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halcyone-of-the-sea · 3 months

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FROM FAR DISTANT WATERS

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

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

WORDCOUNT: 16.8k

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Now hush,” Otto sighs, settling back.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Otto lived alone. You never asked about it.

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

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

The fin is back.

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

A hand grasps your wrist and yanks you away.

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

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

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

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

You watch, struck dumb.

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

The man’s back over at the sink tightens.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“So much for answers,” your lips mutter.

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

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There’s a gruff call from the water.

“Careful, then.”

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

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

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

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

You certainly weren’t going to.

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

There had been a man.

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

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

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

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

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

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

You swallow down saliva and your lips thin.

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

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

Could you even assign it a human gender?

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

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

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

You open your eyes and glare into the fireplace.

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

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

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

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

You shiver again, not from the cold.

Careful, then.

—

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

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

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

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

The library.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“...Or…maybe it’s N-O-R-E?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Careful, then.”

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

—

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

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

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

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

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

But that tail…that face…

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

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

The heat of protection, so to speak.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Fingerprints?”

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

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

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

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

Did he like them?

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

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

So many questions, so few answers.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What would it feel like to touch it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hey, wait—!”

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

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

—

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

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

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

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

You turn in a half-circle.

“Beautiful,” your lips murmur, voice echoing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An emotionless glare is all you receive.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You blink. “You live here?”

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

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

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

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

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

Perhaps that fall into the water really had killed you.

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

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

“...Okay.”

—

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

Dragged to the ocean floor. Body on the rocks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John hums and swallows stiffly.

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

Up there.

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

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

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

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

Not yet.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yet, your mood sobers, and the joy leaks.

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

The man pauses abruptly, and you keep talking.

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

Your words trail off, insinuation clear.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The man flattens his lips, tilting his skull.

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

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

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

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

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

John huffs out a laugh. “Handsome?”

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

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

“Bugger off,” he grunts.

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

—

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

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

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

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

The bell of your shop dings.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“John would never kill an innocent woman!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tears splatter down your cheeks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Love!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Love,” he mutters, face tight.

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

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

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

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

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

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

He’d wait as long as it took.

—

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John pauses his cleaning, glancing at your throat.

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

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

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

He lets a small sliver of calm enter him.

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

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

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

All you say is one name.

“Noah.”

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

A dog with scales, that is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

—

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

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

“I think he killed his wife.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’ll crawl,” he grunts.

“The rocks are sharp.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A women to the water.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Steady. Keep your head on.

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

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

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

“Absurd—!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Otto!” You scream, fingers flinching.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Otto was dead.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Stay here. I won’t be long.”

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

Yet, you have no trouble following his advice.

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

John always seemed the one for revenge.

—

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

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

The authorities weren’t going to dispute it.

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

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

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

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

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

“Want to,” he grumbles.

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

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

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

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

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

That near kiss.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John watches, lips parted, as you continue on.

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

The both of you were going to be perfectly fine.

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simpjaes · 17 days

Text

desecration. (s.j)

the one where no gods exist when you’re alone with jake sim.

minors dni !! | if you read it, reblog it.

WORDCOUNT ― 6.4k

PAIRING ― jake sim x afab reader

GENRE ― top/dom jake sim, characters are in their twenties, sub/bratty reader, religious kink/fetish

WARNINGS― mild dub con, desecration of holy a relic, inaccurate descriptions of whatever religion this is– im not doing research for a 5k fic that’s mostly smut, sorry.

NOTE― if you’ve read this before, it’s because I wrote it for mark lee over on my other blog [ncteez]. we wanted to make it jake, and by we i mean me. i wanted to read this as jake. sorry to religious ppl, don’t read this if you don’t wanna be railed by a hot guy wielding a cross.

smut tags under cut::

smut tags― DUB CON. use of the words: whore, slut, for the record, the cross is not raw wood and has a smooth finish, reader is first attempting to seduce the priest through confession lmao, she’s also just a massive whore just like me :), jake is the priest’s son, jerking off, penetration using a wooden cross, unprotected sex, spitting, choking on and/or sucking off a cross, degradation, and name-calling, he’s a godfearing man but also he likes sexual perversions, humiliation, explicitly getting fucked in a church, kind of fingering?

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

Jake wonders why you’re always making confessions, time and time again, once a week, every single week….eagerly. Like you’re excited for your sin or something.

Huh.

Then again, once a week his father is expected to listen to confessions from the other churchgoers, even Jake himself is expected to confess. Often he will make up sins that he has committed just to seem as though he has been learning from some sort of mistake. Never would Jake actually tell his father through a confession booth what he has done or is willing to do. He’s an adult, he can confess whatever he wants.

You, on the other hand, you’re working his father to the bone in terms of forgiveness.

Jake’s interest piques at the very idea of a young woman, around his age, wanting to confess so much. Did you hurt someone? Does you hurt yourself? Did you kill someone? Or maybe you’re just caught up in a situation that makes you commit atrocities? He can’t even imagine what one person could be doing to elicit such an eager need of forgiveness so consistently.

Always the first in the box, always with those inappropriate outfits too.

Jake makes his way to the back of the church to complete his duties and, of course, he isn’t surprised to see you enter the confession booth. After all, it is the start of a new week.

Hushed whispers were echoing through the large space and only now does he realize that you almost always confess when the church is nearly empty. You must not be unaware of his presence at all, unaware that he is the son of the priest that you spill your sins to, and unaware that he can absolutely hear you when he walks closer.

He isn’t entirely sure why he is listening. The walls of this church echo any and every sound, and to be fair, the only reason his interest is piqued is because his father was silent from the moment you had entered the booth. All he heard was you. You didn’t seem to start the confession off in a proper manner either, so yeah, maybe it caught him off guard too.

His ears make attempts to adjust to the words coming from the booth, but your voice is coming out in a tone that he has never used himself when seeking salvation. Minutes pass and he still hasn’t heard his father speak a word back to you, not to encourage you, not to stop you. It’s just you, addressing dreams, visions, wants, and needs.

Certainly not confession. In fact, you’re actively sinning, attempting to seduce.

“I woke up shaking, Father. What should I do?”

Jake notes how quiet his father is still, despite you asking him what to do about the dream. His face sours when you continue to speak, this time in a slightly louder tone.

“I just can’t help myself sometimes, I–”

It’s not that it’s intentional, really, it isn’t. If anything at all, Jake is incredibly disgusted by your attempts to dirty talk during a confession. Disgusted that you’d do such a thing, and…maybe intrigued by what you may have said that he wasn’t quite able to catch before. He quietly moves to the other side of the booth, the side where you seem to be spouting off all sorts of things, and he raises his head to listen a bit more.

“You were big, you know? I can’t get thoughts of you out of my head. Have you ever touched a woman, Father?”

Jake leans in further, his body reacting more than his disgust. Unfortunately, his length growing in his pants ceases the moment his father cuts you off.

“Enough.” His father finally stops you from abusing the booth, from abusing him.

Not another word is spoken and Jake does his best to back away quickly and quietly as you exit the booth. Of course, he’s acting as though he is sweeping a corner when he turns to look at you. Eye contact is made and he can feel an intense rush of heat spread across his cheeks.

Ah, so you’re a whore.

His father stays inside of the booth for a long, drawn out, three or so minutes before exiting and all Jake can think about is if you walked out of the church soaked and warm between your legs. It’s not even that Jake is into sinning. He isn’t. His entire life was built around this church, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s a man. He has needs just like you do, apparently.

