description), oral, vaginal, reader x other men, degradation, humiliation, Joel sees reader as property, inadequate aftercare, blink and you miss it piss "play," straight up abuse this time guys, overstimulation, forced eating, needles, voyeurism, objectification, human furniture/ashtray, cigarettes, consumption of non-food items, nipple/clit pumps, this one might be worse than the first idk sorry

Again, I cannot say this enough. This is a dark fantasy and should not be taken as representative of a good d/s relationship—it’s abuse masquerading. Just because I wrote it doesn’t mean I’m condoning it.

Please read responsibly.

i. dessication

When he goes to work, he leaves you free to roam the house and do your chores. For shorter trips out, he tends to put you in your cage. There’s no real reason, but it keeps you in a good place. You’re always softer, quieter when he gets back and lets you out.

He couldn’t do it all the time, of course. There are things needing to be done. Plus, every day, he gets to come home to you knelt, waiting by the door with dinner kept warm. He could afford a housekeeper, but then you’d have nothing to keep your mind and body occupied when he’s away.

Of course, sometimes he leaves you chained up in the basement. He can’t always be nice, after all. And the thing he loves to come home to most, second only to you kneeling at the door, is your exhausted body still tied where he left it, bearing the marks of his latest pleasure.

Sometimes, he just leaves you in stocks to contemplate all the raw kisses from his favorite whip. Sometimes, he has you pinned to the table with a vibrator strapped to your clit for the day. On the lowest setting—he’s not a monster.

Well. It starts on the lowest setting. He can do whatever he wants with it through a handy app. It was the only way Tommy could convince him to upgrade to a smartphone.

But today, you’re just set about neatening up. Neither you nor Joel are messy— though he does have a tendency to empty his pockets wherever he’s standing—and it’s not a huge house. You finish up early and have time to read while supper’s in the oven.

You’re already kneeling when you hear the key in the door, eyes down, hands behind your back, but you have to tense up not to flinch when you hear a second pair of boots.

“Hey there, sweetheart,” drawls a voice you don’t know.

The only reason you don’t panic is because Joel’s boots enter your field of vision. You’re intimately acquainted with them—literally—and despite the fresh layer of dirt, you’d know them anywhere.

“Ooh, damn, she’s good,” says the voice.

Joel chuckles and reaches down to stroke your cheek. “Told ya.”

You melt a little against his hand, letting the pride in his voice warm you.

He rubs his thumb over your cheek and lets you press a little kiss to the digit before stepping back to take his shoes off and dump the handful of change and crumpled receipts on the foyer table. “C’mon,” he says, snapping his fingers so you know he means you, too.

You resist the urge to look at the stranger, but you don’t like the way he lingers to follow you instead of following Joel. You can feel his eyes on your exposed flesh, the dress just short enough to show off your cunt when you crawl.

No one has ever come into the house before. At least not when you’re out and about. You don’t know if Joel’s had company while you’ve been in the basement or something; you’ve never even thought about it. All you know is that it’s been a long time since you’ve seen another person.

It’s terrifying.

You go to kneel between Joel’s feet, but he stops you. “Turn around,” he says, guiding you with firm hands to face forward.

He laughs when he sees that you’re still staring very carefully at the carpet. “Y’can look at him; he ain’t gonna bite.”

The other man, who has settled in the armchair facing the couch, laughs too. “I might,” he says.

“No, you won’t.” Joel’s voice goes hard for a moment, and you don’t need to see to know he’s glaring.

It makes you feel better. So what if someone’s looking at you? Joel’s still protecting you.

He lifts your chin up so you have to look at the other man. He’s broad, though not as much as Joel, with dark curls and dark eyes that make you feel like he wants to cut you open and see how you tick.

“This is my little brother, Tommy,” Joel says. “Go tell him hello.”

“Hello,” you say quietly.

“C’mon, now, go give him a proper greeting,” Joel nudges you with his foot. You crawl over to Tommy and kneel between his legs. Your gaze darts from him to Joel, teeth worrying at your lip.

“Don’t embarrass me, girl,” Joel warns.

Tommy lifts your chin with his hand. “He wants you to suck me off. Go ahead.”

It’s nice, but it’s not his permission you need. You risk one more glance at Joel.

“You heard him. You got two seconds, sweetheart, before you’re gonna regret it,” he growls.

“You goin’ soft? You usually have ‘em trained better by now,” Tommy teases, but his words have Joel seeing red.

You sit back. “What?”

“Sorry, sweetheart, did you think you were special?” Tommy says with a nasty smirk. He pats your face. “Poor thing.”

You look at Joel, tears welling up.

“What, you think I had a house full of equipment that’s never been used? Y’should be grateful. All my toys before you had to suffer some trial and error. I got it perfected now, and you’re wasting it, being a fuckin’ disobedient bitch.”

You close your eyes tight and choke back a sob. He’s never, ever spoken to you like that before. When you turn back to Tommy, you have your mouth open wide and waiting.

He leans back. “Well? You gonna make me do all the work?”

“Can I use my hands, please?” you say, eyes darting from Tommy to Joel.

“Great, now you got her all nervous,” Tommy bitches, and Joel rolls his eyes.

“Go ahead,” Joel tells you gruffly. You’ve been so good. So obedient. Maybe he shoulda warned you that he wanted to show you off. No, he thinks, it’s not his fault. He didn’t owe you a warning. You should just accept it and obey.

You’re shaking when you tug open the button of Tommy’s jeans, fumbling with the zipper. Apparently, it takes long enough that he grunts and knocks your hand away, pulling his cock out.

It feels like a trap. Joel has not explicitly ordered you to do this. But he doesn’t usually try to trick you.

“For Christ’s sake,” Tommy snaps, and yanks you forward. You get with the program quickly, wrapping your lips around him and trying to do your best.

He’s smaller than Joel, but it’s a decent cock. Not that it matters to you. Despite not having to gag on him, you can’t breathe anyway, too preoccupied. Why is Joel doing this? Is he going to punish you for it later?

And the worst thing, the thing that keeps bouncing around your brain as you try to get Tommy off: What happened to the other girls? Did he get tired of them and kick them out?

Was he not going to keep you?

You don’t notice you’re crying, but Tommy clearly enjoys it. He moans and holds you down as he cums down your throat. You aren’t ready, though, and sputter a little, coughing and leaking his cum down your chest.

“Jesus Christ,” Joel snaps. He gets up off the couch and yanks you away from his brother by the hair. “What the hell's the matter with you today?”

“I’m sorry,” you cry.

“Shut up,” he says, and drags you out to the place you visit in most of your nightmares, despite only having been there once in reality.

The Pit.

ii. consumption

When he comes to get you in the morning, you’re wrecked. Deflated, no more tears left to pour down your cheeks. For now, at least.

The sun is against his back when he opens the gate, reaching down for you with one strong arm. Bathed in the golden light, he is every inch your savior, and when you’ve climbed out on shaky legs, you prostrate yourself at his feet the way he likes.

He’s still mad, though, so he steps one filthy boot on your head and grinds your face into the mud. He pisses on it for good measure, the hot stream dripping down your hair and face onto the soil.

He’s got a switch in one hand. With you effectively pinned in place, he wastes no time in swinging it down on your ass.

You scream and sob as he beats you. When he finally stops, when he’s drawn every bit of his anger in welts against your skin, he lifts his boot from your head and squats down.

“Why d’you have to make me do this?” He’s solemn, sorrowful.

“I’m sorry, sir,” you say, focusing on controlling the hysterical sobs wrenching from your chest.

You don’t know what will follow, so you remain still, not daring to move without an order.

“I should drop you off at a fuckin’ whorehouse,” he mutters. He pulls you up by your hair, and you scramble to your knees. “You can learn to suck who you’re told to suck.”

“Please, sir, please don’t, please—” It’s too much. You stumble, sobs wracking your body hard enough that you can’t move. You collapse in the grass with his hand still holding your head up.

He lets go, letting you fall.

You crawl to his boots and kiss them, mud be damned. It wasn’t like you weren’t covered in it anyway. “Please, sir, I’m so sorry, please don’t—” you say between sobs.

“Please don’t what? You think you’re in any position to be askin’ for anything?”

“Don’t get rid of me, please; I promise I’ll be better; I can be good.”

“I’ll think about it, if you can fuckin’ earn it.”

“Please, please let me try to earn it.”

He squats down and helps pull you to your knees in front of him, cupping your filthy face in both hands. “I don’t wanna send you away. You know I love ya. But if you can’t be good, then what’s the point, baby?”

Your sobs are subsiding out of the pure elation that comes from his gentle touch. “I’ll do anything,” you whisper.

“I know ya will. You don’t really have a choice.” He sighs, shaking his head. “I’m gonna get you fed and taken care of. But you’re about to have one of the worst days of your fuckin’ life.”

You choke on a sob and sway a little. The fear and the hunger are like a fog over your brain.

“Hey. Listen t’me.” He holds your hands in one of his. “You’re gonna learn, and it’s gonna be real hard for ya. But at the end of it all— if you take it all like a good girl—you’ll be forgiven. Got it?”

You look up through tear-sodden lashes, lip quivering, and nod your head.

There’s no part of you anymore that registers an issue. No warning bells, no red flags, no hair raising.

You follow him to the bottom of the patio steps, where he nudges you to kneel back down, folding over so your face rests against the soil. You wait while he goes inside, unsure of how much time has passed until he comes back out with a plate of eggs, scrambled with cheese and little bits of sausage.

That raises some alarms. Not to the way he treats you, but more of a signal for what to expect. It’s protein-heavy, which isn’t necessarily unusual, but it smells delicious. And there’s no way you’re getting to eat that after behaving so badly.

You’re half right. He squats down next to you and scoops up a bite with the fork. You don’t take the bait; you know that’s not for you.

He moans exaggeratedly when he chews, grinning all the while. And then he scrapes the rest off the plate into the dirt in front of your face.

“Ah, ah. Not yet,” he says, and you close your eyes at the sound of his zipper being yanked down.

“You get wet from that beating earlier?” he asks.

You nod, even though he’s already reaching down between your legs and shoving his fingers in your cunt. He brings back his shiny hand and strokes his cock.

“Look at me, baby,” he says, shifting onto his knees so when you open your eyes, you’re faced with his fist pumping away at the red, angry head. “Coulda been you. Shoulda been, but bad girls don’t get what they want.”

You whimper. It really does hurt your feelings, but you know you have nothing to say for yourself.

“Open. Maybe you’ll get lucky, and get some fresh.”

You obey immediately, squeezing your eyes back shut as soon as he starts to cum. A little bit lands in your mouth, which you hold open.

“You can swallow that. But don’t eat yet.”

He walks away, puttering around on the patio. You try to work up the nerve for his command, stomach churning. Maybe it’ll still taste fine. Maybe cold semen and dirt won’t ruin it that much. Maybe.

If you hadn’t earlier, you believed him now about it being the worst day of your life. He certainly wasn’t starting out small. Sure, you’d eaten off the floor before, but inside the house. The house you clean, so you know how sanitary it is.

But thinking about doing this makes you want to cry. And when he tells you to get started, you do cry. Just a little.

“You got about six minutes,” he says, checking his phone for the time instead of the eternally broken watch on his wrist, “and there better not be a single crumb left. Get your ass up here as soon as you’re done.”

You’re not sure how long it takes you, but it must be nearly the whole six minutes, because by the time you’re knelt at his feet on the patio, he says, “Cuttin’ it damn close, sweetheart.”

He’s playing fucking Candy Crush, legs kicked out on the little wooden table in front of him. He’s got you knelt at his side, and after a few minutes, he digs into his breast pocket and hands you a smushed carton of cigarettes.

You draw one carefully out of the pack and extend it to him, letting go once he’s pinched it between his lips and pulling out the lighter. Carefully, you ignite the tip for him and tuck it back away. You go to give the carton back, but he shakes his head.

He pulls the cigarette out of his mouth to blow smoke. “Hang onto that for me. And this,” and he hands you his coffee cup.

It’s not the first time he’s used you as a table. He tried using you as a footrest but found it less satisfying. You try to sit and work through your nerves, try to ignore the terror that he might not keep you if you can’t endure the day.

It’s a good thing that he drained you of any concept of dignity long ago, cut you open, and let it ooze away like pus from an infection.

“Open,” he says absently, not bothering to look away from his game.

Your eyes and mouth snap open, and he taps the cigarette against your lip, letting the ash fall onto your tongue. You jerk back a little but correct it immediately.

He quirks an eyebrow. “I’ll give ya a pass this time. But keep your mouth open, tongue out, and don’t fucking swallow.”

He’s clearly happy to spend the afternoon like this. He goes through a second cigarette and still doesn’t let you swallow or spit. Your knees ache from the planks of the deck.

He gets up and goes inside for a few minutes, taking his empty coffee cup with him. You don’t dare drop your position, though.

When he comes back out, he hands you a bottle of beer, condensation already dripping. He resettles to watch the game on his phone.

Anything resembling hope is trickling out. He hates watching things on the little screen, peering at it through his glasses. But he never smokes inside the house, so he’s resigned himself to this for the sake of your punishment.

It makes you feel less than the ash on your tongue.��

By the time it’s over, your mouth has long gone dry, itching with the ash of four cigarettes, when he stands up and stretches. He leans down and holds your chin before spitting in your mouth.

“There ya go. Swallow.”

And you do. When you cough a little as the ashes cling to your dry throat, he pries your mouth back open and spits again.

It helps a little.

iii. dismemberment

You’d only been in the Pit once before. The first time was arguably your worst offense, which was good, Joel thought, that you still hadn’t topped that misbehavior.

But as glad as you are that it hasn’t happened a lot, it means you don’t really know what to expect. When he brings you into the ensuite, you know this routine enough that you kneel on the shower floor, barely flinching when he turns only the cold tap, and the faucet sputters to life.

He never gets in until you’re shivering, so while he gathers fresh clothes and towels, you scrub the mud from your body. When he checks and finds you satisfactory, he turns the knobs until the water runs warm.

Your shivers don’t subside for a few more minutes, though. Not until you’re practically done cleaning him with the spongey loofah. Hot tears burn in the corners of your eyes, though only a few slip loose.

When he turns around and takes it from you, you thank him for letting you wash him.

He gives you a smile, hand cupping your cheek.

“Of course, baby. Don’t worry. I’m going to help you remember how to be my good girl.”

But first, before he can follow up on the threat, he washes the mud and piss from your hair with gentle hands, massaging your scalp. You hold still, head tipped back, and let the tears come harder.

He notices but doesn’t comment. It’s normal now, when he takes care of you after a hard punishment. Or, in this case, in the middle of one.

You go to speak, to pour out your regrets and devotion, but he shushes you.

“I want you quiet ‘till I say otherwise,” he says. “Nothin’ outta you unless it’s an emergency. Got it?”

You nod, and he helps you to your feet, drying you with a soft towel and taking care around the raised welts on your ass. There will be some nasty bruises tomorrow, but when isn’t there? Your tits have mottled spots of yellow fading, and the shape of Joel’s hand around your throat basically never leaves.

He gives your raw, burning skin a sharp smack, sending you off to put on the dress he’s laid out for you.

He tells you nothing, just leads you to the truck. The drive is quiet, apart from the crooning voice on the radio. It’s a bit of a drive, and you park in a broken-up lot surrounded by rusty chainlink fence. He grabs your hand and takes you across the street to a dilapidated building. A cheap banner is tacked above one of the doors.

Joel hands a bill to a man, who opens the door just enough for you to squeeze in. It doesn’t take long to figure out where you are.

“Been a while since I brought you someplace nice, baby. Hope you like it, ‘cause we’re gonna be here most of the night.”

That’s the understatement of your life. He hasn’t taken you out of the house in over a year. You’re not sure you remember how to exist away from home, clinging to his arm as he leads you through the club.

You can’t decide what will be worse, but you don’t have to wonder for long when he drags you around to an empty stall. He’s not there to use a hole. You’re there to be one.

He clips your collar to the wall with just enough slack that you could pull back to breathe if the person on the other side doesn’t let you.

He takes the ring gag out of his pocket and dangles it in front of you. “You need this, or are ya gonna be good?”

“I’ll be good,” you say immediately, a phantom ache in the hinge of your jaw.

“You sure? ‘Cause if you have to ask later or I have to make that decision myself, there’ll be hell to pay.”

“I’m sure,” you whisper.

“Good.” He pats the side of your face, two sharp smacks in lieu of a caress. There will be no softness for you tonight.

He waits to talk to you until your mouth is full. You look miserable, but you don’t hesitate. It’s not to the standard he’d usually require, but you’re both aware of the hours ahead, so he lets you pace yourself.

He crouches down near you. “You like that? Some random dirty prick in your throat?”

You, of course, can’t answer, but your eyes close against the hurt.

“It’s fucking disgusting. You think I want to let just anyone use you? I could fuck any hole I want. I could go out there and have every cunt and ass and mouth. You know why I won’t?”

Your eyes flick over to him, but you don’t try to answer, don’t stop what you’re doing.

“Because they ain’t you, sweetheart. You’re my perfect girl. Nicest I’ve ever had. And if I got something this nice, and I don’t share it with my brother? You don’t even suck him off right? How do you think that made him feel, baby?”

He keeps it up, past the point where he feels like carrying on, but he can tell it’s wearing you down faster than the relentless facefucking. You’re starting to work your jaw, joints popping in between visitors, but even that doesn’t compare to the way you’ve started to shake when he’s scolding you.

“I know you’re tired, baby. I hope you remember this fuckin’ lesson because I’m not sacrificing two nights of sleep again to repeat it.”

You whimper around the stranger’s cock, which encourages them to fuck into you harder. But Joel knows the tears in your eyes aren’t from that.

“Yeah, you were bein’ selfish, huh? I couldn’t fuckin’ sleep with you out there, and now I’m up all night with you here.”