Never would he get what he needs from a woman as dirty as yourself, though, it doesn’t stop him from thinking about it and how your voice sounds when you were actively trying to fuck his dad.

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

“You’re disgusting.” Jake narrows his eyes at you when you pass by, spitting the words at you with a grimace.

“Excuse me?” You ask, stopping in your tracks and looking back at him just as harshly. You didn’t provoke him to speak to you at all, let alone fucking insult you?

“You think I can’t hear the way you speak to my dad during your little “confessions”?” He takes a step forward as he whispers at you, air quoting the word confession with a roll of his eyes.. “You really think he’s just going to take you up on the offer?”

Narrowing your own eyes, you step closer to Jake to stop anyone else from hearing his little tantrum.

“Wanna tell me why he always listens to my “confessions” then?” You question back, mimicking the air quotes and smirking as you walk away from him, not even letting him answer.

Jake watches as you leave, upset that he didn’t get a rise out of you at all and instead was offered a genuine question that sits in his mind. Why does his father allow you to make a confession after confession if all it is, is an attempt to seduce him? You’re even ashamed of it, it seems, and it pisses him off to no end.

Rushing after you, he is quick to grab at your dress and pull you back.

“Might as well just show up naked with the way you act around here,” He starts with a bite in his tone, dragging you off, down the hall and into a side room that usually remains empty.

He intends to put a stop to this because he’s heard several more of your confessions by his own will and learns that, apparently, your only sin is being a fucking slut.

“You have no place here.” He adds as he closes the door behind the two of you. Unintentionally locking you into a space that he’s directly saying you don’t belong in.

“Acting like you don’t think about fucking. Hah. We both know I’m not the only one,” You laugh, walking across the room with a shrug. It’s not the first time you’ve been reprimanded in a church, and it probably won’t be the last. “Besides, your dad probably thinks about me late at night after tucking your grown ass into bed like a child.”

Jake narrows his eyes even more at you.

“Bet that pisses you off.”

“You’re ridiculous to think he would even want someone like you.” Jake scoffs harshly at you, gut bubbling with annoyance. “To think about sex this often too? I can’t imagine anyone would want to touch such a slut.”

You watch him walk towards you, with his perfectly tucked shirt and his darkened and angry eyes. Being alone with him doesn’t help his argument though because, in all fairness, he’s just as hot, if not hotter than his father.

“What about you then?” You ask, leaning against one of the shelves in the room, running your hand up your legs, and hiking your dress up a couple of inches.

“Your dad with his lingering eyes won’t admit to having ever touched a woman. Yet here you are.” You call out the priest’s lie with a snide chuckle before continuing. Fingers massaging your own fleshy thighs, watching the way Jake struggles with his own lingering eyes. “What about you? You ever fuck anyone?”

Jake grimaces, wrinkling his nose as he watches you.

“What the fuck are you doing?” He questions, stomping over to you and pushing your dress back down below your knees.

“Oh!” You laugh, ticking your tongue at him and tilting your head. “You said a bad word. Aren’t you going to ask for forgiveness?”

He stares at you for a few seconds, being face to face with a woman that seems so desperate for any touch has his heart racing. He’s trying to call you out, not turn you on.

“Can’t you act decent? I barely know you and you’re flaunting yourself at me.” Jake bellows, stumbling back from you and examining the way your body is relaxed.

You really seem to be enjoying this.

“You’re the one who pulled me in here. Was it really to argue with me, or were you trying to get to me before Father does?”

Thinking for a moment, Jake realizes he’s the reason this is happening. He could have just let you leave like everyone else, after all, you were attempting to go home. Here he is though, and there you are.

“He would never.” Jake laughs, mocking your attempts to pretend his father would be interested in you.

“And again, what about you?” You shoot back instantaneously, watching the way his words get caught in his throat.

He’s a weak man, truly, because the very thought of what’s under your dress, the very idea that you’re so willing, fogs his brain to the point of almost malfunctioning. It would be so fucking easy if he wanted to.

No one would even know.

Before you even know it, you can feel the air in the room change as he storms closer to you and rips your dress upwards to your waist. Instantly, he’s shoving his hand straight between your legs.

A small yelp leaves your throat followed by a laugh. Perfect.

“I knew it.” You giggle, bumping your head a bit against the shelf at the force of his movement. You can feel the way his palm cups your core and presses in harshly through his silent breaths. “I fucking knew you were dirty.”

“Stop,” Jake demands, bringing his other hand to cover your mouth. “Stop talking.” He continues, already pulling his hand from your core and second-guessing himself.

“If you want it so bad, I’m going to need you to shut the fuck up.”

You nod with a smile against his palm, breathing in when he pulls it back and trusts your ability to stay quiet. He’s staring directly into your eyes as if he’s threatening you. As if he will stop if you make a single peep. A promise that he will probably get you banned from the church if anyone were to find out what’s happening in this room right now. At his darkened gaze, you poke your tongue out, licking his palm and watching him pull back in aroused shock at how unashamed you are regarding your arousal. But, you do stay true to your work and remain quiet once his eyes trail down.

He looks at you as if you’re some sort of monstrous entity, and for him at this moment, you probably are. But even with that, you see what’s growing in his pants before he lowers himself onto the floor. Positioning his face right in front of your clothed pussy.

What a dirty, dirty boy.

Jake can see the wet stain of your panties and all he can do is roll his eyes.

“You’re insane.” He laughs, eyes darting up to your face, looking at you like he wants to shame you. “Getting so messy in such a place, all for men who don’t fucking want you?”

You nod, wiggling your hips at him in an attempt to entice his lips to attach there. But he doesn’t. He just stands right back up to his feet and takes a step backwards.

“I bet if I left you here, you’d chase after me.” He mocks. “I bet you think I’m gonna stick it in you, don’t you?”

Proudly, you smile with a nod. Of course he's going to stick it in. You can see how hard he’s gotten. Sin or not, you know when a man wants to fuck you. Jake won’t be able to resist sooner or later, son of the priest or not.

“Wow,” He laughs quietly, shaking his head at you as he reaches behind a podium and pulls out a large, lacquered wooden cross. “You really are stupid.”

Great, you think as your face falls. He’s definitely about to start preaching to you with that stupid fucking cross. Maybe he will even attempt to perform an exorcism to expel the horny demons out of you.

“Oh, please.” You roll your eyes, standing yourself up straight from against the shelf and patting your dress back down into position. “Don’t start this shit.” You’re already preparing to walk out without looking twice at him, but he laughs right back at you.

“You think you know everything.” He chuckles, walking towards the door and locking it. He stands in front of it now, crossing his arms and staring at you.

“Don’t I?” You ask, eyeing the way he presents himself to you right now.

“Did I not just imply that I wouldn’t use my cock on you?” He questions, twitching in his pants at the way you stand before him, much smaller in energy now.

He can tell you’re still trying to act brave, and it delights him to see the realization spread across that pretty, silent mouth.

Oh. Oh.

“You’re going to–?” You swallow hard, realizing that of all the sins you could commit, the implication of being penetrated with a cross, solely so this man doesn’t have to fuck a whore isn’t one you ever thought of.

This room doesn’t even feel like part of a church now as he holds the cross with more reason than praying.

“Yeah,” He assures you. “I am.” Stepping forward toward you and looming down at your face. “Now get on the desk.”

You don’t know why, but your body acts on instinct for him. Immediately walking to the desk and propping yourself onto it.

“Take off your clothes.” He demands again, watching you intently as he stays in place, rubbing the long end of the cross much like he’d like to do for himself right now.

God, watching such a stubborn woman do everything he says is…well, it’s new for him and it ignites a new type of arousal within him.

And you watch him back as you begin to slip your dress from your shoulders, lifting your ass so that you can push it down and onto the floor.

“Oh, now you wanna act shy?” He mocks, walking towards you as you attempt to tug at your panties. “And keep those on. No one wants to see that.”

Goddamn, you don’t even have the decency to wear a bra to service? Lucky for him though, your breasts are enough to drive him past the point of return. There’s no thought, fear, or prayer in his head right now as you reveal yourself to him. Going as far as trying to flash your pussy? Oh, he could laugh.

You stay quiet, doing as you’re told and watching the way he examines you. He must feel so in control right now and you’re happy to let him, but you can see him falling apart behind his eyes.

His cock is incredibly obvious beneath his nice dress pants, but you wouldn’t dare reach out to touch him, not yet at least. You’ll let him have his fun, despite the slight nervousness within you regarding that cross.

“Open your mouth.” He says, dragging the cross against your nipples and onto your chin. “Suck it.”

You almost shake your head at him. Such a hard wood sliding down your throat would surely hurt. It’ll bruise, it’ll fucking suffocate you.

Jake doesn’t seem to care about any of that though, because all he does in response to your widened and fear-stricken eyes is press the wood against your lips with a face of concentration.

You purse your lips, muffling a displeased grunt at his acts.

“You scared?” He smiles first, pulling the cross away and now tracing his fingers along your lips before prying them inside and hooking your mouth open. “Come on, don’t act like you don’t know how to suck.”

You relent this time, feeling the cold and smooth tip of the cross enter past your lips when he resumes his previous assault. It’s not that you are against doing it, you just…haven’t done it before.

You’re not exactly sure of how to respect a holy relic such as this one when you’re expected to choke on it.

“That’s it.” Jake coos, pressing the cross further into your mouth. “Open up real wide.”

You close your eyes at his voice, licking the smoothed object with an intensity you didn’t know you had. After all, it’s been so long since you’ve been intimate with a person, hence the constant wet dreams about your priest. This is somehow, incredibly hot to you. To have his son fucking your mouth, regardless of what object he’s using to do it.

Still, it does hurt. The intricate edges of the cross bruises each time it hits the clenching walls of your throat and mouth, but Jake seems to like the sound of you choking and sobbing around it. After all, he just continues to press the cross further and further in. Probably relishing in the way you try to swallow around it and relax your throat.

His eyes are so focused, seeing how much of it you can take and only imagining how good it would feel if it were his cock choking you right now. Despite your sputtering and crying eyes, you’re taking it so well.

Yeah, you’ve definitely done this before. Probably swallowed up some guy’s cum and begged for more despite still having a cock wedged in your throat. How lucky for them to have someone so desperate to be gagged.

“You’re filthy for doing this, you know that?” He laughs at your pain and how you don’t try to pull at his pushing hand, tipping the cross just a bit so that its hardened wood hits your throat in a way that hurts a bit too much.

You cough around it, only now pushing his hand back in protest. The tears are pouring from your eyes when the cross slides out of your mouth, and all you can do is blink up at him as you try to regain your breath.

Half expecting him to immediately hold your head in place just to shove the cross back in, Jake pulls back instead, tilting his head down to look at your panties.

Your legs instinctively cross to hide your arousal, but he prys your legs open regardless, forcing you to act as the whore you so wanted to be. For his father, for him, for anyone who would be willing, honestly.

You’ve gotten wetter.

“You’re so gross, I can’t believe you get off to this–” He laughs, feeling his cock begin to fucking ache. “You can take more, then.”

No, no. You don’t want to keep sucking it, but your mouth opens anyway. Too turned on by the idea of seeing Jake’s reaction to watching you be so dirty, so blasphemous.

The way he moans when you open your mouth willingly this time is…well, he looks fucking good. He sounds even better.

You take it into your mouth without so much as a second thought this time, allowing him to slide the cross back and forth against your tongue and into your throat. You willingly swallow around the harsh edges, tears falling all the while, of course.

You’re gagging so softly around it, he’s almost jealous over how you wanted his dad before you wanted him. Surely no one would do this for you, right? His father would never be with such a horny, needy, and dirty woman.

Jake though….shamefully, is very into it.

Into you, rather.

When he pulls it out this time, your saliva coats the cross in a way that nearly breaks his brain. Intensely, he stares at your lips, slack and waiting for him to continue his abuse. God, he’s so jealous. To think you would do this with someone else? With anyone? Anything?

It turns him on beyond belief, but feeling jealous of the fucking cross isn’t exactly something Jake wants to admit. His father? Sure, whatever. But a relic he’s prayed to his whole life? Growing resentful of it just because you take it down your pretty and bruised throat?

No.

Jake shifts now, unable to satiate the arousal within him without grabbing your hand and forcing you to grope his hidden cock. So hard, so fucking hard, he nearly lets out his own sob at the euphoric touch when he actually does it.

You’re a bit shocked that he’s letting you touch him, but you take the opportunity and run with it. You press your palm against him without any amount of shame, and all you can do is watch as he hangs his head, the saliva coated cross still gripped in his other hand.

“Bet you wanted to fuck my mouth.” You croak out, your voice sounding just as raw at your throat. “Bet you wanted me to take all of it and beg for your cum.”

His head shoots up in response to that as he grabs your face harshly, bucking against your hand at the same time. “Stop talking.” He seethes, releasing your face and inserting his fingers into your mouth instead. “Stick your tongue out.”

You do as he says, feeling his heavy cock twitching against your palm with each press.

Jake seems like an expert at this, you aren’t sure, but when he presses your tongue down with his fingers to open your throat up, he spits into your mouth so easily that you have no choice but to swallow it.

Well, okay. He could probably get away with doing that a few more times if he wanted to.

You moan when you swallow, lending him a dopey smile that shocks him. You weren’t supposed to like that in his eyes, but when you grab his cock in response rather than just palm at it, he can’t help but moan back at you.

His fingers continue to hold your tongue down as you jerk him off over his pants, and his hips stutter all the while until he loses all composure. Within a second, he stalks even closer, slamming both hands against the desk on either side of you and leaning forward to pin you there.

And then he grinds forward against your weak hand, pinned between him and the edge of the desk.

Yet still, he’s gripping that fucking cross as he pins you here.

“You want me to fuck you so bad, I can see it.” He croaks, not even allowing you to offer him a nod before he’s got his lips attached to yours and he’s licking into your mouth. It feels impossibly better than that cross pressing against the back of your throat but you swallow his kiss just as easily.

His hips continue to grind as he licks into your mouth like a man who doesn’t know how to kiss at all. So rough and messy with it, groaning more and more before he’s nearly a panting mess before you. He pulls back from the kiss only for a moment to stare at you, eye contact more fierce than it was before.

“I think you’re the one who wants to fuck me.” You manage to slip out before he can silence you again, and his eyes narrow instantly.

More than anything, that’s what he wants to do to you. He wants to shut you up in as many ways possible right now, and he definitely wants fucking you to be one of those ways. But he can’t, and he won't.