There it was, he thought, watching you break. A little too early; it was going to be tough to keep you going. But nothin’ did you in like the thought of having hurt him in the process.

And it was true. He never slept with someone out in The Pit. Too fuckin dangerous. He kept watch on a camera. He needed you scared and sorry, not dead.

He watches as you choke down the stranger’s seed, looking like you might retch. He shuts the little sliding door for a few minutes and gives you some water. After you’ve rehydrated and seem a little less green, he opens it back up.

“Alright, get ready for the next round.”

In the truck on the way home, he keeps you tucked close to his side. Between the dark, empty highway and his coat wrapped around you, you start to doze off.

He nudges you a little. “None of that now. Ain’t finished with you yet.”

You whimper, not in protest but in exhaustion. Despite how hard you try to fight it, you’re fast asleep when he pulls into the driveway.

He thinks about waking you up anyway, to follow through on his word. He carries you inside and up to the bedroom, still deliberating, but when he tries to set you down on the bed, you cling to him desperately, even in your sleep. He manages to wriggle the coat off you and lays down beside you. He’ll just let you both rest for a little while.

You wake up, mid-afternoon, shaking all over. Joel awakens moments later, eyes wide as he tugs on your arm to roll you over.

“Oh, baby,” he says, and moves to get out of the bed. “Knew I shouldn’t have let you go to sleep.”

But you grab onto him, lip trembling.

He knocks your hand away. “I‘ll be right back, jus’ hold on.”

You’re curled into yourself, sobbing, when he gets back three minutes later.

He hands you a water bottle anyway. “Sit up; you need to eat. It’ll help.”

Somehow, you find the strength to struggle and wriggle your body into sitting. He brings you to lean against his chest while he leans against the headboard.

“Good girl,” he murmurs, a kiss pressed to your head.

You start crying hard all over again.

“I know. M’sorry. I should have talked to ya last night, huh? S’that what you’re all worked up about?”

You nod. There you are, sitting in his bed, when you hadn’t fucking earned it. But he doesn’t shove you off or hurt you for it; he just feeds you a protein bar and lets you sip at the water between bites.

After he’s given you the last of the bar, he has you slide down to your knees by the side of the bed.

“What happened?” he asks.

“I disobeyed and embarrassed you.”

“I didn’t ask you what you did wrong.”

“Oh,” you say softly, and have to think. “I didn’t understand, at first. That you wanted me to suck his cock.”

“And after you did?”

“I—” you don’t want to say it. You know he’s going to be mad. He doesn’t like when you question things like this.

“Is this because Tommy said you weren’t special? ‘Cause you know better.”

“No, I just… why did you get rid of the others? What did they do?”

“Oh, sweetheart,” he says, and cups your face in one hand. “I don’t think that’s anything you gotta worry about. Not anymore.”

“But how will I know how to do better?”

“You already are. None of ‘em ever made it this far. They talked big talk but couldn’t back it up. Some of ‘em didn’t want to give up the things you have, some of ‘em couldn’t handle my expectations. I told you, you’re the nicest thing I’ve ever had. You’ve let me make you exactly the way I want you to be.”

“Even though I was so bad the other night?”

“Yep. Because you took every consequence, and I know you’ve learned your lesson. And you’ll probably fuck up again someday. But if you keep wantin’ to be better, I’ll keep teachin’ ya.”

You can’t help but cry again. You’re so tired and so tired of crying.

“What, were you worried I was gonna replace you with some new young thing someday?”

You nod, and he clicks his tongue disapprovingly.

“I’m gettin’ old, sweetheart. I don’t want to keep breakin’ in toys that ain’t worth my time. I just finished puttin’ you back together exactly the way I like ya. You stay my good girl, and you’ll be mine ‘till I die.”

It doesn’t stop your tears.

“Hey,” he says. “What do you need?”

It startles you. “What?”

“What do you need? What’s gonna make you feel better, baby?”

You’re not sure when the last time you’ve had to think about something like that is. He’s been taking care of you for so long now.

“Whatever you want,” you say.

“No, baby, that’s not what I’m asking.”

“That’s my answer, though,” you realize. “I need to feel whatever you want me to.”

“God damn,” he whispers. “I fucked you up, huh?”

Your lip trembles.

“No, baby, I didn’t mean that in a bad way. It’s just kinda incredible. Jesus. How could you think I’d ever get rid of you? There’s not a fuckin’ bit of you that isn’t mine.”

Your cheeks burn, so you bury your face into his palm and press a kiss to the center.

“You want to know what I want, is that right?”

You nod.

“I wanna fuck your pretty little mouth. And then I want to order us some fuckin’ takeout and eat it in the bath.”

It makes you smile just a little.

“Yeah? That sound good, baby?” His thumb rubs against your cheek.

“Yes, sir.”

“Alright, open up for me.”

You wrangle yourself into position. The initial weight and taste of him sends warmth through your bones for the first moment since he dragged you outside.

It’s sloppy, the way he fucks your throat, in a way it usually isn’t. It’s always messy, but his thrusts are erratic. You can’t keep up with his pace because there simply isn’t one. It’s not long before he’s holding you down and pumping his cum down your throat.

It trickles down and cleanses everything in its path. You’re lighter, like you can breathe again. You thank him sweetly, pressing a kiss to his twitching cock.

He’s panting, but strokes your cheek with one hand. “That’s my good girl. Feel better now that I washed all those other guys outta your mouth?”

Technically, he had done that last night, had shoved three soap-covered fingers in your mouth in the gross club bathroom. Wretchedly, it had the side effect of making you nauseous, and he had insisted on doing it over after you threw up.

But this felt more pure to him, more consecrational in a way. The soap might have cleared the actual evidence away, but his come was your wine and wafer.

“Yes, sir,” you say into the flesh of his thigh where your head rests. You kiss there for good measure, eliciting a pleased hum from him that sends you preening a little.

He lays back on the bed, leaving a hand on the top of your head to stroke your hair while the other gropes around for his phone. “What do you want, baby? Lo mein?”

“Oh, yes, please.”

He feeds you noodles in the bath and then eats you out until you fall asleep.

iv. reduced to bone

You’re on your knees in the basement, bent forward over a metal pipe placed at just the right height to nestle into your hips and keep them tilted up in the air. Stocks hold your head and wrists in place, tits hanging just below. The wood is slowly dampening as you drool around the ring gag.

“Got a surprise for you, baby,” he had said when he led you down. “You know how you keep beggin’ me to hurt you worse, and I have to keep tellin’ you I’m not tryin' to wear you out?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Well, I think you’re going to like this.”

That had been… well, you’re not entirely sure. A while ago, maybe, but your brain wasn’t the best judge of time right now. After he had secured you here, he had dragged out the little machine. It’s sitting under your torso somewhere, thin clear tubing stretching out like a web he’d caught you in.

There’s no noise but the hum of it, which you’ve gone pleasantly numb to. The pressure is unending, each nipple and your clit being tugged into the tiny cups relentlessly.

It tingles, just on the side of too gentle to be fulfilling on its own. That’s okay. You’re pretty sure you’ll be in delicious, mind-shattering agony soon.

This you know because, well, it’s Joel, but also because of the tools he’s laid out on the little wheeled cart and left for you to stare at.

A thin cane. Clover clamps with a length of chain. A tawse with a tapered, pointy tip. A wand.

It makes you dizzy to look at.

Also, you know because it’s a Friday night. Joel enjoys you however he likes any day of the week, but he’s careful about saving the deepest of his cruelties for Fridays. Because mind-shattering wasn’t really an exaggeration. When he gets like this, you sometimes don’t surface enough to take care of yourself for a day or two.

On those occasions, he never leaves you alone. Doesn’t want to, both because he loves when you need him that deeply and because you’re so soft and pliant. Truthfully, he thinks he could do anything to you then and you’d thank him for it.

Which is why he’s got Tommy coming over tomorrow. It’s not that he thinks you need to be out of it to avoid a repeat of last time. He knows you learned your lesson and you’ll be good.

But he’s got something special in mind that he needs help with. It’ll just be easier for everyone if you’re at your most agreeable.

And yeah, you owe Tommy a blowjob. One of the ones that make Joel feel like he mighta died and somehow gotten through the pearly gates by the grace of your devotion.

Plus, he’s pretty sure you’re going to love his plan, and he wants you unprepared, so you’ll cry real pretty and be truly desperate to show him your appreciation. It’s been on his mind since that night a few months back when you didn’t seem to believe him about never letting you go.

He’s never fucking letting you go. There’s nothing in this world that could take you from him. He’s made sure of it.

Sometimes, he has to remind himself that you don’t know you’re married.

He thought about telling you that night, so you’d understand the depth of the commitment he’s made. But he doesn’t want you to take it the wrong way. Doesn’t want you thinking you need to act like a wife .

He’d had a whole bucket of bullshit cooked up to excuse it, but when he told you to sign the paper, you hadn’t questioned it. Hadn’t questioned that you couldn’t see what it was, only the line where he pointed. You’d signed the fucking paper and never asked a goddamn thing.

He was glad. He didn’t like lying to you. This was just one of those hoops to jump through in a world that didn’t understand what you shared.

When he comes back down, your eyes are already glazed over. Your body shines with a thin layer of sweat, and your chest is heaving as you squirm. It’s gone beyond gentle. The waves of suction have you whimpering soft and high, barely louder than a breath, but nearly constant.

He chuckles and strolls over, crouching down to wipe the sweat off your brow with the bandana from his pocket before it gets in your eyes. You give him a truly pathetic look, eyes wide as you drool helplessly.

“Not so nice now, huh?”

You whine.

He strokes your cheek with an exaggerated pout before sliding two fingers into your mouth, pressing down on the back of your tongue. It tries to curl around them, eliciting another cruel laugh.

“Jesus, girl. S’there anything that would stop ya from gagging for my cock?”

You shake your head. Even if you weren’t spread by the ring gag and choking on his fingers, you’re beyond speech. Too far deep.

Joel actually doesn’t mind when you talk. He’s got no rules restricting your speech (well, most of the time). As long as you’re respectful, he likes the company.

But he really likes when you go quiet like this. When he’s pushed you so far that you can’t .

“Look at you, all worked up. We haven’t even gotten started, baby. You gonna be able to take it?”

You nod, whining, and he pulls his fingers out of your mouth and wipes them on your cheek.

“What was that, baby? Couldn’t quite understand ya.”

Tears spring to your eyes as you whine again.

“I’m just teasin’,” he says and kisses your forehead. “I got ya. I know you’re gonna be my good girl and take everything I fuckin’ want.”

He reaches down and tugs the tubing until the cups pop free of your breasts. You cry out, but it turns into a desperate moan when he tugs the one off your clit.

Yeah, he coulda turned the pump off first so they just fell off, but where’s the fun in that?

He’s grinning wickedly as he reaches back up to your breast. He barely, just barely, brushes over the side of your nipple, and the sound you make goes right to his cock.

“Fuck, you’re so swollen.” He has to remind himself he’s playing the long game; he just wants to pinch and pull so badly. He’s pretty sure you’ll scream, even though normally it wouldn’t be much at all.

But he wants to fuckin’ torture you tonight, so he’s going to drag it out. He wants you incoherent and beaten down when he’s done, so far gone you’ll stay there for days.

So he’s gotta start soft. He drags his fingertip around your areola, not quite brushing the nipple but tracing the ring left behind by the cup. You twitch, shoulders jerking back, and he grips your breast.

“None of that, now,” he croons, letting go and switching sides to torment your other breast.

It’s holy, in that way you never quite understood. Not like the Jesus kind, though you never were much for church either, but in the way that people chase salvation through empty bottles and sharp needles.

With the wand and the tawse, he breaks you down again and again and again. But that’s the thing about Joel. He reduces you to pain or pleasure or the delicious apex of both that brews between your thighs, and then he cleans you back up, puts the pieces back where he likes them.

He makes you come until you cry, and then, when you’re sobbing and exhausted, that’s when the night really begins. You’re twitching and jerking at the barest contact, writhing with every snap of the cane.

It’s so, so good. Until it isn’t. But he’s running that damn mouth of his, that sweet, filthy mouth, and you can’t not take it. Your tears are gone, all run out; he likes to wring you dry. And he keeps rubbing his hand over your hypersensitive flesh, already raw and ruined, and murmuring soft words and sweet taunts.

“Look at you,” he croons. “My pretty little toy. You’re so beautiful, suffering for me like this, baby.”

And so you do. You suffer for him. There’s nothing left in your little subby brain right now but Joel Joel Joel.

You’re dry. He almost can’t believe it. The only time you’ve not been a sloppy, soaking mess was when he broke your finger.

He whistles low and slow. “Shit, baby. Guess you have some limits after all, huh.”

It’s impressive that you can even lift your head enough to shake it weakly. An overwhelming fondness washes over him.

“ Aw. Takin’ it for me anyway, were ya?” He comes around and squats near your head, unhooking the gag and easing it out of your mouth. He rubs gentle circles on the hinges of your jaw as you whimper.

“Did so good for me, baby. Lemme get you outta there, and I’ll give you my cock.”

You shake your head, tears spilling over, but you don’t have a voice. The words don’t come together in your mind, just devastation.

His grip turns tight, forcing you to look at him. “No? You tellin’ me no?”

You shake your head again, lip quivering.

“You don’t want my cock?”

You shake your head harder and try to reach for him, hands flexing where they’re bound in the stocks. Trying to make him see just how bad you want his cock.

Luckily, he understands that much. “You wanna stay there? Baby, my knees ain’t gonna like fuckin’ you here.” But he can tell from the way your face crumples that he still isn’t quite getting it.

“Are you tryin’ to tell me you want me to keep goin’?”

You nod and he slaps you, a sharp strike that catches you by surprise.

“Stupid girl,” he says, scowling, and gripping your chin tightly between his thumb and forefinger. “I decide when we’re done. The whole point of this was not to ruin ya. This ain’t a punishment. Well, it wasn’t. Might be, next time.”

He stands up, shaking his head. “Dumb fuckin’ cunt.”

It hurts worse than the cane did.

When he sees the heartbreak on your face, he sighs. “Ah, shit. Look, I know you’re just tryin’ to please me. But you’re makin’ me feel bad for tryin’ to be careful with ya. If I take it too far today, you won’t be able to take as much anymore. I ain’t breakin’ you.”

You’re sobbing too hard to respond, but you don’t try to argue or struggle when he releases you. You crawl to lay kisses to the toes of his boots and nuzzle your cheek against them.

He sees it for the apology it is.

v. parched to dust

This time, when Tommy Miller takes out his cock in front of you, you’re ready. And there’s no way in hell you’re disappointing Joel again, so you wrap your lips around him, not quite eagerly but with enough determination that no one could fault you.

When you drag the second consecutive orgasm from him, he tugs you away with a fist in your hair, panting and gasping. Joel swats his hand away and beckons you back to his lap.

“ Jesus,” Tommy finally says, tucking himself back into his jeans.

“Told ya it was just a bad day,” Joel snipes.

“Sorry,” Tommy says, rubbing the back of his neck. “Shoulda figured. It’s just… you’re a little soft for her, yeah?”

“Course I am. But I’m not soft on her.”

You know he loves you. You do. But hearing him admit that he’s soft for you makes your chest ache.

“Got another surprise for ya, baby,” Joel says, rubbing his hand over your back.

You’re overwhelmed. It’s not that he doesn’t give you things or do things for you; it’s that it’s never such a big deal. It just is . He takes care of you. That’s how this works. Not gifts and surprises.

You bite your lip so you don’t question it, but he sees through you.

“Now I know you don’t remember. D’you even know what day it is?”

“Saturday,” you say. “You’re home.”

He shakes his head, but it’s betrayed by the smirk. “You’re right, baby. But what’s the date?”

You actually have to think for a minute. You hadn’t crossed off the calendar this morning like you usually did, and yesterday’s activities have you a little rattled. “It’s um, it’s August 19th?”

“That’s our anniversary, baby.”

Your brows scrunch as you try to think back. That’s not right. Your first date was in February. You moved in sometime early in June. You’re not sure what his metric is, but August doesn’t make sense. “Um. Are you… are you sure?”

He doesn’t get mad like you thought he might. He just laughs. “Course, I’m sure, baby. It was the night we came home from your folks’. When you agreed to be mine.”

Your face heats. “I’m sorry—”

“Y’ain’t got nothin’ to be sorry about, baby. I didn’t expect ya to remember. But you’ve been mine for two years now, and you’re still worried I ain’t gonna keep you. But I’ve been thinkin’, and I know how to prove it to you.”

If this doesn’t convince you, he thinks, nothing will. Never mind that his whole goddamn life revolves around you. Never mind that you’ve worn his collar for the last 731 fuckin’ days.

You’re busy wondering why he made you suck another man’s cock today if he cares about your anniversary. But then again, you’ve long accepted that what he wants won’t always make sense. It’s not your job to make it make sense. It’s just your job to do it.

“C’mon, let’s go downstairs,” he says.

You swallow hard around the sudden fear, and he laughs.

“What? Had enough yesterday?”

“No, sir,” you say. It’s mostly the truth. Mostly.

He shakes his head. “Not today. C’mon.”

Now that he moves, you follow.

Tommy’s already in the basement, which almost gives you pause, if only because his movement startles you.

Joel has you hop up on the padded table instead of the metal one, typically a sign that either you’re going to be here for a well-extended time or that he’s going to fuck you on it.

Tommy’s setting things you don’t recognize out on the little cart, but you don’t try very hard to look. Looking makes your breathing get a little ragged, so you look at Joel instead.

“Good girl,” he murmurs, bending slightly to give you a kiss before he begins to slowly circle the table, fastening straps over your body.

He’s left the dress on, which is weird, too, but you’re not complaining. It’s always a little chilly down here and even though you know you shouldn’t, you’re glad he’s not made you bare yourself completely in front of Tommy.