“Hah–you’d love that.” He laughs, reaching his empty hand between the two of you to press his pants down enough to let his cock spring free.

You can’t even get a good look at it, because he’s instantly grabbing himself and fucking his fist before looking back up at you.

“Go on, look.” He says, leaning a bit so that you can watch him jerk off in full view now. “Bet you’d beg for it if I told you to.”

“Please?” You instantly let out, eyes staring at the angry head of his cock leaking and pulsing.

“I didn’t say to actually beg–” He groans, halting his hand and instead, thrusting his hips into the tightly formed hole he’s created. “I’m not going to fuck you.” He laughs again, now pulling the cross back and into your view with a wicked smirk.

Of course. The cross. Well, at least you’re going to be fucked with something right?

You eye the piece of wood and then go back to watching him. You’re not sure what it is about this situation but it feels like your body is on fire. Maybe it’s because hell is right beneath you, just a floorboard away from what the two of you have gotten yourselves into behind this locked door.

“Oh?” He halts his hips and licks his lips. “You actually want me to fuck you with this?”

You nod frantically, spreading your legs in front of him and showing off how large the spot on your panties has grown since he last inspected it. You watch as his eyes practically burn a hole through your pussy.

Only then does he release his own cock and look back into your eyes. More seriously this time when reality and guilt clicks in his head.

“You are aware of what we are about to do, right?” His confidence falters blatantly as he glances at the cross. “Like, if you ever tell my dad about this, I will be disowned.”

“You think I’d snitch on you?” You roll your eyes, body nearly shaking to get fucked. God, why does he have to stop now?

“Well, since you’re so inclined to confess every fucking day–”

“Jake, you literally just fucked my throat with it.” You deadpan, hooking your legs around him to pull him close enough to feel his cock hit your wet panties. “You’re the dirtiest one here, I’m not going to give that up just to see you get disowned.”

He laughs at you for that. Because yeah, maybe he is. Maybe he’s the one who shouldn’t be in church, and maybe he’s the one who should have been confessing this whole time. Never in his life has he ever done this, or so much as imagined doing it, it’s so perverse. So, wrong. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what’s attractive about it.

For some reason, his cock jumps when you say you’re not giving him up because he’s dirty.

“And–” You soften your voice, trying to lure him. “You don’t have to use the cross, you know.”

“No.” He barks out, pulling his hips back and pressing the cross against you instead. “Now, keep your legs open.”

He gets right back into it without a second thought. He doesn’t care what he’s doing or what the repercussions of doing this will be. It’s not like he wasn’t going to hell before any of this, not based on the fantasies he’s had anyway.

Jake hooks his fingers into your panties and pulls them down your legs harshly, to the point that they’re stretching so far that it feels like they could cut through your skin. He backs away for a moment upon seeing you grimace at that, allowing you to slip them down your legs before positioning himself back between them.

“I’m dirty?” He says, looking at your pussy and the way it clenches around absolutely nothing. He sees the slick seeping out of you already, and it’s not only pathetic but so fucking desperate of you. “Fucking look at that.”

You smile at it, knowing that he’s degrading you but absolutely loving the view if his focused eyes are anything to go by.

Before the cross, he experimentally traces his fingers along your folds until he gets to your hole, and without hesitation, he slips one of them in. The grip of your walls alone could probably send him over the edge if he were to make a last-minute change and shove his cock into you, but he holds back. Instead, he traces the cross against you in the same way he did with his fingers, slowly inserting it alongside his digit.

Pulling back, Jake watches your face as the cross opens you up, probably dragging against your walls uncomfortably as a reminder of the ultimate sin you’re committing with him right now.

When your face doesn’t contort into that of pain, he pulls his finger out of you and places his hand back on his cock. Still staring at your face, he fucks the cross in and out of you. Relishing in the sound of how wet you are for this, and for him to give it to you.

He does this until, finally, you moan.

Upon that little whimper of a moan, Jake is sent into a different headspace. One that quickens his pace with the object inside of you, one that tightens the grip on himself.

Now, oh now, he’s playing for fun. He presses it in and then pulls it all the way out just to see your pussy beg for more. Holding back a moan over how fucking hot it is to see, he opts to coo out at you.

“Bet it would feel so good.” He breathes, trying to ignore the shiver that shoots through his body at the way you yearn for it. “Could shove my cock right in, you’d just take it, wouldn’t you?”

Before you can answer, he’s thrusting the relic right back into you. In, out, in, out. Deeper, harder, fucking faster. And he offers the same for himself, tightening his fist, nearly abusing his own cock at the sight of your swollen hole swallow up the wood. Really, he makes a point to fuck himself just to imagine it’s you that’s squeezing him.

If he thinks hard enough, it really is almost like he’s the one fucking you.

He keeps this up for a few minutes, up until your legs are shaking around him and you begin to reach out with your hands. If it weren’t for the fact that he’s incredibly fucking horny right now, he’d probably be rushing for the altar to save you from whatever demon is possessing you.

But, he knows that this is no demon, this is all his own doing. He’s loving it. Every single bit of this situation is being burned into his memory, and when your legs shake, it only urges him to fuck the object into you harder.

You whimper out strings of nonsense, almost begging for a release from this grasp he is holding over you both physically and mentally, but he doesn’t relent. Your pathetic cunt is being pounded by an object that should have you crying in fear, but instead, you’re so close to release you can only beg for more, more, fucking more.

And god, he keeps giving it to you.

In an attempt to open your eyes, you feel dizzy with lust. Your hips buck up against the object with intent, and you can’t stop watching him.

“Goddamn.” Jake stutters a sin, watching you fuck yourself against the holy relic. Thankful to rest his arm and be able to just…watch.

And oh, he’s watching and intensely imagining that it’s you on him. He can’t stop thinking about how fucking warm you must be, how tight, how sinfully delicious your pussy must be for you to be acting like this. And that thought is what forces him to lose it.

You were so focused, on the verge of your orgasm when you feel him practically tear the cross out of you, dropping it to the floor before – oh fuck.

You feel him. Something bigger, something thicker ramming into you. He’s prying you open more than he did previously, already pumping in and out at a frantic speed. Instantly, you cling onto him with a bruising grip, listening to his shameless moans as he realizes the lack of control he has over his own body or thoughts.

Jake practically falls over you in euphoria as you cling, forcing you to fall back against the desk as he relentlessly plunges his hips. His breath is heavy against your neck as he loses himself, and all you can do is thank the same god you just disrespected for this cock that’s abusing your hole in all of the right ways.

“I can’t–” He groans out against your ear, his hips not stopping their relentless assault. “You’re so fucking dirty.” He insults, pushing you up the desk with each thrust. “So good.”

You can barely make a sound from the force behind his hips, only small yelps leaving your throat each time he slams in. And fuck, you want nothing more than to rub your clit right now. You could cum all over him, you could really make him feel good.

And as if your prayers are answered, Jake apparently knows exactly how to pleasure a woman. Hm, curious. He knows how to do it fucking well too, as you feel his fingers rub against the swollen nub in the exact same way you would right now. Painful, intense.

The fact that he wants you to cum is delicious.

Your orgasm hits you almost instantly, pussy sucking in him each time he goes to thrust, and the sounds coming from your throat could be considered demonic by some, but he swallows them up with ease when he notes that you’re cumming all over him.

Jake licks into your mouth, soothing you with dirty words when he pulls back to breathe.

“You should see yourself–” He pants out, sticking his tongue out to lick against your lip. “Getting me all messy too?” He says again through a moan. “You’re beautiful.” He adds like a period at the end of a sentence.

That alone makes you feel…different. In fact, it prolongs your orgasm far past sensitivity when he continues to thrust into you. You can’t tell if he said that because he’s close, or if it’s because he meant it.

Quite frankly, you could give less of a fuck if he meant it.

Jake stutters his hips when you lift your head just slightly, gripping his hair and skewing his head to the side so that you can whisper into his ear.

“Want me to beg for your cum?” You whisper with a shaking voice. “You’d love that too, wouldn’t you? I know I would.”

His eyes squeeze shut as he aggressively turns his head and, once again, pries your mouth open with his tongue. A bruising kiss follows as he fucks his last few thrusts into you, doing just as you implied he should.

He pumps his cum into you relentlessly, thankful that it’s not all over his pants and entirely milked into that sinful cunt of yours. Thankful that you also got off around him instead of that forgotten cross on the floor.

He wants nothing more than to remind you time and time again who got to you first. It was him, not his father.

You smile at him when he pulls back out of breath, examining his pants before stuffing his sensitive cock back into them and reaching down for the cross.

“If you ever fucking tell my dad about this–” He seethes out of breath, trying to pretend that he can regain composure so soon after fucking you the way he just did. Still, he narrows his eyes at you much as he had done before.

“Go on.” You say, voice shaking as you try to grasp back onto reality from whatever world his cock had sent you into.

Jake is at a loss for words, because, what could he possibly do about it if you were to tell? He looks at you, still spread out against the desk, dress crumpled, his cum seeping out of you in a messy show of how much of an absolute whore he forced you to be.

“Just, don’t tell him.” He finally says, averting his eyes from you and looking at the cross in his hand.

“Do you feel bad already?” You ask out, finally lifting to get off of the desk.

“Don’t you?”

You shake your head, struggling to stand as the seething pain of having a wooden cross stuck into you shoots through your body. “Not really.” You try to laugh, but you wince instead.

“Yeah, I figured you’d probably be hurting after all of that.” He finally says in a somewhat apologetic tone, walking up to you with a soothing hand.

You’re a little shocked by his kindness.

“Yeah, a little.” You laugh it off though because, at the moment, it felt good. You wouldn’t have wanted it any other way despite how blasphemous the act was.

“Oh.” Jake seems sorrowful in his tone, but his gaze doesn't leave you. “I- um, I don’t know how to make it like, not hurt?” He scratches the back of his head.

In your attempt to put your dress back on, you do note that the pain inside of you isn’t unfamiliar. You’d been fucked hard before, but that was a long time ago. You missed this feeling, realizing that it was exactly what you think you needed.

“It’ll pass.” You assure him, taking a deep breath and trying to stumble your way to the door. “I guess I’ll see you later, then?”

Jake dips his head with a small nod, feeling guilty for what he’s done. Not because of the cross, not because of the sin, but because he’s unsure of how to pretend like he wouldn’t want to do it again.

#enhypen smut #sim jaeyun smut #jake sim smut #jake smut #enhypen hard hours #enha smut

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macfrog · 2 months

Text

hanging on the telephone a sex on fire one shot

pairing: ceo!joel x fem!reader

summary: your boss picks a convenient time to ask for a favor.

warnings: age gap eat my fuckin shorts (reader is late 20s, joel late 40s), workplace relationship, imbalance of power dynamic, joel likes (semi) public sex again!, softdom!joel, fingering, unprotected piv, daddy kink, praise kink, cursing. takes place somewhere between state-of-the-art and mile high.

word count: 2.9k

series masterlist | main masterlist | playlist | follow @macfroglets w notifs on to be the first to hear when i post 💚

“Sh– Fuck – Shit –”

“So goddamn tight, baby, she’s so –” he pinches your hip with his left hand, presses harder on your clit with his right thumb, “– she’s so fuckin’ tight for me.”

“Daddy, I’m…I’m gonna c…Oh, shit, I'm...”

Joel tips his head back, two beats of cocky laughter pushing from his chest. Even with your vision quickly blurring, your eyes rolling shut, you can still see the way his jaw flexes with it, the way his Adam’s apple bobs. Can hear the curve of the words, shaped by the smirk on his lips.

“You gonna come, baby? That what you’re tryna tell me?”

Your hips circle, body clenching around three thick fingers. “M-hm,” you force through gritted teeth.

“Fuck, pretty girl,” he growls, feeling your little cunt squeezing down to his knuckles. “That two now, or three?”

“Th-three.”

“Three,” he whispers, though you know he already fucking knew. He just wanted you to admit it. Wanted to watch as your lips twisted around an answer, struggled through your orgasm quickly approaching. “’n how long have we been alone?”

Your head tilts onto your shoulder, hands reaching down to clutch around his big wrist. You grip onto the strap of his watch, the cold glass face shocking your burning skin.

Joel laughs again, a hot breath of air across your lips, but he doesn’t slow the snap of his fingers, the circles of his thumb. He takes your jaw in his free hand and turns your ear to his lips, whispering, “Asked you a question, baby girl.”

“F-uh-ck,” you whine, hips beginning to give. “I don’t know, Daddy, I don’t –”

His teeth nip at your lobe, lips press into the skin under your ear. A low rumble, wet on your skin when he murmurs, “Ain’t even been ten minutes.”

There had been no recovery time between your first two orgasms. The first bled straight into the next – Joel and his fingers had drawn them from your body before the elevator had even delivered Martha to the lobby, you’re willing to bet.

She’d buttoned her coat, announced that she needed some fresh air – offered for you to join her, and then shook her head when you called back from Joel’s office that you were fine, thanks, Martha.

Maybe she’s onto the two of you. Maybe she knows all the signs of a secret work romance. Hell, maybe Joel’s done this before. You don’t fucking know.

Reason (and perhaps a smidge of desperate hope) convinces you otherwise. Still – you can’t remember the last time the woman left for lunch alone. Can’t remember the last time she gave you two peace in Joel’s office for more than ten minutes, without popping her head in to gossip or roll her eyes at the pair of you.

You hadn’t been up to anything when she was here, anyways – but it didn’t take long after hearing that sharp ding and the signature rattle of the doors announcing her departure, for Joel’s hands to find your waist.

He made some quip, like, Maybe she’s got her own secret man she’s off to see, and you hadn’t the time to come up with anything worth half a laugh before he pulled you into his lap and slipped his fingers up the inside of your thigh.

When did this become what you do, anyway, you wonder? Sneaking around behind your colleagues’ backs; feeling brave enough to slip a palm down your boss’s front and cup his fucking dick through his pants anytime he looks at you a heartbeat too long. Letting the guy spread your legs on the desk you’ve worked at for three years now; letting him kiss and lick and feast between your thighs.

When did this become normal?

He’s intoxicating. He’s all you fucking think about these days. I’m bored, tell me something funny. Can I sit here while you’re on that meeting? When can we fuck next? No one ever fucked me like you do.

“Fuck,” Joel grunts, wrist slowing as the edges of your vision blur. “Like that, baby girl?”

“Just – just like that,” you beg, hands gripping around his shoulders.

“She likes that, doesn’t she?” Joel utters, pulling you closer. “Come on, baby, give me one more.”