It’s a lot of straps. You watch curiously, if not a little dazed, as he secures your ankles, thighs, stomach, chest both above and below your breasts, arms in three places, neck, and head.

The one around your neck clips to your collar, not adding another band or choking you. But you’re unable to lift your head and neck at all.

When he’s done with the strap across your forehead, he smooths away the worry lines that crease beneath it.

“Just need ya to hold real still. You’re probably going to like this, but don’t fuckin’ come.”

“Yes, sir.” Your eyes are wide and worshipful as you wait for further commands.

“Be real good for Tommy, okay?”

Your heart pounds in your throat, but you promise immediately.

He hops up to sit on the spanking bench nearby.

“Where first?” Tommy says.

“Hip,” Joel says, settling in to watch.

Tommy goes about his business and pulls the bottom halves of the table apart, wrenching your legs open slowly. He spreads them wide and slides a stool over, situating himself right up by your cunt, and flips the hem of your dress up over your belly button.

You whimper and try to look at Joel for any indication of how you’re supposed to behave, but the restraints don’t allow enough wiggle room.

Something cold smears across the front of your left hip, and, much to Joel’s surprise, you break. You’re still raw in more than one way from the previous day.

“Please, sir,” you blurt, lip trembling and eyes squeezed tight.

He hops down, brow furrowed, and comes closer, raising a hand to Tommy to pause him.

He cups your face. “Please, what, baby?” His other hand rubs up and down your side.

You force your eyes open to look at him, blurred through waiting tears.

“Please, can I have a gag?” you say. Your eyes are scrunched, and fists clenched.

He strokes his hand over your cheek. “‘Course you can. Good girl.”

The praise keeps you calm while he steps away. When he comes back, you open your mouth wide, and he settles it between your lips.

You nearly cry in relief when you feel the little bulb press inside, not much different than the head of his cock. A few tears spill over when he leans down to kiss your forehead.

“Atta girl, he says, pinching your chin before returning to his perch.

The warmth of his touch lingers, and you let the pressure of the gag distract you from where Tommy starts to move again. You suck on it steadily, eyes fluttering shut when you feel the unmistakable scrape of a blade across your hip.

Shaving. He’s shaving you. You can’t fathom why, with only peach fuzz reaching there. And you think maybe it’d be a cold day in hell before Joel let anyone shave your pubic hair. He liked it kept trimmed but not too neat.

“I’m from the seventies, baby. Women’re supposed to have a nice healthy bush,” he had told you fairly early on when you were just dating. He hadn’t told you to stop shaving and waxing, but of course, you had.

Warm water washes over the area with a washcloth not far behind. Tommy’s firm hand does a final sweep with something cold.

“Alright, honey,” Tommy says, his voice almost seeming fond , “just hold still and be a good girl, okay?”

As if you’d do anything else.

You startle a little at the loud buzz that kicks up, and Tommy rubs gloves fingers over the opposite hip for just a moment.

And then he gets to work. It hurts . But the pain clues you into what’s going on, and you come to the only logical conclusion: Joel’s having you tattooed.

You start to cry, the feeling of being loved and owned overwhelming. You don’t hear Joel’s chuckle, buried as it gets under the gun in Tommy’s hands.

You thought it was overly cautious of him earlier, to worry about you having an orgasm during anything involving Tommy. But you get it now. The pain itself is bearable, almost delicious, but the rush of euphoria in your veins from the mere concept is intoxicating.

It goes on and on. Maybe it’s only half an hour. Maybe it’s four. The pain cycles, fading to a soothing heat before building back up to a scald.

You don’t realize it’s over right away. The buzz of the gun plays on in your brain even when the room falls quiet. And Tommy’s doing something to it, probably wiping it down, but your skin still rages.

Joel hops down and comes over to the side of your left leg. “Shit, that’s fuckin’ gorgeous,” he says to his brother.

“Looks damn good. Hey, she’s got a real pretty pussy, huh?” He says, elbowing Joel. “S’funny, watchin’ her leak all over.”

Joel peers over, running a finger over your cunt, and laughs. “Knew you’d like that,” he says.

You whimper.

He pulls out his phone and snaps a photo. “Want to see, baby?” He asks though he’s already turning the screen to you.

The skin is red and irritated, but the ink takes your breath away. In shiny black, right there on your hip, sits a blocky “JM” surrounded by a circle. It looks like a fucking brand.

Your eyes fly to his, whining desperately and praying he understands. A sly grin spreads across his face, and the tip of his middle finger traces oh so gently up your slit.

“Come for me, baby,” he says, not bothering to touch you further. He knows you won’t need it.

Vision blacking out, you writhe uselessly against the restraints as the pleasure batters through you. You’re only vaguely aware that the loud keening sound is coming from you, but it’ll register later when you feel the raw ache in your throat.

Tommy whistles. “Sorry I doubted you, princess.”

You whine through the aftershocks, tears welling up again at the thought of the tattoo. You hope Tommy would leave so Joel will fuck you.

Then you remember him asking, “Where first?” just as Tommy drags his stool around to the right side of your torso.

Joel comes with him, rolling up his sleeves and tinkering with something on the cart. They both touch your arm a lot, fingers roving and adjusting you. You start to tune it out until Tommy lathers a spot on the inside of your wrist.

Once it’s been shaved and cleaned, someone presses something against the spot for a moment.

“Well?” Joel says.

“Lines look clear to me,” Tommy says. He’s leaning close to your arm.

Joel doesn’t walk away this time. As the gun kicks back to life, he stays with his hand resting on your upper arm, looming over Tommy’s shoulder.

It’s easier this time, now that you know what to expect. It hurts, but you’ve had worse and probably will again. You’re feeling a bit too dizzy, though, when it finally stops.

“This one’s for you to see,” Joel says, starting to unlatch the straps. He frees your arm first and then your head and neck, plus the gag. The ache makes itself known as soon as you shift a little.

You peer immediately at your wrist, and a strange clenching tears through your chest. A few inches below your palm lays the dark outline of Joel’s thumbprint.

“Oh,” you whisper, a strange tingling spreading through your limbs. “Oh.”

“Knew you’d like it,” he says, lips curling into a smug smirk.

Once you’re untethered, he peels your dress off so the fabric won’t brush against your hip.

“There’s a protein bar and a bottle of water on the coffee table,” Joel says. “Go eat and wait by my chair.”

You’re swaying a little but he helps you down and makes sure you can stay on your feet before he removes his hands from your waist.

You make your way upstairs in a daze. Truthfully, you don’t really remember it. When they come upstairs, you’re knelt in your place, wrapper and empty bottle on the table.

“Good girl,” Joel says, lowering himself with a little groan into his recliner. He shifts around and pulls his cock out. “C’mere.”

You hop up immediately, and he takes you by the waist to help you settle where he’s fully hard already.

“Don’t move,” he says, to your great disappointment. “None of that,” he scolds at your pout. “It’s my turn. Just relax.”

Tommy sets the gun and equipment up to the side of the chair. You settle against Joel’s chest, snuggling in and resting your head on his shoulder so you can watch.

Joel’s other hand, the one not waiting in place, comes up to cup the back of your head. He bends his head down to kiss where he can reach. “You’re being so good. Just a little bit more, and then you can take this cock.”

“Do not come on her tattoo, Joel,” Tommy says.

Joel laughs, but Tommy smacks his arm. “I’m serious. It’ll fuck it up and probably infect it. Don’t fuckin’ do it.”

“I’ll wait ‘till it’s healed, don’t worry.”

You moan and clench around him at the idea, which only encourages his pleased chuckling.

Tommy takes your hand, peeling it from where it rested against Joel’s chest, idly brushing through the hair there. You let him, letting it go limp and unresistant.

He presses your thumb against an ink pad and pushes it down on a piece of paper, rolling it carefully. He repeats the process a few times before he’s satisfied. Wiping it clean, he coats it one more time before pressing it against Joel’s wrist.

You stare, rapt, as he traces the lines of your fingerprint onto Joel’s thick arm, framed by dark hair. It sits in parallel to the watch on his other wrist.

“Where d’you want these?” Tommy says after he’s wrapped up and started to pack away the equipment. He’s holding the papers where they tested your print.

“The safes. One in each office,” Joel says.

It’s weird, certainly, but so is Joel, so you don’t give it much thought.

He’s cradling your face in his palm, looking at you with something so tender and ferocious that you can’t possibly look away. He thrusts up into you, his other hand tight on the hip opposite the tattoo.

It hurts, but, well, you don’t mind.

The way he fucks you open now is slow, cruel after making you sit still for so long, but he’s savoring it. Savoring the way you can’t help but stare at him in worshipful bliss. It’s like a drug, the way his attention makes you hazy. He’s got you hooked, addicted, right where he wants you. His.

Not a damn part of you that isn’t.

The smirk curls across his face, and his hand curls around your neck, abandoning the gentle caress for something you both understand as love. You come on his cock when he tells you, every time he tells you, as he leaves you gasping and clutching his forearm, not prying him away but holding on as the room spins.

When he fills you, he kisses you deeply, hand back around your throat as his mouth takes the rest of your air. You collapse against his chest when he lets go, and he holds you there with a smug, satiated smile and a soft kiss to the top of your head.

You doze in and out in his lap as he and Tommy share a bottle of bourbon.

“Damn, I shoulda brought Daisy over. You haven’t had someone for her to play with in a while,” you hear Tommy say through the fog of your brain.

“Yeah, we’ll see,” Joel says. His hand is scratching at your scalp and it feels so good you almost forget Tommy is talking.

“... my wife and your little pet—” he’s saying.

You don’t mean to open your eyes, but you catch his as soon as you do. He laughs. “Yeah, I got a wife. I’m not as mean as my brother, here.”

You find that hard to believe, but also, you don’t really think of Joel as mean. He’s strict, sure, and he has high expectations. But he takes such good care of you, and you want for nothing.

The phrase stirs something odd in your head. Do you want for nothing? Well, it’s at least partially true. You don’t want anything, not a thing you have or don’t have. You’re happy with whatever Joel gives.

It’s probably the same thing. Besides, you wanted that career; you wanted to put on a face, a mask, and pretend to be someone who gave a shit about the company’s reputation. And you were wrong, so wrong. And Joel’s always been right. So what do you know about what you want?

Joel’s rumbling voice startles you a little where you’re tucked against his chest. “She was one ‘a mine, y’know,” he says to you.

Tommy’s wearing a sly grin. “Yeah, until you scared the shit out of her,” he says, laughing. “Poor little thing didn’t know what to do with herself.”

“She wasn’t like you,” Joel says. He waits as if he expects a reaction, but you don’t stir from your safe place in his arms.

“Nah, not everyone’s as fucked up as y’all,” Tommy says. “I ain’t a sadist,” he says to you, a glint in his eye. “Don’t get me wrong, I do love puttin’ her in her place, but mostly, I just like havin’ my pretty little wife at home.”

Joel’s watching you; you can feel the heft of his gaze. But you’re so blissed out, so calm right here in his lap, dripping his seed slowly around where his cock still fills you.

“Would that bother you? Playin’ with a girl who used to be Joel’s?” Tommy goads.

You think about it for a moment. “She ever get his mark?”

Tommy grins, teeth like a shark. “Nope.”

You hum, unbothered, and nuzzle your cheek against Joel.

“Attagirl,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to your head. “Knew you’d learn this time.”

You gaze at his thumbprint on your arm. The cells around it will grow and die, but not his claim on you.

It’s almost comforting, you think, that by the time that fades, there’ll be nothing left of you anyway.

bonus: the art of breaking playlist

thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who asked for a part two and expressed love for the first. I will admit I am INCREDIBLY nervous to publish this both because it's kind of fucked up but also because so many of you loved the first part and I'm scared this won't live up to your expectations.

please, if you enjoyed this, let me know! soothe my anxiety lol. and if you don't want to publically do so, anon is always on.

i love you!

#dead dove fic #dark!joel miller #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel miller x f!reader #dark fic #dddne #tw non con #READ THE WARNINGS #HEED THE WARNINGS #fic: the art of breaking

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i-put-the-hot-in-psychotic · 1 month

Text

Target Acquired PART 1

Pairings: Keegan. P. Russ x Soldier!Reader

Enemies to Lovers Trope

Summary: You and Keegan were somewhat of enemies, if that could be said. You got shot by him when you were on a mission, and hide in a nearby warehouse, but what happens when you actually get to talking, and showing him that you are not a scared woman and you mean business as much anyone else.

Disclaimer: This story will contain curse words, war themes, gun shot wounds, and (NSFW) sexual themes in part 2.

"Fuck"

You seeth between your teeth. You got shot, but from where you don't know. You rested your back against the metal crate breathing deeply.

You are enemies.

He was good, shooting you like that. You couldn't see in the the dusty air surrounding you. The abandoned warehouse. You just need to get there, hide there at least until you patch yourself.

The building is dark and has no lights except for the sunlight from the broken windows. All of a sudden, footsteps start getting closer. A man turns into the room. It's him.

He points his gun at you, scanning your body.

"Take your weapons off and push them towards me." He demands.

"Why? You already shot me. Might as well end it here" you say as you leaned against the wall breathing heavy holding your abdomen and applying pressure.

He walks towards you, still pointing his gun at you. "I need to make sure you are unarmed first. Take your weapons off and put them on the ground. Now!"

Sighing heavily sending him daggers, as if you're in a position to shoot, you removed your weapons and shot them towards him with a kick of your foot.

"There happy?"

He catches each one of the weapons with a holt underneath his heavy boot.

"I need to search you." He says, after a moment of dead silence.

"Take off your clothes and throw them towards me."

You stop dead in your tracks. Eyes trying to meet his, sadly having the light come from behind him it made him just a silhouette. He wasn't serious was he?

The corner of his mouth rises into a slight smile. "You heard me. Remove your clothes."

"Keegan"

"What?"

"Im not going to. I gave you my weapons what more could you want. Leave me to bandage myself." you state finalizing your bandage with a knot.

His expression sharpens, becoming somewhat frustrated.

"You aren't going anywhere until I say so. Remove your clothes, now."

You get up, winching at the pain in your abdomen. Keegan got you good shooting just beneath your chest plate. You removed your chest plate and your thigh holsters. Giving him a look as he urged you to continue.

You removed your top leaving you in your string one and finally went to your cargo pants, removing your boots too.

"This isn't very ethical. Even during war" you state.

Your string top had blood all over it sticking to your naval, but pushing the pain away you strengthen in front of him, trying to subside your anger. He was not going humiliate you.

His eyebrows arch in surprise as he stares at your body. He walks around you, checking every crevice. The look on his face is of disbelief and... curiosity?

"I'm amazed you are putting up this much of a fight... "

"Can I get dressed now? " you reply unamused.

Silence.

You look at his eyes. What game is he playing? Thoughts gave him away from his eyes, but no ounce of emotion from behind his mask.

"Please turn around for me." He says in a calm but firm voice.

You turn around as he instructs. Breathing heavy having him behind your back, you prepare for the worst, arms and legs at the ready years of training on you.

Silence.

Not even the rifle's strap sound, nothing.

He looks up and down your body as if studying it. For a moment, he stares in silence, letting his eyes take everything in.

Finally, he clears his throat. "Alright, I'm done here." He starts walking towards the door. "Once I've left, get dressed and don't try anything stupid."

"So what? What was this all for? Wanted to feel some power over me? That's why you had me take my uniform off?" You reply angry.

"Haven't seen a woman I presume"

You hit a nerve.

He was close to the door leaving. Smirking he wasn't the only one in power here.

He stops walking. This is the first time you've seen his expression change. He's... amused?

"You aren't scared of me?" He asks.

Normally, people are petrified. This is the first time someone's talked to him like this.

You turn and move towards him. He towers over you full gear on. You still in your under uniform garments.

"I'm scared of no one" you say directly looking in his eyes.

The tension in the air grows as your two bodies are now just inches apart.

He takes a small step forward, invading your personal space. He stares down at you, unblinking. You feel like you are caught in a trance, as if you cannot look away.

"You're not scared of me, hmm?"

"Never" you whisper to him.

He inches closer. Your lips are now only a few centimeters apart, his covered by his mask.

His eyes pierce into yours. He seems transfixed, almost like a predator watching its prey.

There is a slight smile on his lips. He speaks barely aloud in a teasing tone.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure"

You inch closer actually meaning what you're saying. As he angles his head closer you reply; "You should get going, they might be wondering where their leader went. Wouldn't want them to know you were with the enemy would you?" you say walking backwards away from him.

"Hmm... and what if I wanted to be with the enemy?" He steps toward you again, matching your walking pace but remaining only an inch or two behind you.

His lips curl into a devilish smirk and he tilts his head curiously to the side like he can't believe how brave you are.

You're shocked, yet not surprised that would be something he would say, however you remained stoic.

"Maybe the enemy doesn't want to be with you" you tantalize.

He pauses for a moment, still following behind you but not moving any closer.

His eyes are darting around your body, trying to take it all in. He speaks again in a voice that's somehow both playful and yet deadly.

"You're a bold one, aren't you?"

You start to dress back into your uniform, wanting to leave. Finally putting on your cargo pants you don't reply to him.

"Hey..."

He speaks, but at first his voice is so low that you ignore it.

"Hey!"

He tries again, yelling this time. He can't let you leave. And there's something else in his voice, a hint of desperation.

You heavily sigh wanting this game to end. Dressed, you walk towards him hitting his shoulder with yours making your way out of the building.

He grabs your wrist before you can walk further, spinning you around to face him.

For the first time, you see that deep down, he's not a monster. There is a hint of humanity and emotion in his eyes.

"Can I ask you something?"

Without replying you looked at his hand wrapped around your wrist then at him. Lets hear this you think.

He grips your wrist tighter, not hard enough to hurt but just enough to show you he's not letting go.