The world halts for a second, splits in two, and crashes back together, throwing you over the edge. You come with a pathetic whimper, folding over Joel’s body and rocking uncontrollably, gripping onto his hair to steady yourself.

His arm wraps around the small of your back, holding you down on his hand until you loosen again – his fingers soaked, glistening. He slips them out, rubbing your clit slowly with his middle finger.

“Fuck,” you breathe, reaching for his hand.

His fingers knot around yours, your release slippery and warm on his knuckles. He takes your jaw in his other hand, pulls you in, and slips his tongue across yours. Something wet and needy, something as meaningless as it is meaningful.

Something which beckons your hands to his belt, your fingers slipping behind the thick leather.

The moment is interrupted by an annoying ping from Joel’s phone discarded to the opposite side of the desk.

Blindly, still with his lips attached to yours, he reaches over and swipes it with one hand. He breaks apart the kiss to look down, blinking at the screen. “Oh, shit,” he says, flatly.

You lean over, one hand still lazily playing with his, squinting at the upside-down text thread. “What?” you ask, fiddling with the undone buttons of his shirt.

“Shit,” again, hissed and now…irritated. “Did you–? I didn’t ask you to book a table at Ricci’s, did I?”

“The Italian place?”

Joel nods, hurriedly.

You shake your head, slowly. A little confused. “Why? What’s…?”

“I’m meeting a client there this afternoon,” he mutters, shifting in his chair. The movement rocks you back and forth, but Joel keeps a hand on your hip to hold you.

A weight you know all too well brushes the inside of your thigh. You both clock it. And then you both ignore it.

“Goddamn it,” Joel groans. “There ain’t no chance that Martha…?”

Your head tilts. “You know damn well you don’t trust anyone with that shit but me. No, it’s not booked. You never asked. But it’s fine, just call ‘em. These places can always make room, Mr. Miller.”

Joel squints, jaw lifting when you drag your nose along it to kiss his neck. His rough beard scratches your nose and chin.

But he’s squinting, when you pull back. Half-turning away from you, one eye closed; mouth twisted in a dumb smirk.

“What?” you ask, frowning.

“You can’t do it for me?”

Your eyes roll. “You fucked up,” you fix the tousled strands of his hair back into place, “fix it. You’re a big boy.”

“Willing to pay you a little extra,” he offers, pulling your hips down against his crotch. “Generous amount.”

“Generous,” you echo, letting him drag your slick mess all over his black pants. Your fingers slip beneath his belt, loosening the fly of his pants.

He’s hard already – solid and heavy when your hand dips below his boxer shorts and wraps around his warm cock. Turned on just by the feeling of you around his fingers, the sight and sound of you unraveling in his lap.

He hisses quietly when you pull him free; smearing wet onto your fingers as you drag your fist up and down. And when you look back up, he’s not watching his cock in your hands. Not looking at the skin exposed by your tangled underwear, your skirt sitting almost as high as your waist.

He’s looking straight at you. Your fluttering eyelashes, your tongue dabbing at the wet forming along your bottom lip. His eyes shoot quick as lightning from one to the other. “Like playing with it, huh?” he asks quietly. “’s your favorite thing in the world.”

You grin. “Like it better when it’s…” you push yourself up, running his wide tip along the seam of your cunt, separating your folds and pausing right below your vagina, “…here.”

Joel’s hands push heavier on your hips – lowering you slowly and gently enough that you could stop him, but sure and steady enough that he knows you won’t dare to. He breaches your opening, intrusion enough to stop your breathing, and slips in.

It glides in so smoothly, so easily that you barely feel the stretch at first. Still soft and soaked from your third release, your body pulls him in – until it starts to hurt.

A tiny gasp from your lips and Joel holds his arms out, letting you clutch onto the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt. “Easy, easy,” he says, holding your elbows.

It’s only been a couple times. And as good as they were, you’re still not used to him. He’s still bigger than anyone you’ve ever had before; it still hurts just a little, anytime he pushes in.

But still, you smile bracing yourself now with two palms on his chest – his hair damp with sweat in little swirls on the skin below his clavicle. “Still not – callin’ them,” you pant, taking him halfway.

Joel clicks his teeth, studying your cheeky expression. “Be a big girl ‘n do it,” he whispers, eyes following the round trail of your fingers on his sticky chest. “Do it for your daddy.”

You look up at him, smirk tugging on the corners of your lips. “’n what if Daddy doesn’t deserve it? You – shit – you fucked up,” you repeat.

Joel’s hips lift from the chair, cock slipping deeper, painfully slow as it fills you all the way. When the coarse hair at his base meets your clit, your nails digging little curved marks into his skin, he smirks. “He feel like he don’t deserve it to you?”

“No,” you gasp suddenly, eyes screwing shut, “feels – feels so good, Daddy.”

“Uhuh. You gonna call the restaurant for him?”

Another splintered breath. He’s so fucking big, so uncomfortable when you’re sat on him like this. “Yeah,” you whine, “I’ll call ‘em, Daddy, please just…please…”

His chin lifts, lids flickering over inky eyes. “Ah,” he clips, still holding you up on his cock, “no begging. Not ‘til you call.”

And he drops his hips, holding you off his length as you shakily stand. He helps tug your skirt back into place, watches as you lean over him to reach for the phone.

You do your best to sound annoyed, covering the scratch marks of desperation in your voice when you ask, “What’s the number?”

Joel reads it out, standing up, too, and you rest your elbows on the desk, cracking your neck.

Some chipper voice answers the phone, belting down the line to thank you for your call and ask what he can do for you today. He’s too fucking enthusiastic, too distracting, and only when he pauses to check the system for any free tables do you notice the weight at your ass.

The cold of his belt buckle kissing the underside of your thigh, the peeling of your skirt up, up, up. Hands massaging your ass cheeks; then one cupping between your legs to nudge your clit gently.

You jolt forward, a warped sound crying from your lips. The guy says, Pardon me, ma’am? and you stutter your way through a sentence in reply as Joel hooks your panties to the side.

“We’ve got…let’s see…” The host hums some stupid fucking tune, clicks his tongue against his teeth while you tug on the phone cord – unable to stop from stealing a glance over your shoulder and yet unwilling to give your boss the satisfaction of knowing you’re watching.

Joel pulls the belt free from its loops, drops it to the seat of his chair with a thud, and lines up right behind you.

You cover the microphone. “This what you wanted?” you hiss.

He hums. “You’re the one who bent over, darlin’.”

“Asshole.”

“Way to speak to your boss,” he grumbles, and shoves in.

“Christ,” you yelp, and the host pauses again.

“Um…We have one o’clock?” he asks, keyboard clicking in the background.

Your voice catches, body bouncing against the desk rhythmically. The wooden edge shunts roughly against your pelvis, bruises likely blooming already with the rate Joel’s going.

He bends forward, his right ear lining with the phone. “Say again?” he whispers.

“One,” you repeat.

Joel shakes his head. “Too soon. Ain’t hungry yet.”

“It’s twelve,” you mutter, teeth gritted, “you might be hungry in an hour.”

“Hm,” he considers, leaning back upright. “Maybe, long as I keep myself busy.”

He thrusts forward again, pulling you by the waist until you’re flush against his chest. His hands slip around to cup your breasts, squeezing and pinching and holding you still.