He stares back into your eyes, studying them, trying to read them.

"Why... are you so fearless?" he asks.

You frown at that. Remembering things that made you who you are today.

"Life" you reply.

For a moment, you see a flash of empathy in his eyes before he quickly masks it with his usual expression. "Right."

He pauses, then lets go of your wrist. He stares silently for another moment then finally breaks the silence. "You're different... "

"So are you" you say heading back to the outside world wanting this scene to end not knowing what actually happened between you two. Hand on the door handle you turn looking to wards him. "See you on the battlefield" you say opening the door.

He stays perfectly still, letting you walk outside first. You notice that he seems almost sad, like he's lost something.

You feel his eyes following you out. They are full of curiosity as if he's wondering if he'll ever see you again.

You are both very different people, but for some reason, you have this strange feeling that you are somehow connected to each other.

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adnauseum11 · 4 months

Text

Misfire (John Price x Reader)

A little snippet of a scene came to me and made me laugh. John Price having a crush on a long time friend and finally working up the nerve to ask her out. Kinda.

less than 1k words

John Price x fem! reader

SFW

feedback welcome

I know almost nothing of CoD other than fanfic so go easy on me

I wouldn't know how to write shy and retiring if my life depended on it.

You’ve known John forever. Like, forever, forever. The friend group he originated from disintegrated years ago, but the two of you remained thick as thieves. He’s moved in and out of the country, and you’ve changed careers a few times, but through it all he’s been a reliable shoulder to lean on. He’s the first person you call when you need help moving for the millionth time, and he, good man that he is, turns up with beer and willing hands as soon as he’s available. If he grumbles about your proclivity for changing apartments so often you know it comes from a place of concerned affection. If anything, he’s pleased you’re closer to his bachelor pad now, negating the need to drive across town twice on game nights. God forbid you ride a bus for twenty-five minutes when he could deliver you to your doorstep in fifteen. He's retired from the Army, and still takes safety a little too seriously for your tastes. You indulge him though, because who actively chooses the bus when other, more pleasant options are available?

When he asks you to dinner, you agree without even blinking. You reason there must be a rugby game on or something he wants to see. You don’t even ask where to meet him, assuming, correctly, that he will pick you up. So, you are caught off guard when he turns up in your entrance way wearing a button-down shirt, suit jacket and dress pants. He too, is caught off guard. You look down at your outfit in unison. Bootcut jeans, well-worn Blundstone boots and a ratty but beloved faded t-shirt that cheerfully proclaims “IDAHO? No, you da ho” across the chest in cursive script.

“Uh… what are you wearing?” He asks, cautiously.

“Me? What are YOU wearing?” Totally confused now, you can’t help but feel a little saucy about being put on your back foot.

“I asked you to dinner, didn’t I?”

John’s accent gets stronger when he’s caught up in strong emotions. That really should have been your first clue. But this is John. John.

“Yeah, why are you all dressed up for beers? What game is on tonight anyways?”

You throw him a look like he’s gone slow on the uptake as you reach for your coat. When you turn to look at him with your purse strap slung over your shoulder, he’s looking as confused as you feel.

“Game? Love, who said anything about beers?”

“Wait, we aren’t going for beers?” Disappointment creeps into your voice and you can see you have managed to flummox the normally unflappable John.

“Bleedin’ Jesus, I mean, we can have beers if ye want, sure. I just uh…”

He lets the sentence hang, clearly uncertain.

“You what?” You prompt, vaguely concerned at his out of character behaviour.

“I made reservations at Stella del Mare.” He admits in a rush.

“You did what?��This isn’t… beers? Is this… are we on a date?” The slow realization finally takes hold and a spiral of panic begins to descend through your body. “They won’t let me in like this!”

“Uh, no. No. They sure won’t.”

He agrees easily with the second half of your statement while staring at your chest and dodging the first. You narrow your eyes at him. This isn’t your first rodeo with John’s evasiveness.

“How much time do I have?”

“Including travel time, or…?”

“John. If this is how you start all your first dates, I can see why you don’t have many second ones.”

“’Bout 15 minutes love.”

He answers seriously, properly chastised.

You whip your purse over your head and slap it against his wide chest, catching him off guard. He holds it in place while you sling your coat off and dash upstairs again.

He’s still in the same position when you return back down the steps, having swapped jeans for a black skirt and your (hilarious but wildly) inappropriate t-shirt for a silk, V-neck emerald blouse with cap sleeves. You’ve pulled your hair back into a simple bun and slicked on a light layer of neutral makeup and a deep red lip. John’s eyebrows climb as he catches a glimpse of you but he waits until you’re picking up your coat again before he speaks.

“Listen, you look beautiful. I – “

“Can it, I’m still annoyed at you for the moment.”

You take the purse out of his hands and slide the strap over your shoulder, smacking his big bicep playfully as you push him out the door and into the night. You resolve to question him thoroughly about his poor communication skills at dinner as you lock up. Wasn’t he in charge of people in the army? Christ.

#john price #john price x reader #john price x you #call of duty #long time lurker first time poster #captain john price #john price cod #fanfic

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halcyone-of-the-sea · 9 months

Note

Hello and congrats on 5K!!!!!

I was unsure if I should send in my goofy idea haha but here goes! I was just imagining, the mc and the 141 having to do a mission super early in the morning. So the mc puts on some earbuds and just listens to the most grating or strange music to help wake themselves up. I imagined this with Soap or Gaz but whoever is fine ^^

Thank you and again, congrats on 5K!!!

—How Do You Listen To That?

⇢ ˗ˏˋ 5k Drabble Masterlist ࿐ྂ

╰┈➤ ❝ [It was three a.m. when you all got the call to load up, but what's the best way to wake both yourself and the Sergeant up?] ❞

It was three a.m. and already you were in full gear, bag slung over your shoulder as the C17 sat on the tarmac. Soldiers walked about, men and women loading up the plane with all manner of items your Task Force might need. You don’t mean to be rude when you walk past without more than a grunt in greeting, it’s just that you can barely keep your eyes open.

The debrief had been quick, nothing more than a few words by Price said when everyone had been called in from their barracks not fifteen minutes earlier. Off to another base somewhere in Egypt, you yawn into your elbow and try not to think about how hard it’ll be to stay awake on the fly over there. You needed to be boots on the ground right off the bat, so no time to rub at your eyes before you landed.

Your feet thump up the ramp and you drop your bag next to Gaz, who pulls his headphones out of his ears to rest around his neck. He sends you a glance, lips pulling in a tiny smile.

“Still with me, Love?” You send a blurry glare his way, tossing yourself down beside him into one of the uncomfortable chairs connected to the wall.

“Remind me,” your voice grumbles as Kyle’s hand grabs the seatbelt from your side, pulling it over you and clicking you in. “Why did I join up?”

“Well,” Garrick teases, “to see my face every day, Ma’am. Can’t think of a better reason.”

“You’re lucky you’re smart, Sergeant.” Pulling the strap to cinch the seatbelt to your abdomen, you shuffle into a more comfortable position and go to rest your head on Gaz’s shoulder.

“Is it mine or yours, then?” The man asks you, and your lips pull in thought. An arm extends around your shoulders, jostling you closer to a hard chest as you hum in approval.

“Mine—you choose the songs to Latvia.” A phone is casually moved to your hand and you take it with a muttered ‘thank you.’

Gaz sighs, leaning his head back and putting one of the headphones into his ear—you take the other and do the same, smile pulling at your lips. Your face still burns with fatigue; eyes fluttering against the lights as Johnny, Ghost, and finally your Captain all make their way to their own seats.

With every Op, there was a routine.

Johnny would fiddle with all kinds of hand-held puzzles he kept in his pack or write in his journal, Simon would read, and Price would go over reports or type up mission details—the upcoming intel that you’d all need to know before the real nitty-gritty started.

Gaz and you would listen to music.

It was sweet, you thought. A semblance of balance and stability before the ball dropped. Being close to him always felt like that.

Absent-mindedly, you scroll through song after song as Kyle rests his eyes, itching at the back of his neck as he holds you. Finding a song that’s sure to wake you up, not even knowing the band, you can tell just by the album cover exactly what it’s going to sound like.

Screaming, throaty wails; maybe even garbled voices that yell at a frequency so high it’ll make your ears bleed. You smirk.

Perfect.

Gaz’s relaxed demeanor is accented by a tiny smile, muscles lax and his face loose as the ramp of the C17 begins to fold in on itself before take-off. He holds you in the crook of his arm, feeling your sleepy heat and the way your face nuzzles his upper pec—you always alluded to a feeling of relaxation on days like these; when time was of the essence. In the few hours of having you against him, Kyle can finally let his mind rest—

“Bloody fucking hell!” The man calls as the grating sound of vocal bellowing strikes his ears. Gaz’s body jerks forward, snapping the headphones away from him as the rest of the men immediately look over to the scene of a horrified Sergeant and a giggling woman under his arm.

You laugh loudly, phone close to your chest and face burying itself into the panicked man’s neck.

Gaz blinks quickly, staring down at you with parted lips as the rest of the Task Force share a knowing look.

“Now,” he asks through a breathless exaggeration, “what did I do to deserve that?”

“I…I’m sorry,” you giggle out, giving him a firm side hug.

“Christ,” Kyle sighs, fake glaring down as a smile comes out over his face. “You’re trouble, Love, y’know that? Who can listen to that this early?”

You smirk in his face, cheeks hurting from how hard you smile. “It’s going to wake us up, Garrick.”

“Fuck, if that’s how you’re going to do it, I’d rather bash my damn head into a wall. Jesus.” You roll your eyes and give in, chuckling.

“Alright, Alright—no songs that involve people screaming directly into your precious little ears, Kyle.” The man knocks his head on top of yours, a smile hidden in your hair as the voice of the pilot wafts over the cockpit.

“...Thank Christ. ‘Bout pissed myself.”

466 notes · View notes

yeyinde · 2 years

Text

riptide | Simon "Ghost" Riley x f!Reader

"Thought we lost you." His voice is a crackle; sap popping as it burns in the fire. The log charring in the kindling. There was a battle in his head; artillery fire in the gaps of his eyes. "Thought we— fuck, pet. Thought you were gone, and we couldn't do a damn thing about it." His knuckles graze the mark in your temple, gentle around the tight, irritated flesh—it's proof that you lived, that despite the tragedy of the betrayal from the man you counted on the most, you survived. You made it. You won His touch is featherlight. But his eyes– His eyes are heavy with the promise of nothing but ruin.

(it's like holding a lit cigarette to your pulse.)

part ii of in undertow

tw: gratuitous smut; unfettered filth; gendered reader; f!reader; female anatomy; near death experiences, MAJOR spoilers for the game (seriously, if you haven’t played it are saving it for later, or you haven’t finished, maybe don’t read this yet); PINING; cigarettes after sex was listened to on repreat during the making of this; also, i had “THAT’LL DO!” and “AHUEVO” on a loop, y’all. blame that.

notes: whenever someone asks what “doing the most” means, feel free to point them to this. it’s 16K. fullstop. it was only supposed to be smut. this ended up more plot than porn. but i so wanted the pining; the ambiguity, the danger, the drama. (i mean, this has none of that, but i wanted it.)

i told my very Welsh dad i was in love with an English man, and he said how could you do this to me? and that is pretty much all you need to know about Welsh culture.

Porthmadog hasn't changed much at all since you last washed up on the sandy shores, one hand gripping the strap of your off-duty duffle bag, and the other clenched around your passport. Wound tight. Ready to flee. A constant state of fight or flight.

The air is heady with the scent of the sea. Algae. Seaweed. Salt. Your lungs burn with the thickness of it. The sulphur sits in your throat, sticking to your larynx. It clicks when you swallow, refusing to budge. It curls behind your teeth when you suck the air in through parted, salt-chapped lips; the taste lingers in that strange microcosm of being both achingly nostalgic, and woefully foreign in the same breath.

The streets, too, live there: a realm of vague memories flashing by as your feet tap against the cobblestone. Boots heavy with exhaustion, and jet lag.

You're not ready to face it. Not yet.

Head bowed, you stare at the quasi-familiar cracks on the sandstone, and wonder how everyone else is fairing right now. An hour after takeoff. Soap would have been dropped off, wouldn't he? Safe and sound in Edinburgh.

You're both luckier than your American counterparts—the ones who have a full nine hours left to go.

Bouncing from the Middle East to Europe is a blink.

Europe to America is a whole ocean.

You and Soap played rock, paper, scissors for who got to depart first. In the end, you won. Wales was closer, anyway.

You left them behind with a heaviness that settled in your pericardium, compunction dipping in the valley of your pinched brow.

A strange feeling leaks from the fissures.

Ghost didn't depart.

They didn't stop in England at all. Right to Wales, right to Scotland. America. Mexico.

You try not to think about your prickly Lieutenant, but he flashes behind your eyelids, anyway. A bonfire in the dead of night. Tendrils of smoke drifting into the midnight blue aether. You're too close to the crackling flame. The heat scorches your skin.

He, too, sits heavy in your chest. A spooled cluster of questions bereft of answers. An unknown chasm gaping below. What it all means–

You woke up when the interior lights of the jet flickered on a few rows ahead, the jaundiced glow rousing you from your slumber. Your temple rested on something warm. Firm, sturdy. You blinked into existence, the ghost of a breath on your lips; a passing dream now left behind to rot. A world, forever unattainable, dissolving into nothing. Sand on your fingertips.

The world knits back into the cold clutch of reality: you're on a plane, and–

And you find yourself staring at tightly woven black thread. A balaclava.

Your eyes dart up.

The pad in his hands bathes him in iridescent light. It casts shadows on his face, in the pocks of his mask, and illuminates the white of the artificial bones. The paint used is tinged blue, brushed with cyan where it meets the black.

His lidded eyes crest low as he stares at the screen—a profile open on a man named Zyani stares back. Your eyes don't linger too long, pulled, instead, to the man you're leaning against. The coal under his eyes is smudged, nearly eroded away in the inner corners. You wonder if he rubbed them earlier, eyes gritty and heavy, but refusing to close. He won't sleep on the plane. He never does.

You don't usually, either.

Why didn't he wake you? Why did he let you stay?

There is no time for discussion—not on a jet that reeks of testosterone with ears everywhere. It will have to wait; shelved for another time when Gaz isn't snoring a few pews away, and Soap hasn't been glancing at you in intervals since you sat down.

Bonnie… you can almost hear him say. What are you doin'?

You can hear the steady breaths he takes, the sound swells through you.

It's the first time you've seen him so relaxed since–

Where are you going? Loose-limbed, one hand still wrapped around his softening cock, the other settles on the bend where your thigh meets the crease of your hip, fingers ghosting over the knob of your bone. His eyes are half moons. I didn't say I was finished with you yet, pet.

You shudder, a quiet breath leaving your lips. It draws his attention. His shoulder tenses under you. His head tilts just enough for him to slide his gaze from the screen balanced on his thick thighs to your open stare.

His eyes are liquid. Honeyed words over smouldering charcoal. "Alright?"

Your lungs quiver with your inhale. Outside of the acrid smell of ammunition, ozone, and gunfire, he carries something musky in his scent. Driftwood. Salt—sweat, blood, the sea. It's potent. You breathe him in again, lids lowering. You hold his scent there, nestled in the gummy webbing of your lungs, dripping down your throat.

Your eyes feel gritty when they slip shut. Anchors pull them down. You nod your head, slow and languid, murmuring your assent in a barely coherent mumble. The drag of his rough fatigues under your cheek, the straps of his tactical vest grinding into your cheekbone. And then—awareness. It startles you back into reality. Your eyes pop open, meeting the black pools above.

You wish you could chisel open his head, and read whatever it is that might be lingering in those unfathomable depths. His expression is shuddered, hidden by the thick of his mask. Eyes lidded and heavy and narrowed right on you.

Intense focus.

Sometimes, the others talk about Ghost like he's a berserker. A wild, untamed beast let loose in the shadows. Even the vilest people pale when they see him—his larger-than-life frame lingering in the background—and it's fear that dances in the cut of their brow, in their shaking glare.

You heard stories, of course.

Those always paled in comparison to seeing him on the field.

You got it, then, why no one mocked him. Why even the worst of the worst never bothered with leading him around by the nose.

He asked a question, and they answered.

For a long while, you thought it was his heigh. His size. Immense power. Expert precision.

But no. It's just him. Those eyes. His presence.

He doesn't just receive attention, he commands it.

You should move. You're awake, now. There is no reason for such intimacy with your Lieutenant, for a man more distant and unreachable than the sea.

You should.

But you don't.

He's warm milk under your chin. Heat bleeds into your skin from the firm bracket of his body. Ghost smells good—sweat and timbre—and feels even better. You could sleep again like this. Lashes fan down, sleep digs into the back of your eyes. You force them open.

Your fingers are tucked into the crook of his arm, pressed tight to his chest; there's a note of domesticity in the way he breathes with you, a palpable weight that falls on you like a thick quilt. His muscles jump. Body tense.

Eyes on you. Always.

But then they're gone. A flutter. They cut out to the pews, and you follow his gaze. Price wades closer.

The bubble pops. You're clinging to your Lieutenant like it's a luxury you're allowed.

Like it's something commonplace.

There is distance in his eyes when they flicker to you. The molasses hardened into something once again unreachable. A wall now sits between you.

(Maybe, that conversation will never come, after all.)

You should have known better than to let yourself want.

The air is crisp when you draw it in. The chill hurts your teeth.

You slip your fingers out from the wedge of his arm and ribs, already mourning the loss of him under your flesh—ticking muscles coiled tight; velvet draped iron. Ghost says nothing when you move, but his gaze is heavy on you when you fold yourself back into your seat. Proper, now. Lieutenant and soldier. You press yourself as far away from him as you can until your arms dig into the plastic around the window, and sit straight—as if you weren't sleeping on his shoulder.

As if he didn't let you.

He looks away when Price takes the bench on the opposite side, offers a nod.

Price echoes it. Flashes a tight smile your way.

Then his eyes linger. Not on you. Not on Ghost. He rests his pensive gaze on the sliver of space between the two of you. Where Ghost's bulky arm takes several inches of space up on your own seat, flesh glued together, parting only at the elbows. He's too big to get away from. Takes up all the space—

(—in your lungs, in your head, in your—)

Price, mercifully, isn't the type of man to pry. His brows buoy on his head, a fleeting glance sent in Ghost's direction, and then he's all business. Astute leader. Battle-ready even on a sleepy jet.

He clears his throat. "Where are you headed?"

It's for you.

Gaz is going to America with the men you'd picked up for this mission. His offer for you to join was swiftly rejected. The invitations from the Mexican operatives, notably Alverez, to come and enjoy the coast were also rejected.

"Is Soap going home?" You ask, hands fisting into balls on your lap.

Price's smile is wan. "He is. Not joining Gaz on his American adventure."

"Misadventure, more like." Ghost's dry tone makes your toes curl.

You can still hear the way he growled out pet.

You huff. "I'm…"

There is nowhere for you to go.

—Well. Nowhere else.

(Your knees ache, chafed and raw. Pebbles dig into your skin.)

"Wales," you murmur. You hear the ruffle of fabric when Ghost dips his head to look at you. "Whatever is easier. I'll take a taxi."

"Right," Price nods. "Get some rest while you're home."

It sounds like a dismissal.

Baleen lines fill your periphery when you turn your head. Your gaze sticks to the crease where his chin meets his neck. You can't bring yourself to look up.

"Better go fight it out with Soap."

He doesn't stop you when you stand, when you squeeze past him, thighs brushing his knees.

He says nothing at all when you depart.

(Don't think about it. Don't get your hopes up—)

The town is silent save your heavy steps on the cobblestone. In the distance, the roar of the ocean crashes along the beige shore.

Something inside of you begins to crumble.

(Too late.)

The woman by the apartment block greets you warmly, but the words are a strange amalgam of vowels and consonants that do not belong together. Her accent sounds English. The words make no sense to you.

Your bewilderment must show on your face. Her smile dips, a touch of laughter paints her words when she says, in English:

Sorry, dove. I thought you were Welsh.

It feels a little bit like a slap to the wrist. Naughty child… mind your manners, and speak your tongue.

"I'm not…," you murmur, chastised despite having done nothing wrong.

Wales isn't where you came from. Here is not the place of your birth. It's a paradoxical realm: a land where you were taken to as a child, and told welcome home; all memories erased of the other times they said the exact same thing. A taboo, now. Faux pas. A fresh start (for the nth time). Welcome home.

It's the place you stayed the longest, though. Your developing years from a child to a teenager, to a spiteful preadolescent with too much to prove, and an ocean to live up to.

(You wonder if the pavement is still stained red.)

You know Welsh. Have spoken it for years. You came, fresh-faced and chubby-cheeked, and the ladies cooed while they taught you the words.

But it's buried. They are covered in dust; a forgotten relic. You remember pieces of the greeting, but your lips are no longer used to forming them. Your tongue is too heavy, too foreign.

You say nothing at all, trailing off into a stifling silence.

"Right," her brows knot, rheumy eyes regard you warily. "Do you need a hotel—?"

"I live here."

You bend down, peeling the pristine welcome mat back, and fish out the key you keep tucked away. Years of training echo in the background; a firm voice rings out, one that sounds suspiciously like Ghost's, barking out how that's trouble. You'll come home to a world of hurt if you keep doin' that, soldier.

(You already do.)

You pull your duffle bag up when it slips, and nod at the bemused woman.

It's not much of a homecoming.

It never is.

The flat you own is barren. A bed that feels too comfortable at night for you to ever truly relax on is shoved into the bedroom, a wardrobe with civilian clothes, a shoe rack in the foyer. A kitchen that's always empty.

You mostly sleep on the worn, old couch where the springs dig into your shoulder blades, and remind you of that night you spent in Sierra Leone, belly full of yabeh. Ghost a hair's length away from you. His gloved hand brushing yours.

The duffle bag falls to the tiles with a heavy thud. Your passport will go in the safe along with all of your other belongings—clearance badge, certificates, your guns—until the call comes in for your next mission.

You hope it's soon. That Shepherd and Laswell trudge up some calamity that will take you far away from this place. A long-haul mission. The kind where you go deep into the trenches, and when you surface, it feels like an aeon has passed.

It's too quiet at night.

Your home reeks of dust. Disuse.

You settle on the couch, eyes fixed on the popcorn ceiling, and pretend you can't feel his shoulder under your head even now.

A world away, and you still think of him.

(Always, always.)

Shepherd calls you weeks later. A secret mission with the Shadow Company, he tells you. When you ask about the others, his voice is tight.

Just you, soldier. Just you.

Breaking up the Task Force isn't unheard of. Ghost does so many secretive missions on his own that meeting people he worked with in the past on a group venture isn't at all a rarity anymore. Price is the same. Soap, sometimes, too.

There isn't much else to do.

(You held your phone in your hand each night for those weeks, finger hovering over the CALL button. Two letters— Lt— on the contact screen. His profile picture is a dune of sand.

It never rang. You never called.)

You give your affirmative, and go to the coordinates where his operatives will be waiting for you.

"Show me what you got," he says, a challenge in his voice.

Your grin is sharp. "Always, Actual."

Phillip Graves meets you with a wide grin on his face. The American flag on his fatigues sticks out against the green. So used to the British flag, you can't stop your eyes from sliding down to it, drawn like a beacon.

(Maybe, in a bygone era, it, too, might have been home.)

"Welcome aboard, soldier." His eyes flash in the setting sun. Eager. Heavy. You echo it in your own smile. "Let's get these son'of'a'bitches."

You're back at the bottom.

The Shadow Operatives stare at you when they think you aren't looking. Low murmurs fill the jet— princess, chick, girl— and you gazed, pointedly, out the window.

Your hands itch; the phantom scabs prickle.

It makes you miss 141 more than you thought possible. Gaz, Price, Soap, Ghost. They flicker in your mind, and you wonder what they'd do in this situation.

How would they prove themselves to everyone around them?

(Answer: they wouldn't.)

The only one who isn't pushing you in a box is Graves.

"Heard great things about you," his smile crests over his lips. Eyes hungry. Ready for battle. "Can't wait to see what you can do."

He worked with Ghost a month ago. You find this out when he mentions it offhand. Secret mission with your Lieutenant. Is he always that much of an asshole—?

Actual is in your ear, stay alert. Keep your eyes out, always. Never know what you might miss.

But it's Ghost you think of.

(Always, always.)

"He's not an asshole," you say, shrugging. "Just a man who cares too much."

Almost immediately, you want to swallow the words back down. Stupid. Stupid. You force yourself to remain still, nonchalant.

(How presumptuous of you to think you know him.)

Military likes to gossip. It'll come back to him somehow. The little rookie who stuck up for him. Who said he cared.

Graves' eyes flicker. "That right?"

You blush. English is gone. The only language in your throat is Welsh.

(Graves' guffaw echoes in the jet.)

Graves purses his lips, rolling them from side to side, as you sift through the documents in front of you. He's been pacing the room for the last ten minutes while you meticulously translate each paper in your grasp. Agitation bleeds through the usual warmth in his countenance.

It's tense. A slaughter.

His compatriots flank all of the exits; sounds of gunfire resound through the compound.

The infiltration was easy.

This—

This is not.

"So…," he drawls, the thick accent is warm, but his voice is constricted; pinched. "Heard you were the best at sniffing things out. What do you think?"

"It's not—," you pause, eyes skimming the page, squinting at it.

"What?"

His tone is sharp. Icy. The usual warmth dissipates into a palpable tension; a tight unease.

The shift is strange. Focus on the mission.

"It's not just Konni in this. They're being backed."

"That so?"

You suck in a deep breath. "We should leave. Tell Actual what's going on–"

"Yeah," he intones, crouching down in front of you. His eyes are placid. "We'll do just that."

It all happens so fast. A clichè, really, but a fitting one.

Head turned out the window of the cargo van, deadly missiles being dragged behind. Your mind is full, racing. Nothing makes sense.

You wish Ghost was here. Price. Soap. They're the ones you use to bounce ideas off of: this is what is happening, this is the missing equation, and this is what I think.

Good, bonnie. Now, tell us something we don't know.

And what if the equation is wrong?

Crafty, soldier. How do we prove it?

And then the world shatters.

Konni Operates. A gun to your head. Graves yelling in the distance; spitting curses, threats. Actual in your ear— you'll die here, soldier.

Chaos. Death presses cold metal to your forehead, snapped words in rapid-fire Russian, too fast for you to pick up.

The only ones that leak through are oozing glee. I'm going to blow your head off.

A dead-end. You think of Gaz—the closest to you in age, passing jokes back and forth; playing Never Have I Ever when the missions lull, the others looking on with amusement.

Kids these days, they scoff.

Have you seen this video? He asks, dropping into the vacant seat beside you. Ghost looks up. It's a club in London.

Soap huffing when you ask if he wants to come. Too old for that, bonnie.

You kids have fun, Price says, lips twitching. A rare show of amusement from the man. But I'll have to pass.

What if we went to a pub instead, you geezer? You chuckle.

Geezer? He nudges Ghost to his left, eyes dry. You've been rubbing off on the kids.

You meet his stare over the plastic table. Smile turns shy. Wanna come with us, Lt?

He holds it. Halfmoon. Eclipse. Liquid black. Negative, soldier.

You try not to let the sting of rejection show. It's stupid. Stupid—

Nice one, kid.

Y'did good, bonnie.

Let's show these old boys what us kids can do, yeah?

Their voices echo in your mind. One rings louder than the others. A sharp bark. Gravel shattering. Move, soldier!

You're a dutiful soldier. You never disobey a command from your superior officer. From him.

White-hot pain splits across your temple. The world turns static. You're falling down, down, down—

Waves lap at your body, tugging you out to sea. The briny water fills your throat.

Stay alert, soldier. The General. Voices.

"Well, shit." Graves. He sounds distant. Far away.

You think of Sierra Leone. Your first mission.

Hiding in a concrete house with no windows, no doors, no cover. Gunfire booming across the landscape, cloaked in the pitch black darkness of night. Flickers of yellow-red light pop in the distance.

You don't breathe. Don't make a sound. Your hands tremble around your rifle. Eyes wavering.

Warmth against your back. You startle. A gloved hand over your mouth. The brush of a balaclava against your neck.

"Easy, soldier. They'll see you if you jump."

They'll see you—

"They dead?" A boot knocks against your calf.

You go limp.

"Yeah," Graves. Companion. Comrade. Be careful who you trust, soldier. All you have right now is yourself. Trust your gut; you're on your own.

Copper on your tongue. You let it pool between your teeth, keeping it held in the space between your lips. It tastes of pennies. You try not to choke.

Sir… you whisper the words against his tactical vest. Feel the shift of his body when he looks at you from over his shoulder. Let's get yabeh after this.

We're not on holiday, soldier.

Really? Feels like one.

You need to get out more.

Yeah… maybe…

C'mon, now. Stay with me, pet.

Always… sir. Always…

You drag him to someplace you'd heard of through your new friends–best yabeh in all of Salone; gotta try the Jollof, too, Sesay insists–and he fits in like a sore thumb.

You both stand out, really. Foreigners in the middle of a place visited only by locals. Him in his denim trousers, and short-sleeved shirt, tactical vest fixed on his chest; his mask stays on. A ball cap low over his brow. He exudes danger. The rippling musculature of a tiger. The stealth of a panther.

You—nondescript and tiny beside him.

There is something to be said about seeing your new Lieutenant in denim. In the custom facemask instead of the full balaclava.

With the baleen lines missing over his chin and neck, he almost feels too exposed to you. Too vulnerable. Too open.

You can't stop fixing your gaze on the scant flesh, uncovered, above the collar of his shirt. His arms, bulky, and big, fold over his massive chest.

He barely fits inside the small booth.

Your eyes dance. Amusement. A roseate veil shudders over you—a novice, a rookie—and high off of the success of a mission.

"Sesay says this is the best place in town."

"Sesay says a lot of things, don't he?"

You blink, fingers tapping against the worn wood of the table. It's hot in Sierra Leone. A wet swelter that brands your skin with white-hot intensity. It's different from the dryness of the Sahara.

Somehow, his tone is drier than the arid desert you crawled out of. Drier than the burning heat of the massive sun.

"That he does…," you agree, floundering.

Was this a mistake? Maybe you shouldn't have come here. What were you thinking? Dragging your superior out for dinner. You flush. It's barely discernable from the blistering sunburn over the bridge of your nose. Unfamiliar with the intense sun that scorches the land.

You're drowning, now. Wallowing in this limbo of uncertainty. Maybe you should have just come later with Sesay and Abdul. They asked you when you pestered for directions, but you met Ghost's stare from over their shoulders, and hadn't heard a thing of what they were saying once you met him in the middle.

He's a whole head taller than everyone he meets. Massive. The locals' baulk at him: this huge, terrifying being with a skull on his face, cutting through the throng of people like a tank.

There was so much going on once you started the mission. After the Intel was gathered, and the forces were ready, those long nights spent inside a tent that was barely big enough for yourself let alone the behemoth bulk of your Lieutenant came to an end. It was abrupt. Sudden.

It was just you and him.

And then it was a sea of people.

You'd spent the better part of a year pouring over documents in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by Scorpions and sand, and him.

The tent was deadly during the day; balmy with a humidity fit for the Amazon. At night, any complaints you might have had about the heat turned into regrets. It was freezing. You could see white clouds of condensation when you breathed out.

You'd lie next to each other. Grains of sand is the only thing keeping you apart. He was warm—bonfire hot.

You'll be frustrated, mad. That's normal when you spend so much time with a stranger. You might argue, bicker. But just focus on the mission. This is a test of camaraderie as much as it is endurance.

It wasn't like that at all. It was—

Seamless.

His ebb and flow were easy to adjust to. Maybe, it was the fact that you were a neophyte that made it so. Too afraid to let the bundle of frustration rear when this was your first mission. Your first test.

But—

It wasn't quite like that. You found that you enjoyed his company. His barbed insults spoken in a flat, serious tone often flew over the heads of the men you had to work with, but you grew accustomed to them. Enjoyed them, even. He was—

An enigma. A year later, and you know nothing about Simon Riley, and as much as he'll allow about Ghost. There is distance still, but;

It wanes. It cracks. Fills with the sharpness of his sarcasm, the stoic dedication to his mission; the grains of sand that stick to his sweat-slicked forehead. The deep hue of red from the mask he refuses to take off.

You'll suffocate, you quip, eyes glued to the paper in front of you.

Don't worry about me.

That's a silly thing to say…

It ain't. You shouldn't.

Mindless, stupid: well, I do.

Silence. Brutal and stifling. Then: focus on the mission, Rookie. Not on me.

You'd hummed noncommittally. It slipped into the back of your head, eyes fixed on the numbers in front of you.

But it wells, now. When Sesay asks if you want to go with him for dinner, when he tells you how to get there, and what to order.

Not on me.

Your eyes haven't left his. He holds your stare.

The chossy wobbles, cracks. Your hand on his arm. C'mon, boss, let's eat. It stays there while you lead him through winding valleys. The heat of his arm—bare, veins ticking under your palm, too burly for you to wrap your whole hand around the thick of him—bleeds into you. You, cold-blooded, leach the warmth from his flesh.

And now—

He doesn't eat when dinner is brought out. Doesn't take his mask off.

You watch him through the steam that wafts off the Jollof rice, his eyes roaming around the room like clockwork, looking for something that might strike. Hyper-vigilant. Wary. Cold. Distant.

A puzzle not meant to be put together, but your fingers itch with the urge to try.

Why did he come, you wonder. Why didn't he say no?

As if hearing your thoughts, his eyes are on yours. Tendrils of translucent white fog the air between you. His brow pinches. Lids crest.

It punches the air from your lungs. There is a phantom heat in your palm. Your hands shake around the fufu in your grasp, tightening around the tacky food until it bulges between your fingers.

The syphoned heat begins to simmer in your belly.

It bubbles over, blustering through your insides when his head pulls close, chin over the table, and says:

You did good, rookie. Might make a soldier of you, yet.

You bow your head. "Cachu hwch."

"English, soldier."

You shake your head. "N-nothing, sir… burnt my tongue."

You wake up in an empty hospital room. It was early August when you left for Al Mazrah. The calendar on your wall says it's now late September.

The space in between is a blur. Left in the mud. Graves was taken. Was he okay–

You don't remember anything after the point of passing out in the mud, and waking up—sick from infection, burning from a fever—and finding yourself strapped down on a jet. Medics surround you.

You'll be okay, you'll be fine–

You'd passed out again. The world slipping away until you felt the heat on your shoulder blades. The scent of yabeh thick in your nose.

You move, sluggish and heavy, on the rough hospital bed, fingers gripping the sheets below.

You still feel the grit of sand against your arm.

Heat in your belly.

(Cachu hwch, indeed.)

Shepherd calls you a day later on the phone in your private room. Your prison. The men outside say you're not allowed to leave. It's dangerous.

"Did good out there, rookie."

"Thanks, Actual," you murmur, hands clenched around the receiver. "Couldn't have done it without your help. Without you."

You want to ask about Graves. About your team.

You remember the rapid Russian spat in your ear. And this one? You bite your tongue, body pickling with unease.

"Rest up, now. My boys will be keeping an eye on you. They'll keep you safe."

You are discharged at the end of October.

Hands pressed against the still-healing scar on your temple. They peeled the bandage off yesterday.