“Anything – later?” you ask down the line, switching the phone to the opposite ear to let Joel in at your neck. His teeth graze the skin, sharp pain when the blood vessels splatter streaks of crimson.

The host offers up a table at two-fifteen, which Joel seems to like the sound of, given the moan he lets free when you ask.

“Two-fifteen’s good,” you say, dropping the phone to the desk when your boss’s hand sneaks around your hip. “Joel,” you gasp, holding your voice at as low a volume as you can, “Joel, I swear to – Jesus Christ, you’re gonna –”

He’s laughing, playing with your clit as he fucks you, lips buried into the crook of your shoulder. “You my good girl?” he asks, bending your bodies forward. “Then book the goddamn table.”

“Ma’am?” the host’s asking, when you lift the phone to your ear again. “You still there?”

“Still – still here,” you breathe, flattening the whine in your voice. Joel’s starting to falter, starting to lose his rhythm. You can feel yourself beginning to tighten around him, give in to the pressure between your hips.

“What’s the name, ma’am?”

“Huh?”

Joel laughs, lips against your ear again. “Tell ‘im, pretty girl. Tell him who your daddy is.”

“My – fuck – M-Miller,” you reply, knees buckling. “Miller.”

“Alright, a table for two for…Miller…And that’s M-I-L-L–”

“–E-R, yep. Miller.”

“Good girl,” Joel pants against your temple, bristles of his beard grazing your cheek. He wraps one arm tight around your waist, clamping you against his body, the other still toying with your clit. Hips snapping roughly into yours, he whispers sharp in your ear, “I’m gonna come, darlin’, gonna fill you up real good, alright?”

“Can you wai–?”

“Alright, that’s you booked in, ma’am! We can’t wait to –”

“Great,” you choke back, falling forward with Joel at your back, “thanks. Thank you, we’ll see you – see you –”

Joel reaches over your shoulder and jams a thumb into the hook of the phone. “Fuck,” he groans, holding you steady as his cock throbs and a wet heat floods somewhere deep inside you.

The handset slips from your grasp, clattering against the desk as your body falls limp, your pussy jolting around him. His hands are the only thing keeping you steady, keeping you from melting into a puddle at his feet. A love-drunk sigh, the word Daddy spilling out into the room – the last thing before your breath cuts and he’s dragging you back down into the chair with him again.

Joel sinks back into the leather, sighing as he settles you again in his broad lap. He kisses you until you stir – lips soft against your temple, your cheek, your neck, to bring you back to him. His cock’s still stiff, half-limp and shining at the bottom of his stomach.

“’s a good girl,” he coos, letting you collapse against his chest.

Your cunt pulses, clenching around nothing; Joel’s come and yours trickling into your underwear.

“I hate you,” you whisper, playing with his hands.

“I know,” he mumbles into your skull, “bad boss.”

You breathe a laugh. “Who’s the client?”

“Mm,” Joel muses, adjusting in the chair, “nobody. Canceled on me last minute.”

He grins when you snap upright, head cocking. “Are you fucking kidding me? You just put me through all that for no goddamn reason?”

“Naw,” he protests, frowning, “I thought the two of us could go.”

There’s a softness to his face which dampens the fire in your belly as quickly as it ignited. Something genuine, something honest. You know him well enough by now to tell when he’s asking something of you, and not expecting it.

You feel your cheeks heat. “To lunch? Together?”

He shrugs. “Why the hell not? We’re going to Paris together.”

You blink at him, considering it. He’s not fucking wrong, is he? That same fire strikes again – only, a little further north, a little harder to control. It tickles your lungs, shaking the breath as you suck it in. You cover yourself with a blunt, “Martha’s gonna be pissed,” laced through as easy-going a sigh as you can manage.

Joel laughs, nodding. “I am sure she’ll get over it. Quiet office for the afternoon. Paradise.”

You smile, looking down at your hands clasped around one of his. You give his knuckles a small squeeze, and mutter, “You’re paying, Miller. And I’m ordering big.”

If not for the dark beard on his cheeks, and the sudden protective movement of his hand over them – if not for the fact that you’ve never in all your time here seen it happen…you’d swear the man was blushing.

“Okay,” Joel says, cheeks lifting. “Anything you want.”

#joel miller #joel miller fic #joel miller x reader #ceo!joel miller #ceo!joel #sugardaddy!joel miller #the last of us #the last of us fic #tlou #pedro pascal #joel miller smut #sex on fire

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ghost-proofbaby · 2 months

Note

15 with Eddie? :)

i woke up this morning, rolled over, and immediately wrote this all on my phone. wasn't even 8 am and i was already all mushy and horny for this man. enjoy whatever this is (morning sex. it's morning sex and being in love) <3

15. "I had a very nice dream that started like this."

warnings: smut, p in v, oral (f receiving), afab reader but no pronouns used, a lot of religious imagery idk why it just... worked?, not edited, 18+ so minors do not interact

pairings: eddie munson x afab!reader

wc: 2.9k+

join the smutty party! send me one of these smut dialogue prompts with a character

The sun hadn’t even rose yet. The sky simply lighter, a gentle omniscient light peaking through the curtains, holding little to no warmth yet when you first awoke. The room is shades of grey with hints of violet, soft pinks just on the horizon but not quite painting the scene.

It’s nice — it’s serene.

You can feel him breathing behind you. Still there, still warm, still holding you with one strong arm around your waist as his nose brushes at the nape of your neck, his snore rustling your hair ever so carefully. It’s almost enough to soothe you back to sleep; counting his deep intakes of air, exhaling in time with him, sinking deeper into bed sheets that are stained with the smell of his cologne and shampoo. Almost.

But when you first awake, you have a different idea in mind.

It starts off innocent enough. Small movements as you press yourself further back into Eddie, minuscule wiggles to just be close to him. You’re still half asleep and yet, every atom in your body is desperate to melt into him. You need every inch of his skin pressed tightly into yours. Your vision still blurry, but the instinct to burrow more tightly into your boy impossible to miss.

“I know you’re awake,” he suddenly murmurs into your neck, voice muffled and rough with his rest.

You hadn’t even noticed the change in his breathing. More focused on the ache between your thighs that you had woken up with.

“Sh,” you jokingly whisper, smiling as you force your eyes back closed. He can’t even see your face, but it feels right to put on an act, “You’re gonna ruin it, Munson.”

“‘M not ruining anything, baby,” he nearly slurs. His arm tightens around you, encouraging all your squirming, pulling your hips back to be flush with his a little more urgently.

He’s hard against your lower back. His flimsy boxers do nothing to hide his excitement. It isn’t particularly surprising — most mornings he wakes up hard as it is — but it does cause a soft stirring within you. Encourages your hips to swivel once more, action a bit more pointed, just enough pressure to cause a low groan to slip almost inaudible from between his lips.

“Careful,” he warns, voice a bit louder now. His tone is still gravely, scratching an itch of the farthest reaches of your mind. Somewhere between a cat’s purr and the sound of tires on dirt roads when your favorite person is returning home. Comforting. Serene.

You press into him further, shamelessly grinding now, eyes still shut, “What? ‘M not doing anything.”

He doesn’t need to see your voice to hear that sleepy grin.

It doesn’t happen quickly — there’s no rush as he slowly tugs at your body, encouraging you to rotate so that he’s no longer spooning you. Your back digs into the mattress holding the warmth of his body from the entire night, wrapping you up in a bliss that’s impossible to replicate. His smell, his warmth, his presence. You don’t think you’ll ever tire of mornings like this, especially not when you finally open your eyes to find him propped up on his elbow, looking down at you with half-lidded eyes and a half-smile that accentuates his left dimple.