The infection made it worse. It wasn't healing with the sickness you had. You're lucky some local boys found you in the mud when they did. You would have died.

Laswell finds you outside. Hand against her throat, eyes wide.

She looks like she's seen a ghost.

You certainly feel like one.

The ride to your safehouse is punctuated by a game of catch-up. She tells you about the mission they went on, the one you were exempt from.

The phone calls from Soap, Gaz make sense now. Straight to voicemail.

Hey, you skimpin' out on us, yeah? Skippin' duty? Not like you at all. Kinda worried, y'know? Text me somethin'. You know I don't like callin'. Anyway… we're keepin' it together, yeah? But kinda freakin' out. Uhh… anyway—

Not like you to miss one, bonnie. Call me when you can, aye? Want to make sure you're okay.

Price calls nine times. Leaves no voicemail.

A single text from Ghost. Wheels up at 16:00. Expect to see you there.

You didn't get your phone back until today. These were sent at the end of October.

The clock on your screen reads 2nd November.

"No one knew…," you murmur, hands clenched around the metal. "Why didn't Shepherd—"

"Shepherd said you were sent on recon. Said something happened. He didn't tell the others—just me and Price. Didn't want to distract them from the job."

"When did you find out?"

"That you were alive?" Her lips thinned, skin paling. "Yesterday."

"Where are they now?"

"That's confidential."

A scoff. "Sure. Now, off the record…"

"Mexico."

Something doesn't feel right at all. It sits like an anvil in your stomach.

"Laswell…"

"Get some rest," she says, even. Her eyes are glossy when she stares at you. "We'll keep you updated. I'm sure everyone will be relieved to know you're alive."

Your phone rings two days later.

The screen flashes. Lt.

Your hands tremble when you answer it.

"It was Shepherd," he admits.

Your head swims with the admission. Shepherd. Did good out there, rookie. Now, stay good. Stay alert. Keep your eyes out, always. Never know what you might miss.

"Is he–?"

"No," he grouses, the word a sliver short of being a growl. "He's alive. Graves is dead."

It hits you in the sternum—a punch unlike any other you'd received. Air knocked from your lungs, chest throbbing in agony, you sink down into your bed, fingers gripping the sheets until your knuckles bleach white.

This shouldn't have happened.

This is what you do. It's your purpose. It's your job. Your role. You were selected by Shepherd, by Laswell, Price for that, for your ability to gather information, to weed out the moles, the rats. To sniff them out, and puncture holes in their ship until they sank to the bottom, secrets leaking out.

The words roll out of your mouth before you stop them.

"I should have been there."

The tremulous quiver makes you wince. Weakness. You're not weak. You're not—

Ghost won't see it as such, you know this; he doesn't really react to the harsh emotions of others. He carries an unwavering focus, rapt attention to the overarching mission, the end goal; pragmatic, astute on the battlefield, he doesn't flinch.

It's a toss-up if he'll ever respond. If he does, it's usually with a dry, biting dismissal. Sarcasm with him often rides the line of being too sincere, and too flat. It's not just murky, but opaque. He'll say something—equal parts scathing and wise: it's already done, no sense dwelling on what you can't change. Do better next time.

The bite in his words hurt; it was enough to make even the most impassive man irritated by the blunt, almost cruel tinge to his tone.

But it's later when the message will unravel itself. When you're lying alone in your cot, picking over the things he said, and why he said them, and then—

Oh.

Do better next time.

Right.

A soft sound. The rush of air being inhaled through clenched teeth.

Then: "I'm glad you weren't."

Silence. Your heart thunders. I'm glad you weren't.

It could mean a lot of things. A lot of bad things, but:

He thought you were either dead, or missing, or just—gone. You get it:

The last job didn't kill you—the evidence stacks in your head; one conclusion drawn:

It should have. It was meant to.

Your brush with death was a footnote. Nothing at all in the grand scheme of things.

They wanted you dead. They failed.

Soap called you last night, voice tight. You good, bonnie?

Getting there, you joked. Actual had my back. Graves, too. I'm alive because of them.

You choke.

"You alright?"

It's on the tip of your tongue to say yeah. The usual response. Practised. Easy. Distant. But you think of his words, and your ears ring with the deep husk of his voice. He was honest with you. Open. And that's—

Your words are a rush, dipped in vulnerability. "I don't want to be alone right now."

Too much. Too honest.

Too open.

You flinch. Heart thudding in your throat.

Ghost makes you feel like an exposed wire. Dangerous. Unpredictable. Raw.

He says your name—a low, brassy rasp that tickles the back of your neck. It's rare for him to call you by your given name. It's much too intimate. Too—

Well. It's just too much. You want to lean into it, to drape yourself in the rich utterance. Have it whispered into your ear late at night, while he fucks into you the same way he bucked into his hand.

And in the morning when he first wakes. When he rolls over, body folding over your own. Lips against the shell of your ear. A husky rasp; the word dragged over gravel.

You want it, want him, in ways that are unattainable.

Domestic.

You gasp. "I–um. Thanks," you fumble over your words, head roaring with the realisation that there is more than just attraction in the way your heart flutters in your chest; the downy soft wings of a small bird ruffling its fresh plumage. "I'll… talk later."

Your name is barked through the phone when you pull it away. It's cut off before he can finish.

They video call you from some pub.

The sight of them together—Gaz, Soap, Price, Laswell, Ghost—makes you smile.

"Christ, bonnie." Soap's eyes are fixed on the line near your temple. Scabbed. Plum colour. Healing, but not yet there. An inch over, and you'd have been—

You flinch, shrugging. "Could be worse–"

"What happened?" It's a command. You try not to tremble at the bark in Ghost's tone. Perhaps Laswell didn't tell them everything.

His eyes are wide, the whites cresting over the puddles of black. You can't match his stare. You drop, darting to the clock in the corner.

It's Laswell who tells them about the mission with the Shadow Company. Graves. Shepherd.

"...Fuckin', aye." Gaz murmurs. He echoes Ghost's question. "What happened? No one told us anything. We thought— and then Shepherd said you were out for the mission. Not that—that you'd been— "

It falls silent. They don't know about the mission's end aside from Shepherd's lies. Laswell knows. She was the first face you saw in the hospital.

Let's talk…

"We were ambushed," you start, shrugging again. Blasé. Nonchalant. You pretend you can't feel the intensity of Ghost's stare through the screen. "I… they were going to shoot me. I got away. Got a scratch—," a scoff from Soap, a murmur of more than a scratch, aye; you ignore it. "They thought I was dead, so they left me there…"

There is more to it. Graves. The whispers in your head. Them, in your final moments. Agents outside your hospital door. Two inches from death. A day away from rotting.

You swallow it down. It doesn't matter. It happened and now it's over.

"Bonnie…," there is something raw in Soap's voice. It pricks your pericardium.

Left for dead. Abandoned by everyone around you. The ones you trusted the most. Your own team didn't even look. Had no time to mourn, no time to worry.

You know what they must see; the lines they must be drawing. How they, themselves, currently feel, and what they would do if it were them instead of you. It—

It hurts.

"I'd have joined you at the pub," you murmur, voice a shaky worble, before he can say anything else. "But–," you lift your head, eyes downcast. A facsimile of a smile flickers. You wonder if it hits the mark. "Maybe next time."

Price nods in your periphery. "Listen—"

"I'll be ready for Makarov," you interrupt. "I'm… I gotta go, though. Am I — can I be dismissed?"

"...Yeah, yeah you can."

You hang up without another word.

In the silence of your flat—in a land more foreign to you than the Sahara—you break.

Your night dissolves into a series of firsts in quick succession:

A knock on your door. No one knows that you live here. No one but Laswell when she dropped you off. The rheumy-eyed lady with knobby knuckles who mutters at you in warm Welsh. Words you pretend you can't understand.

Shepherd, too, because he needed a location to put down on paper. A place to find you if they couldn't get a hold of you.

You think it might be him—back for vengeance—and you hold your pistol in your hands, back pressed flat against the wall. One hand drops the brass doorknob.

"Who is it?"

A beat.

"It's me." A thick baritone—enough, you think, pulse racing, to rattle the door with his voice alone. "It's Simon."

Simon. Not Ghost—

Right. Off-duty, now. Until you get a lead on Makarov.

Your Lieutenant knocking on your door at—gritty eyes flicker to the stovetop in the kitchen—quarter to five in the evening is another first. Almost paradoxical, really.

Gun shoved into the holster, you turn to face the wood. Through the little window above, covered by a paper-thin curtain, you can see the dark shape of him, unmoving, as he stands on your porch.

There are a number of reasons why he'd be here, but only one makes you yearn.

You pull the door open, and the sight of him makes you dizzy. Hypoxia. Seasickness. Homesick.

He's dressed as casually as Simon is capable of. Black hoodie, wet on the hood from the snow that falls in clumps outside. A black beanie on his head. Skull mask flat against the bridge of his nose. Denim. Black boots.

The coal around his eyes is smudged. A nebula of pale skin through a black oasis.

"What—?"

"Shepherd." Right. He could have called. Got the Intel from Laswell. His words leave no room for argument when he lets out an amalgam of a snarl, a growl; it's ground to dust when he says: "we need to talk."

"Not—," you don't want him to see the emptiness inside. The vacancy. Militaristically barren. Lonely. "Not here…"

Shepherd was here, too. Not him, specifically—maybe. You don't know for certain. But his agents, definitely. Polluting the inside.

It's a flimsy excuse. You hear the threadbare conviction in your tone.

"Shepherd was here," you say, and then wince. "Not now, I mean—"

The words die on your tongue. Ghost— Simon —is smart. Of course he wouldn't think Shepherd was here now. He'd fled. Went into hiding. You shift on your feet.

He can read you like no one else.

(You wonder if anyone at all can read him.)

You flounder. "I don't want…not here…"

"Where do you want to go?"

Somewhere stiflingly hot. "Anywhere."

Simon doesn't press. He never does. His head rolls, tips toward the street. "C'mon, then. Get your stuff."

He reads it on your face, in the things you don't say. It reminds you of Sierra Leone— eat, rookie, you haven't all day; get some sleep, you're dead on your feet; I'll take the first watch— and the memory clots behind your ribs.

"Okay," you murmur.

You feel his gaze on your back when you turn around. The door is left open. He doesn't follow.

There is a chill in the air when you step outside, bundled up in a knit sweater that does little to stem the frigid sea breeze from cutting through the cracks in the threaded cable.

It's a cold night in Porthmadog.

Snow falls in clumps from the indigo-smeared sky, sticking to the cobblestone under your feet.

Simon says nothing as you walk out of the apartment block. He stays close to you, so close you could inch your elbow out and touch him. The heat from his body is a beacon. You're at war with yourself, struggling not to get pulled into his current, and swept out to sea.

Despite the closeness, there is a distance in the way he paces. Eyes roaming under the hood, taking in the lights strewn overhead, lingering on the alcoves where someone might hide.

Having him here feels a little surreal. Porthmadog is off-limits to everyone—it's a place where you come to rot.

His presence shatters the sense that it doesn't really exist outside of those long nights when you stare up at the ceiling, and want. A metaphysical realm that laps at the cracks inside of you, eroding the thick veneer you cobbled together over the years until it withers away, and you have to patch it up when you get called in for another assignment.

Intact soldier. Whole. Nile.

It's a place, now. Real. Tangible.

Seeing Simon—Ghost, Lt—walk beside you down Lombard Street, footfalls echoing through the winding road, makes something churn in your guts. It sits inside, and feels a little like finality.

How could you possibly come back to a place you pretend doesn't exist? A place that is just en-route to wherever else you have to go?

A place you come to because you have nowhere else.

You can't come back here now that the streets are tainted with the nitroglycerin scent of Simon. A bonfire on the beach. The burning logs doused in kerosene. The miasma will suffocate you.

It clots inside of your lungs, sticking to the gummy lining when you breathe him in.

He smells of bourbon. Cigarettes. Carries the scent of everyone else with him—Gaz's cologne: thick vetiver; the sickly sweet tang of Price's cigars; thick metallic: ozone and gasoline that Soap wears after a mission—and you greedily take it in.

You let it sit, red-hot barbed wire, against your chest.

Your eyes slip. Illegal. Wrong. They find him, always. Bathed in the streetlight above; flushed yellow. It casts shadows on him, and makes his eyes look lighter.

A peaking shoal in the middle of the midnight blue ocean.

He's dangerous. Makes your fingers prickle with want; with the urge to touch.

Makes you greedy.

Stupid.

Despite not knowing the area, Simon cuts through the supine street like he's familiar with it already. Maybe, he is. He must have looked at the map on his phone before he got here, eyes locked on the space, the landscape. Mentally cataloguing each hiding spot.

You follow him—a stranger in your own home—and cross your arms over your chest when the thick chatter carries from inside the shops along the street. Heavy Welsh. Warm milk and honey.

Salt in your wounds.

You don't belong here.

The familiar green of the carpet and flooring shop nearly makes you trip, but you steady yourself. Ball your hands into fists by your side, and drop your gaze to the cracked ground below.

You can feel the moment his gaze shifts, sliding over to you. It bores into your temple; abrasive, and grating.

Goosebumps erupt over your flesh. You blame it all on the cold—the stutter in your chest, the ache in your lungs, the shiver dancing down your spine. The frigid weather. The icy breeze.

Another shiver rolls through you, different this time, when you catch sight of the park.

Your chin hits the pavement. Palms sliding through jagged gravel. Knees splitting.

Your blood puddles on the grey rocks.

They crack you open. Nothing spills from the gaping hole.

"You with me?"

You blink. The reverie shakes, shudders. The little girl with her chin on the ground warbles.

Simon stands there, his back to the streetlights. His presence makes the image distort, and bend to fit him inside. It doesn't belong.

"What's a'matter with you?"

You flinch at his voice, and peer up at him from under clumpy, wet lashes, heavy with melting snow.

The words are harsh, but his tone is—

He steps forward, a few paces ahead. You didn't realise you stopped.

He doesn't come to a halt until there is barely an arm's length of space between you, and seeing him this close to you, his face concealed, blank and empty, has that strange feeling pooling in the pit of your stomach again.

His lashes are blond. It surprises you. You'd always imagined he had black hair. Black hair, black eyes.

It's blonde.

You don't know why it matters, why you can't stop staring at the soft wisps around his lids. They flutter shut, fanning across the smudged ink skin under his eyes. The tips are blond. The bottoms are ash. They're nice, you note, a flavour of that same something blistering through you.

His lids slide open, the corner tightening as his gaze sharpens, focusing on you. "Y'alright?" He asks again, waiting for an answer.

You swallow, and it tastes of sand. Gritty, and painful when it slips down your throat. Your voice is a rasp, a shiver above a whisper, when you say, "yeah. "

His eyes tighten again, deeper this time. Something flashes in those polychrome depths. Under the hat, his brow pulls taut together.

The indent makes your fingers itch, the urge to reach out, to soothe it, is nearly overwhelming.

"You lyin' to me?" He grumbles, an edge to his voice you can't place.

"No," you mutter, the words dragged out of you by force. "Just a —a headache."

He has a look in his eyes that makes you think he knows, somehow. That he can chisel inside your head, and rummage through all the secrets you try to keep.

Your neck aches from having to tip your chin back so much to even look at him, the 90-degree angle making you feel dizzy. The opposite of vertigo where you sometimes look up at the unending sky yawning overhead and feel that tendril of fear curling around you, admixing the awe, until you feel the urge to dig your fingers into the ground, and hold on. You can't fall up, but in those moments, it almost feels like you might.

Ghost gives you that same feeling.

His chin dips low, eyes lidded and heavy. You could almost mistake it for bland disinterest had his jaws not been working, gnashing together in a wordless tick. He says nothing. You watch the bones move. The fabric teeth snap.

All his focus is centred on the blood-red gash near your temple. The black sutures keeping the split skin together.

Ghost makes a sound, and you almost mistake it for a growl. Inhumane. Animal. It's pulled from his throat, but bitten off by his teeth before it can take shape.

You blink up at him, wide and owlish, when he reaches for you.

His hand is warm even through the glove. The rough fabric grazes your skin when he brushes your hair away with his knuckle. His eyes are fixed on your forehead, hardened, all militaristic concentration as he looks you over.

"It's—it's fine…"

"It ain't."

Gritty sandpaper. Harsh, abrading.

It's hushed, though.

Speaking above a whisper feels taboo. This whole thing does, honestly. Illicit, wrong. Ghost shouldn't be lasering his glare on your forehead, searching for a reason to do something about the anger that now brims in those dark depths. His knuckles on your skin feel sacrilegious. Touching you is exempt. Illegal. Off-limits.

But he does it, anyway. Strips the barriers pitched in front of you both like tissue paper, and holds his four knuckles to your temple, his thumb brushing a hair beneath the irritated skin. Gentle. Soft.

You didn't think these hands knew how to do something so delicate. That they were made, instead, to break. To crush. To ruin.

He might, yet: the pad of his finger feels like a brand when it ghosts over the soft curve of your forehead, soothing the phantom hurt, and you think you might just shatter if he doesn't stop touching you like this. Gingerly. Calming. A balm over your aching flesh.

You'd gotten so used to the pain, the constant throb in your head, that this respite from it feels like bliss. Nirvana wrapped in leather.

His touch is magnetic. It pulls a sound from deep within your chest, something desperate and wanting, and you can't snap your jaws shut quick enough before it's loose in the atmosphere, and cresting over him.

Ghost's gentle prods go still. With his thumb pressed into a place that makes liquid heat spume in your vein, you can feel it tremble when your tongue snakes out, gliding over your lower lip.

Your head swims. Phosphenes dance across the back of your lids, and you struggle to remember when you shut your eyes in the first place.

They flutter open.

His stare is fixed on your lips in a total eclipse, honed in on the slow roll of your blood-red tongue as it peeks out from the warm cavern of your mouth. The wet trail left behind is swallowed by his gaze. It flickers up, catching the bloom of heat under your cheeks. The darkened flush makes him rumble; the soft rattle of an engine purring. A frisson passes over his expression, lashes fluttering.

He's close. Closer than he was before. You can feel the molten heat bleeding into your skin with his proximity. Taste the gunpowder, the ash, and the ichor that clings to him; he smells of war when you breathe him in. Gasoline. Copper. A livewire scent that makes your lungs itch.

Dangerous. Powerful. Deadly.

Every synapse in your head misfires, sending off warning signs and sirens to run from the man that reeks of gun oil, and fire; napalm-scented demise with blood-soaked hands meant to ruin. But it only makes you lean in closer until the acrid burn of him corrodes your throat.

His body is warm, and the heat is stifling.

You're drunk off the fumes he exudes; reckless and wanting, and in the slurried molasses of your mind, you wonder if this is what it feels like for a gazelle to stand so close to a lion.

Something cold pools at the base of your spine, making you shiver. A warning—distant, ancient—but the calls of your ancestors are dimmed under the bulk of his shadow. The heavy iron in his gaze rests over you, and you imagine that his body pressed into yours would carry the same heft.

He's somehow bigger up close, you think. Wide shoulders, thick arms, a broad chest and waist; muscular thighs, firm calves.

He's not Adonis, but you imagine he feels just like marble all the same.

"Thought we lost you." His voice is a crackle; sap popping as it burns in the fire. The log charring in the kindling. "Thought we— fuck, pet. Thought you were gone, and we couldn't do a damn thing about it."

We. He says we, now. It's new. You shudder in his hold.

"I'm here," you whisper the words, afraid of breaking this strange spell between you. It feels like everything else around you has melted away until only you and he exists on this lonely street that makes you ache.

"You are…" he rasps; a low hush. Maybe he, too, is afraid of shattering it. "You did good, soldier."

His knuckles graze the mark in your temple, gentle around the tight, irritated flesh—it's proof that you lived, that despite the tragedy of the betrayal from the man you counted on the most, you survived. You made it. You won.

His touch is featherlight. But his eyes–

His eyes are heavy with the promise of nothing but ruin.

A million thoughts run through your head, ones that taste like kerosene, and cauterise inside you like a cigarette to your skin. The heat blooms again, but it's not enough—all you can think of is how you wished you had more of him.

(You wonder if you run your tongue along his skin, kiss that acrid mouth, if he'd taste of napalm.)

Chiselled open, exposed to the air. Ghost takes a deep breath, holding the fumes of your burning need in his lungs. When he exhales, you can taste the smoke in the air.

His hand drops, fingers sliding down the curve of your face until he meets the plush softness where your chin and cheek meet. The hand he keeps on you is firm.

His eyes bore into yours. He wants your attention. Demands it. Then, he holds it steady until your mouth drops in a series of short, gasping breaths.

Your voice is featherlight when you say his name. His real one. Simon. It simmers in the air between you, and the scent of it almost makes his eyes snap shut, shoulders coiling. Tensed. Wanting. His muscles flex, bunching together in tight knots. Clench. Release. Clench.

It's only when you hear his haggard breath through the nylon, do you realise he's holding himself back from you.

Your belly flutters at the rumble roiling out of his throat.

Another command falls, deeper, darker, and your spine nearly snaps with how quickly you straighten up when he utters two words.

"Later, pet."

It's a promise. A demand. An out.

His mind made up, decisive and sure, he's now shoving the choice in your hands. Leaving the decision with you for safekeeping.

Like before, there is only ever one choice. As if you had any other answer for him.

When you nod, firm and eager, his chest shudders. "Fuckin' Christ–" it's a snarl, full of tension. Excitement.

His hand slides away from your face, and presses into the base of your spine, settling heavily over the curve of your ass. There is pressure, an urgency.

"C'mon," he rasps, jerking his chin to the end of the park. "Parked over here."

He keeps his hand on you, heavy and hot. A possessive branding as he leads you away from this place.

When you pass, your eyes drop to the pavement.

The gravel is clean. Your blood is nowhere to be found.

Your muscles go lax. You get pulled into his current, shoulder brushing over his chest.

Simon tightens his hold, and pulls you closer.

(Dragging you out to open water until you can't see the shoreline anymore.)

He leads you to a black jeep with tinted windows, and grounds out that it's rental when you press the heel of your palm into your mouth, futilely trying to hide a smile.

"It's nice," you quip, light and airy. "Very you."

"Just get your ass inside already," he says, pulling the door open for you. "Got a drive ahead of us."

His hand settles on your waist when you step up on the first rung, heavy. Firm. You want to lean into him. Have him pressed up against you like this for an eternity.

"Where are we going?" You breathe, shivering from the molten look in his eye. The heat in his chest.

He tugs you back into him, chin grazing the space between your neck and shoulder. His voice is white-hot in your ear. "My safe house."

Your eyes flutter. Heat blooms. "Simon—" his name is a whimper on your lips.

His fingers dig into your hips. "Fuckin' hell, pretty thing. You keep saying my name like that, and we won't make it to Southport."

There is no lie in the words that are forced out of his throat; inhumane, a growl. You don't want him here —in this town where you moulder.

Your fingers trail over his wrist. The coarse hair on his arms tickles your skin.

"Get me out of here."

His eyes sharpen. "Gladly."

Two hours and a half hours from Porthmadog to Southport.

A lot of time for him to reconsider. For that coldness he wears like a shield, that unbreakable distance, to pitch itself in front of him once more, locking you out. Perhaps, it'll be for good. Maybe—

Your hands ball into fists. Knuckles dig into the plush seat.

You know what you want. Know what you've wanted since before you stupidly opened your mouth— keeping my seat warm— and he saw it through.

But what about him? There was no time on the jet for a grand discussion, not when everyone was on top of each other already; not when Soap kept glancing at you, brow drawn tight, as if to ask really, bonnie?

Memories of Sierra Leone have you in a chokehold. Your purgatory, your limbo, your afterlife; when you were dying, it was all of him. Of the desert. Of the town that felt so warm, so inviting. The people baulked at his size but still ushered you over, offering snacks, and treats.

So tiny beside him, a woman laughs. You need to eat more. Your man should make you fat and happy.

You blushed. He's not—

Yes, yes… A wink. A coy grin. He watches from the dirt path as she presses bundled cassava into your hands. He says nothing at all. Your man. You like the sound of it more than you should.

You know what you want. What you've wanted.

It puddles inside of you. Droplets leaking through the fissures that have been splintering for years, now.

A man stands in front of you. Promise me, you'll get him.

You: young, naïve, nodded. I promise.

Ghost pulled you aside. He yells—quite often, in fact—but he's ice cold when he says, we don't make promises, rookie. Deadly. Your heart is in your throat when you apologise.

And then the scent of fire. A mission in Mesaieed left you and Gaz trapped. Helpless. Smoke clogging your lungs. Gaz wheezing under the intense blase; the noxious fumes billowing from the smoulder.

His voice in your ear. We'll get you out of there, rookie. Hang tight.

That a promise? You gasp, gagging from the black cloud drenching your lungs. Close to death, and cracking jokes. Confident. Assured. Nile crocodile lurking below the surface.

He isn't there to see your hands shake. You're thankful for it. Stupid, stupid—you want nothing more to impress your Lieutenant. Match him wit-for-wit. Vile joke for vile joke.

It surprises you when his voice filters through the line, one word slurred into your ear: yes.

Are you a man who keeps his promises?

Always. That's why I never make them. Close to a fiery death, and his voice crackles again. Why wasn't Jesus born in Liverpool?

Gaz coughed. Fuck's sake… Lemme die in peace.

Why, Lt?

There are no wise men or virgins.

Funny. I like that one.

Knew you would. Cover your heads.

The window above shattered. They saved you—just like they said they would.

(You realised then that Ghost cared for you, for all his subordinates, more than he let on.)

And now—

There is no turning back. Later, he said. He promised. A man who keeps his promises.

You think, then, of the look on his face under the streetlamp. Snowfall trickles between you. There was a battle in his head; artillery fire in the gaps of his eyes when he said:

"Thought we—fuck, pet. Thought you were gone, and we couldn't do a damn thing about it."

The words get lodged in his throat. They're ripped out with a harshness that bludgeons through you.

You turn to him, taking in his profile as he leans back in the seat, looking out the windshield.

As if he feels your stare, his eyes cut from the window, and find yours. He holds it until you taste smoke in your throat, until your lip trembles. Then it sinks low to your lap. One hand peels off of the steering wheel.

It feels like an anvil when it rests on your thigh.

"Almost there," it's a strangled rasp. A promise.

You nod. Your smile feels flushed when it pulls on your lips. Sunkissed. Warm. Expectant.

Your hand unfurls, fingers aching from the strain of your grip, and you curl them over his wrist. His pulse thuds under your thumb. You stroke it, and wonder what he would say if he knew yours beat the same.

The safehouse in Southport is not at all what you were expecting.

The winding road he drives on leads to a small, modest cabin on the outskirts of the town. Perched away from the rest of civilisation, it sits on its own island. Cut-off from the mainland.

The distance is something that makes a smile pull on your lips. So fittingly him —your lone wolf leader who only just learned the word we —but the sight of the house makes something gnarl inside of your chest. It's quaint.

Somehow, you'd expected a flat in the heart of the city. London, perhaps. Somewhere close to the airport, to the UK base used when you needed the closest weapons cache or jet.

The little abode in the middle of a farm doesn't mesh with the image you'd drawn of your prickly Lieutenant. It's too—

Wholesome.

"It's temporary," he grouses when he catches your teeth sink into your palm, a wide grin splitting across your face. "I haven't been back here in a long time."

"Is it yours?" You ask, turning to him. The jeep hums, idling. Neither of you makes any move to get out.

His fingers drum on the wheel. "Grew up here."

"I thought you were from East London."

"No. Moved there, then back here." He offers.

You nod. You get it.

"It's nice." You say instead, and it really is. A sprawling farmland with rolling hills in the distance where you know the sun hits in the morning. Where it'll bathe the boscage in ochre. "Peaceful."

"I'd have taken you to London," he grinds the words out from between his molars. "But it's too far."

Too far. Roughly four hours.

You've been sitting for nearly three. You shudder, eyes lidded when you turn to him.

A slow roll of your tongue has his arms flexing, hands gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles are stained white. Bleached.

"Maybe next time."

A promise. A question.

The vein in his forearm throbs. "C'mon, let's go."

You barely have enough time to pace a few feet into the foyer before it starts. You turn to look at him from over your shoulder—taking in the chimney, the chaise, the distinct lack of anything personal outside of a safe, a lighter on top of the fireplace—and he's suddenly there. Boots off. Hands curled into fists by his side. Head dipped down, and eyes more dangerous than you'd ever seen them.

That thrill pools—a warning. Run, run.

He stalks toward you, eyes burning coal. "Are you hungry?"

"No," you shake your head, swallowing thickly.

A step back. A step forward. They spark when you run.

"Thirsty?"

"N—no…"

Two steps bring him closer to you. Your back presses flush to the wall next to the fireplace, and he moulds over you like a liquid shadow. Dark, imposing. He's massive. You can't see anything but him.

Simon rests his forearm against the wall over your head, bending it at the elbow to bring him closer to you. The rough graze of his mask over your cheek has you panting.

His hand is a brand on your thigh. It slips down, fingers crooking in the fold of your knee, wrenching it up his hip. You gasp, hands grasping the bulk of his biceps when he drags your centre flush over the growing bulge in his pants.

Your head swims when he growls in your ear. "Is there anything you need to do before I drag you to my bed?" You shake your head slightly, pulse humming in your chest. "Because once I'm inside this pretty cunt, nothing at all will get me out. Understood?"

Your brain short circuits. A complete whiteout.

"A—affirmative." You choke, somehow coherent despite the absolute mess in your head. "Sir."

He rumbles. His chest pushes into yours; the sound reverberating through your bones. "Good girl."

He turned his back to you after he let you inside a modest bedroom, pulling the black sweater over his head. His back exposed—rippling muscles, etches of black from the tattoos—all pale skin wrapped in thick sinew. The sound you make has his shoulders coiling tight.

"Fuck, pet… I haven't even touched you, yet."

He turns, the mask slightly lopsided, and his beanie missing. His hair without the full balaclava sends a shock to your system. The newness of discovering something; elation bleeds in. His hair is ashen brown. Lighter than chocolate, darker than caramel.

You want to sink your fingers into the thick of it.

Thighs pressed tight together, your greedy eyes take him in. The way his hair—moussed from the hat—falls over his forehead; not cropped to the grain like Soap, and barely centimetres longer than Price.

He gazes at you. Waiting, maybe.

Your hands fall to your pants, eager to rid yourself of every barrier between your skin and his. You want him on you— in you. It itches like a sickness. Burns like a fever.

Your trousers fall. Fingers looped into the hem of your panties. He stops you, then, with his words.

"I took the mask off for the team."

You falter, bent down to push the panties the rest of the way off, and blink up at him.

The first thought, of course, is that Gaz saw his face before you. Gaz. The rookie rivalry (playful, carrying the flavour of siblings vying for their approval) makes you burn.

You swallow the jealousy on your tongue. "Oh…"

He waits, still.

"You don't have to…" you want to see him. He's a mosaic; an incomplete piece. You have two halves but the middle is murky. You try to fit them in your head, but the image doesn't line up.

"Lay back," he ordered, hands dropping to his belt buckle.

The image of him tugging the leather, veins rippling under the black ink of his burly forearms, feels unholy. It douses you with a want so palpable, your belly quivers with need.

You don't need foreplay, you think. Not when the sight of him pulling off a belt already has you melting. Has your pussy throbbing, your thighs slick.

"Damn, Lieutenant…" you mewl, dropping down on the bed, knees pressed taut together to stem the ache. "How are you so—"

"Simon," he rasps. The belt hangs in his hands. You wonder if he'd tie you up one day with it. Leave you quivering below him, completely at his mercy.

Or, would he let you use it on him? Let you bind this behemoth to the bed for your pleasure.

Your toes curl. The thoughts alone are enough to get you off, you think.

But it's the sight of him, then, standing over you, trousers hanging low on his hips, kept in place only by the thick thigh he slots between your knees, that really makes you shudder.

"Lay back," he orders again, hand dropping—white-hot, rough—to your shaking knee. His chin lowers, eyes staring at your pussy. "I want to taste you again, pet."

Fuck. Fuck —

He lowers to his knees, still somehow taller than you, and gazes at you between your bent legs. Dark eyes flashing. Goosebumps prickle along your flesh as he trails his gaze down the length of your body, settling, once again, on your cunt.

He looks as if he's going to devour you. Eyes wide, whites full, when he pries your legs apart, spreading your cunt for him once more. He hadn't seen you bare like this—beneath him for his own pleasure—and you feel the ghost of his breath on your sex when he leans in close, breathing in deeply.

"Bloody- fuckin' -hell, pet—" it sounds like a curse when he says it. A choked snarl. "So wet for me, and I haven't even touched you."

His hands are on the outside of your thighs, rough skin grazing the sensitive flesh as he trails them down to the soft flesh beneath your knee. With his thumbs hooked in the bend, pressing sharply into the cartilage, he wrenches them apart, opening you wider for him until your pussy is bared to him completely.

The groan he makes edges on the equinox of being absolutely filthy and wrecked when he drinks you in.

"Missed this pretty little cunt." His masked cheek rests on your knee, head cocked as he stares down at you. When he tips his chin, gazing at you, his eyes are blacker than midnight. A pool of ink. Desire brims.

He hooks your thighs over his broad shoulders, finger looping in the gap between his mask and the skin beside his nose.

You don't have a chance to see it. Fucking tease —

He dips his head before he tugs it down, and you feel the molten heat of his tongue slipping between your folds.

Your head falls back on the pillow, toes curling as that greedy mouth devours you once more. The stubble around his chin prickles the skin of your thighs. His grip is so tight, you already see blooms of blue pooling beneath the tips of his fingers.

The first time wasn't a flute. Simon presses his mouth to your cunt like he can't get enough; lips sealing over your throbbing clit, tongue lapping at you in even, thick strokes that make you see white behind your eyelids. It's good, so good —

He's going to ruin you.

"Simon—"

You remember those filthy groans rumbling against your slit, and your hand lifts, reaching down to tangle in his locks. A tug—sharp, pointed—makes him pant into your pussy, makes his fingers tighten until you can feel capillaries bursting under his firm hold. Until his short nails make indents in your flesh.

"Yeah, pet," his voice is molten rock; you throb, aching, from the sound alone. "Just like that…"

His mouth is on you again, devouring you whole.

You lift your head, staring down at the black eyes that bore into you, the thick locks of hair spilling out between your fingers, and you break.

You fall back with a groan, arching your cunt into his eager mouth, desperate for more. More of that liquid bliss that spools in your core, that has you leaking a puddle under his chin.

His hands shift, sliding down the meat of your thighs until they wriggle under your ass. Your flesh spills between his fingers when he grips you tight, lifting your hips, your cunt, to him.

Simon helps you buck against him, lets you cant your hips into his face, nearly smothering him with the sopping heat of your centre. When you're mewling, panting, with your head tossed back, and rapture in a quiver of his name spilling from your lips, he shifts.

His hold changes, and one hand falls back. His lips seal around your aching clit as a finger—long, thick—presses against your entrance. His tongue laves over you when he slowly presses it inside, crooking it to stroke against your fluttering walls.

The choked sob that leaves your throat is a mangled wreck of pleasure, of want.

"More," you mewl, but the plea barely has a chance to pass your lips before he's dragging his finger out until only the tip keeps you open. "Please, sir—"

He thrusts it into the last knuckle, groaning against you at the slick, wet sound that it makes. "Fuck, pet. Always so wet for me, aren't you?"

"Always," you gasp, fingers gripping his hair tight. "Simon, I need more—"

He pulls his finger out; another joins it when you whimper. The stretch feels good. Heat blooms in your belly. You won't last long. Your thighs quiver with each roll of his fingers pushing in as deep as they will go; with each stroke of his tongue over your clit.

You're going to cum—

"Simon—"

The coil snaps, pussy clenching on the thick fingers wedged inside of you, hips canting into his eager mouth as he rides you through the spasming pleasuring that ripples through your abdomen.

"That's it… that's a good girl," he slurs against you.

It's almost too much when he forces another finger into your throbbing cunt. You keen at the stretch, at the too-full feeling of him splitting your walls.

"Simon, I can't—"

"Yes, you can. You're taking me so well already."

His voice is liquid sex; the wrecked sound of him makes your toes curl, and your spine arch. You want him inside of you. You want to know if he'd make those same grunts of pleasure with your pussy wrapped around him.

High of the sudden burst of endorphins, you look down at him—sloppy with your wetness, his face hidden by your cunt—and you tug his hair until he meets your blown-out gaze.

"Fuck me," you try to demand, but the word comes out as a shaky plea.

"Too tight, pet," he rumbles. "Gotta get you ready for me."

Three fingers buried to the last knuckle, and he says it still isn't enough.

You'd think him cocky had you not the pleasure of seeing him hard and aching already. Big, fat cock leaking between the seal of his palm. You shiver, head dropping to the pillow.

It's all you can do but take whatever he gives you—long, thick fingers stretching you out, brushing the gummy walls inside that flutter when his mouth seals over your clit. It feels like an eternity since he pulled you inside the room.

A tug of your hand makes him groan. You meet his stare, pleading. Breathless. It's too much—

And not enough.

"I don't care," you slur, drunk and stupid on the way his hot mouth glues to your cunt. "I wanna feel you inside of me for days, sir—"

"Fuck!"

It's a harsh snarl that makes you whimper. The sound ripped from his chest, and rubbed raw as it was scraped out. His forehead is pressed to your mound, breathing you in once more.

His head lifts.

It's dark in the room. You can't really make out the entirety of his features—the familiar long nose, the cut of his jaw. His lips. It's bathed in black, in shadows, but through the glimmer of the washed-out moon that spills inside, you can see the distinct wetness gleaming on his mouth, his chin.

You whimper, eyes burning with tears of desperation. When he speaks, it's shredded rocks. Gravel. Low and dark.

"You're gonna feel me for weeks, pet."

It's a dangerous precipice. His voice alone shatters your resolve, and seeing those full, pink lips form the words that will ruin you, it's overwhelming. Your cunt throbs, walls shuddering in pleasure ripped through your being.

He feels it against his fingers; it makes his eyes flutter. His tongue sweeps out. Eye hooded, half-mast as they take you in.

He sits back, hands slipping to the crease of your knees. His chin dips.

"Hold 'em open for me, pet."

You gasp, belly knotting tight from the command that drips from his drenched, wicked, mouth. Your hand reluctantly falls from the soft locks to do as you're told. The warmth of his skin brushes over your fingers when you take his place, keeping your legs bent, spread, for him. You're on display. Open, wanting.

His hand, now free, reaches for the bundle of fabric pooled at the base of his neck. The mask is fixed into place again—a needless action, you think, pouting. Gaz saw his face in better lighting.

(You hope he had the wherewithal to take a picture for you.)

But there is something to be said about how illicit he looks, mouth now concealed from your view until just his eyes are visible. The coal is rubbed off, shadows along the crease, the corner of his nose, under his eyes, but it feels dangerous like this.

With the mask on, he's Ghost. Deadly. Dangerous. Fearsome. Men cower from him. His name alone scorches the earth, and makes the underbelly tremble.

And he's going to be inside of you. Claiming you, taking you. It's a cigarette thrown on a sea of gasoline. Your skin, fervid, begins to blister.

When you look up, it's ink-blot eyes in a sea of white. Red tendrils in the corners; rivers of ichor.

If he keeps looking at you like that, like you're a feast for him, you might go a little crazy, a little delirious.

Simon stares for a moment longer, hand dipping below the bed to grasp himself in his hand. A grunt at the touch, a flutter of his lashes, and then he moves. Coiled muscle; rippling flesh. He looms above you like a Cimmerian god—drenched in tenebrose, mask soaked from your slick—his haunting eyes gazing at you like you're an offering meant to be savoured.

His thighs—thicker than the tree trunks in the distance—slot beneath yours, and the sheer width of them makes you dizzy. The bulk is bigger than your head. Simon must notice the way you're drooling over them, knuckles white as you stare, open and hungry, wanting, as he takes a small amount of mercy on you. He shifts until the bulk of it is pressed taut to your core.

Your back arches, legs trembling. Fuck—

You want to ride his thighs. Want him to perch you on his massive lap, and have those molten eyes fixed on you as you use him to get yourself off.

You could do it, you think, mind blanking out; that soporific pleasure slurring all logic from taking root until a gossamer spools inside, filled with want. With greed.

"Wanna ride you…" you slur, wrecked on the notion alone. "Your thighs. They're so big, Simon, fuck— you're so big—"

"I like that idea, pet," he rasps, thigh notching closer to your throbbing cunt, smearing slick all over the coarse hair that covers his flesh. "Wanna see you desperate for it."

"I am…" you whine, breathless. "I want you so bad, I can't stand it…"

His hands fall, bracketing his burly arms beside your head until the absurd heft of him fills your vision. The muscles in his core pull taut; veins in his arms pulse.

He told you to keep your legs spread, but your fingers itch with the need to touch him. To feel him against your palm.

His cock hangs, daunting and thick, between his legs, head brushing your belly. Prespend smears over your skin; warm, tacky. You want a taste—

When you tell him as much, chin tipped backwards to whisper the words into his neck, he shudders above you. His cock twitches, spits more prespend on you. You want him to cum on your face, you gasp, words liquid, slurred. You're not entirely sure they're in English. You don't think you have the capacity to think beyond want, want, want—

"Yeah?" He rasps, elbow bending as he drops to his forearm. It brings his chest flush to yours. The dark smattering of hair rubs against your nipples. His face is a constellation: white jowls, black eyes. The look alone makes you smoulder. "Don't worry about me, pet."

You're shaking your head, but the protests die on your tongue when his hips slip between your thighs, prying you further apart. Completely spread beneath the bulk of his body, you crumble.

He knocks your hands away, a low murmur of his approval slipping past those sinful lips for listening to him, as if there was ever a choice, and he notches your knees against his hips, pressing himself closer to your core.

Finally free, your hands spring down to grab him, gripping his bicep in a vice just to feel the way it jumps under your fingers, and the other flat against his heated chest. His pulse thunders against your palm.

"Gonna give it to you, now."

You wanted it— ached for it—but as he feeds his thick cock into your pussy, you wonder if maybe you'd been a little overconfident before. That, perhaps, he was right.

It's swallowed down, smothered with a whimper. His stupidly fat cock will not break you.

"That's it, pet," he slurs, mask pressed tight to your ear. "Take it… C'mon, now."

He pulls back, widening your thighs, and then pushing them up until you're nearly folding in half beneath him. The movement jostles his cock, and it nudges something inside of you that makes you spasm around him.

"Fuckin' hell…" he groans, sinking in deeper. His eyes are fixed on the spot where he stretches you taut. Skin raw; cunt pushed to the mettle. "Almost there… look'it your pretty cunt take my cock…"

The air is punched from your lungs when he pushes in deeper, when the blunt head batters up behind your belly button. He knocks against your cervix, and the deep ache has tears leaking from the corners of your eyes.

"Go on, pretty thing," he husks in your ear, words drenched in pleasure. Your fingers dig into the bulk of his body, crescent moons embedded into his skin.

He bludgeons into something inside of you that has you see stars—galaxies burst behind your eyelids, and heat, supernova hot, burns low in your belly. It burns at the place where his cocks ruts into you so deeply that you can feel him in your sternum, almost taste him in your throat. It liquefies your body. You melt into a conduit under him; a receptacle that leaches pleasure from the stretch of his cock inside you.

Your body slackens. There is a give; something breaks. And he's suddenly deeper than you knew existed, than you ever thought possible. You feel him almost knocking against the cap of your womb. Each persistent jerk has your pussy clenching around him, milking him, trying to get him deeper.

As if that was possible. As if there was any room left inside of you for him to claim.

You're stuffed to the brim; overflowing with him. You can't take anymore.

You sob brokenly when his hips pull back until only the mushroom head of his cock splits your aching, raw cunt open. The seam of you flutters around him, as if begging to be filled again.

He grunts, a hoarse, low noise dredged from the depths of his chest when he shifts, his cock spearing back into you.

It nearly makes you scream. Your nails rake over his flesh, desperate to find purchase amid a crumbly chossy that threatens to send you plummeting down a precipice, hurtling you toward an unknown abyss.

"Easy, now," he commands, the bark of his voice bitten between clenched teeth. "You're gonna make me cum before I've gotten my fill of this cunt, pet."

"Want it," you slur, babbling on the liquid bliss roaring through your veins. "Want you to fill me up, Simon."

A snarl of your name is the only warning you get before his cock is battering against your gummy walls, blunt head jarring into that little place inside of you that has phosphenes filling your vision, has your lungs aching with hypoxia. Head dizzy, chest shuddering with each breath. You can't get enough of it. Of the heady scent of him, the sun-drenched heat.

Simon is normally so controlled, constrained, and you find yourself fracturing into pieces as his ironclad resolve seems to shatter with each squeeze of your cunt. It's a dizzying feeling to reduce your cold-hearted Lieutenant into a rutting beast, spoiling himself with each tight clench of your soft insides against his thick, hard cock.

Your eyes open, wet lashes flutter and stick to the crease of your eyelid, and you find the way his brow is pinched tight together as he burrows himself deep within you, until the taste of salt is heavy on your tongue, absolutely breathtaking. It's enough to get you hooked. Enough to make such an utter mess of you, that you don't know how you'll recover from this.

It's an intense feeling having him seated so deeply within you. Edging deliriously along that equinox of unfathomable bliss, and the sharp, distinct too much—too full quiver of pain. It's a pinch within your guts, a deep throb that follows the unending plume of pleasure so blistering as it batters into you, that you almost find yourself getting swept away by the sheer thrill of it all. Mindless, driven stupid by the way he takes, the way he ruins.

(You don't ever want him to stop.)

It's one thing to have his mouth on you, but another thing entirely to see how he breaks when he's inside of you. It's addicting. A powerful high that renders everything else static.

Pleasure, red-hot and dizzily intense, lacerates through your core, spooling at the base of your spine. It fills your limbs with molten bliss until nothing remains except the way he pounds inside of you, filling you over and over again with every inch he has to offer. You think you might just go insane if you don't have him. If you don't get to feel the delicious drag of his cockhead rubbing against your pulsating walls.

Your hands slide over his skin. The muscles clenching under the pads of your fingers as you drag them up, over his arm, his biceps, his broad shoulders.

The bulk of his back makes your fingers itch. You sink them into the corded muscles, clinging to him as Simon drags you to that hazy place where euphoria clots inside of your veins, and the heat you syphoned from him bubbles, frothing over.

It's pulled taut—an elastic band that stretches well past the breaking point, and makes your fingers sting when it snaps. You convulse beneath him, sobbing out barely coherent words that sound like a quivering war cry of his name, of how good he feels, and how you're mad with the taste of him nestled so deeply within you.

Your nails digging into his skin, his name on your lips like a gospel, the molten clench of you around—it all congeals together until he's snarling in your ear, a raspy grunt that makes your toes curl, that has you seeing nirvana once more. It's your name—somewhere in the mess of his growl, his groan—that is pulled out from him, and pierces you deep, makes your core tremble at the ragged sound of it, broken and hoarse.

He throbs like a heartbeat, cock pulsing as he sputters out a thick pool of cum. It's almost too much; your pussy is overstuffed, forced to take both the heaviness of his cock, and molten spume that fills you to the brim. It leaks out from around the plug of him, pushed to the base until not even an inch remains, and you feel it gathering under you.

You want a taste of it. It swells inside, fills you deep, and you wonder if he'd let you lick it off of him.

You murmur it into his drenched chest, more slurred words that only vaguely sound English. Maybe it's the tone of your voice—ruined and raw, and drunk of the taste of him—that punctures through, but it hits the mark. Simon buries his head into your neck with another gravelled rasp of your name that sticks to his throat, breaking over the vowels. His softening cock twitches within you.

Words, or sentiment, whispered into the crackling atmosphere that smells of sex and kerosene, and goes straight to his groin.

"Cheeky little—," he starts, a husking grumble, but you squeeze your sore, aching sex around him, fluttering like a soft heartbeat, and it dies with a groan.

The victory doesn't last long. Your raw, abused cunt aches from overstimulation, a throbbing sting from your tender flesh making you wince. You're too keyed up. A ragdoll against the shoreline, caught in the current that batters your body until you feel like one massive contusion.

Fucking Simon feels like surviving a war. It feels like clawing your way out of the trenches, tasting the heavy, gunmetal tang of acrid artillery fire in the air, and standing victorious. Brutalised, dazed, and numb from the beating, but full of the banquet of victory.

He keeps you under him, still buried to the hilt, and pants into your neck. Flushed with exertion, his chest red and drenched in sweat, you slip your hands through the mess of him, and find purchase where the knob of his spine protrudes from his flesh.

Simon's head rises. His eyes—quivering, glossy ink—lidded and sleepy with pleasure, and that tangible post-sex haze that permeates the air, find yours.

Sweat drips down his forehead, over his brow, his temple. It's swallowed by the fabric of his mask, lopsided on his cheeks. Red peaks over the black horizon. A deep flush the same bloodied hue as his chest.

(You wonder if it tastes like ichor.)

His eyes shudder, body trembling from the ripple of it.

"Fuck me, pet…"

You tip your heavy, mushy head back, and grin. Big, and wide. The smile of elation. Of success. "I already did."

He huffs, heavy and full, through his nose. "Bloody hell—" in response to your tease, he grinds his cock against your aching walls.

Your breath is sucked in through clenched teeth; a breathy, high-pitched whimper.

"Mae hi wedi cachi arna i…"

"English, pet."

Your ankles try to link at the base of his spine, body drawn like a bow. "Your cock ruined me."

His eyes are rapacious, tainted with the fervour of conquest.

"It was meant to." The smoke in his timbre makes your toes curl. Your lungs smoulder with the heat of it.

Simon has you seeing nirvana again, and again before the light outside crests through the thin curtains.

He rolls you under him, ankles hooked on his shoulders, and makes you watch as his cock spears deep inside of your well-fucked cunt.

Eyes on us, soldier. Don't you dare look away.

On your knees, head nearly smothered by the pillow, he covers you with the entirety of his bulk until everything around you is pitch black with the shadow he casts. He looms over you, chest pressed against your back, and fucks you slow, and deep. The position almost has you blacking out from the depths he reaches like this, and the burn of the stretch as your pussy pulls taut against his cock.

You can take it. This pretty cunt was made for my cock, pet.

Your favourite is being lowered onto him. Chests pressed together. You bury your hand in his damp hair, your face in his neck, and sink your teeth into the column of his throat until the salt of his skin nearly drowns you.

Fuckin' hell…

(In response, his hand brands the cheeks of your ass with the perfect impression of his massive palms.)

He lays back with you barely lucid, aching, sprawled on top of him, and runs his hands down your spine, husking in your ear about how good you've been for him, how pretty you look blissed out from his cock.

His words are mercury in your head.

"...wanna be good for you, Simon," you murmur into his collarbones.

He shudders under you.

His chest is slick with sweat when you rest your head on it, pulse thudding under your palm. His arm around your waist is an anchor, locking you tight to his side.

You'd woken up to the sun bleeding through the window, the room thick with the balmy swelter of sex. Ashes in your throat, salt on your tongue. Simon's heat burrows into your marrow.

There is a lot to be said, you think. Words that you were too cowardly to admit when in the soft, dazed atmosphere of the plane.

Only one thing buoys to the forefront. The only things you'd been clutching at this whole time. Life on the line, and all you could think of was the dunes outside of your tent. The searing heat on your back.

(Not on me.)

(Always, always.)

"...Since Sierra Leone," you confess into his flesh, mouth pressed against the side of his pectoral. His ashen chest hair tickles your nose.

Simon tenses under you. The soft strokes of his fingers–bare, warm–on your hip still.

You wonder if you misread things. If you made a mistake. Your mouth parts on his flesh. The briny taste of his skin is sharp on your tongue.

You won't apologise. The words are there, the confession lingering in the air like opaque tendrils of smoke. It's in his hands now. This little thing that flutters within your chest, tucked away for safekeeping since he turned to you, eyes dark and narrow, and said you did good, rookie.

His fingers coil over you, tightening against your flesh.

"Everything…" he rasps. Everything. It's pulled out of him; rolled over barbed wire.

Confused, you raise your head, brows knitting together. Everything—

A total eclipse. The ocean in the dead of night. Endless, unfathomable pools of black. The current threatens to drag you under to those depths that shudder in front of you.

The words die on your tongue, ashes in the back of your throat.

What good is a man if he has nothing to lose? So, what do you have to lose, soldier?

A smile splits across your face; a sun dawning over the beige spalls that seem to never end.

It tastes of the sea when you press your lips to his. You feel sand under your fingers, his pulse on your palm.

—Price calls it, has known since Mesaieed. He'd bet on Gaz, maybe even Soap. It never crosses his mind to think of Simon.

—But thinking about it now, it was obvious from the start.

("Sierra Leone. Wanna take Gaz with you–"

"No. I'll take the rookie.")

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