He’s fucking beautiful. It takes your breath away.

“What’s got you so excited this morning, hm?”

The light has grown ever so slightly brighter, just enough as though it whispers, look at him. The room is still grey, but your boy is a vision of colors. Dark russet eyes with streaks of gold that the sun couldn’t compare to, chestnut hair that sticks up in all the wrong places from his slumber, skin that washes out in the pale winter morning and only makes the contrast of the soft fuchsias and violets blooming along his neck from the evening before more apparent. He’s softer than any sunrise, more relaxing than any bath he’s ever drawn for you, more calming than hearing your favorite song strummed out on muted guitar strings.

You love him. And that only really fuels your flames.

“I had a very nice dream,” you mumble, squinting up at him, bringing a hand up to his cheek. Your touch is delicate as you trace over his stubble, painting mindless patterns briefly before cupping the full side of his face and threading your fingertips into the edges of his hairline, “A very nice dream that started just like this.”

He rolls his hips against your side, peering down at you as he does so, letting you guide him closer until his lips barely brush yours.

You can hear birds chirping outside. There’s the rumble of a truck engine. The creak of a nearby front door opening and shutting.

The world is beginning to wake up, but you’re not quite yet ready to share the day with anyone but him.

“You did, did you?” he’s awake enough now to tease you, body slowly inching its way over yours, arms on either side of your head to hold his weight. The plush comforter slips down, exposing his bare shoulders as his torso serves as your new blanket, “Tell me ‘bout it, baby.”

Your legs fall open instinctively, making a home for him and only him. A space between your thighs perfectly carved out for the shape and weight of him as he slips into place, hips digging into yours, a homely and familiar position you’ve found yourself in a hundred times before.

It never gets old. It never elicits any less of a reaction from you, always pulling the softest of gasps from your throat as he leans his head down to trail his lips down your exposed neck.

The sound has him pulling you into him a bit more urgently, but his pace never quickens. He’s taking his time. You two have all the time.

A car alarm, distant as could be, sounds off. A voice of a neighbor echos across the trailer park.

Maybe it’s an adoring husband wishing goodbye to his wife for the day. Or a mother, rushing her children for school. There’s a million and one scenarios, thousands of strangers beginning their dreary week, but you only care about the warm welcome of the day that he offers you.

Anything but dreary, even in tired morning light.

“You were kissing my neck,” you say, careful to be as silent as can be, even if it were just the two of you in the room. The world doesn’t need to know you’re awake yet; it doesn’t deserve your attention like he does yet.

His teeth graze unintentionally against the soft spot below your ear, “Like this?”

“Just like that.”

For emphasis, you lift your hips, seeking out his with ease. You can feel him, pronounced as he presses against the thin fabric of your underwear. There’s too many layers between the two of you, too much cotton and linen in the shapes of his t-shirt you’d worn to bed and his damn boxers, but they’ll come off eventually.

Eventually. There’s no rush.

Your head tilts back in a sigh, and he pauses all his kisses to ask, “What next?”

“Keep going,” you squirm, hips continuing to roll, flames of desire lighting in your gut, dancing as soft as the morning light, “Keep going, please.”

The night before, he would have teased your desperation.

But right now, with just you and him and the ghost of sleep, he’s not in the business of taunting.

He listens, a hand coming down to your hip. Not holding it down to the mattress, but simply holding. He lets his thumb slip beneath the t-shirt, lets a rough callous built up from years of guitar and working on his van brush roughly over your skin with the most sensitive of intentions.

Slowly. If the morning wasn’t so heavy still on the two of you, weighing down every movement, slowing every reaction and pacing every adoring kiss, this is the part where the two of you might have grown a bit impatient. More nipping, more bruising gripping, more complaints of going further, further, further.

But today? In this moment? The two of you have time.

A dream sequence of his wandering hands slipping that old faded tee up until it’s finally bunched at your chest, until he’s finally peeling himself away from your body and he’s lifting it over your head. Every move is brimming with a love you never thought possible. A love to swim in, a love to sink into. One with the capability to drown the two of you, but it only breathes a new life into both of your lungs.

When his lips wrap around a nipple and your back arches, that love thrums a bit deeper, coiling up your insides and urging your fingers to tangle up into his curls.

You need him closer.

“So beautiful,” he whispers against your skin as he mouths at it, “So, so fucking beautiful.”

The back of your skull digs deeper into a pillow engrained with the shape of your head from years of rest, a soft laugh slipping in between your blissful breaths, “Don’t lie. I’m a mess right now.”

You were. And so was he. In a barely awake, subtle and tired way. Messy hair, messy marks of sleep across cheeks, messy breaths not yet minty from a morning routine the two of you followed like a religion.

His head lifts, eyes glowing in the limited light, “I like your mess. As a matter of fact, I love your mess.”

His hand on your hip squeezes for emphasis.

You look down, wordless as you drink him in. A vision between the pinks dancing through the curtains, a godly presence as the dawn breaks. He’s a salvation, a new beginning and a new ending. He’s everything fairytales had tried to convince you existed in your youth. Prettier than any angel, warmer than any sun.

And he’s yours. In this moment, and in all the next ones.

“I think I can make an even bigger mess of you, though, if you’ll let me,” a devilish smile finally overtakes his features and both of those dimples you’ve become so unintentionally fond of make an appearance.

He dips his head, lowers his voice, lets his lips explore. You nearly pray to the Heavens above as you feel his hand slip from its gentle cupping of your hip, moving to slip nimble fingers beneath the band of your panties — but you don’t. Not a single God would care about what’s happening right now.

Just two people, two souls, twisting up in their bed sheets. Finding each other, finding divinity, before the sun even has a chance to stretch its arms fully over the horizon.

When he sinks lower and his face disappears beneath the cloak of the comforter, you hold your breath. When his mouth finds your cunt over fabric, you release it with a moan.

“That’s it, baby,” he encourages, both hands pulling off your underwear, pressing a hard kiss one final time over the cotton before he slips them off, “Keep making those pretty noises for me.”

Your thighs drape over his shoulders, heels digging into his back as he begins his morning worship. All lips and tongue and finding the right places as fast as possible. Not out of a rush, but out of practice. He knows your body like the back of his hand, and he proves it.

He knows exactly how hard to suck on your clit once he’s captured it between his lips. He knows exactly where to trace his tongue, circling your hole in lazy circles, not quite teasing but not quite succumbing as he lets you buck your hips in reckless abandon. When to speed up, when to slow down, when to add a finger and when to let the gravel of his voice vibrate against your core — he knows you. Through every little whimper, through every soft chanting of his name, through every tug of his hair.

And he knows you well enough to know when to stop his ministrations, pulling back only to crawl his way back up your body, his boxers slipping off somewhere in the process.

You’re still all over his lips as he kisses you fervently, slick and sticky and a little tart as his tongue dives into your mouth.

And just as he knows you, you know him.

You’d lied, of course. You hadn’t really had a dream just like this. You can’t even remember how you’d awoken with such want, but all that mattered is you had. You’d woken up to an all-consuming need, even if your half-conscious state, and you’d woken up to him.

Your hand reaches down between the two of you, wrapping around him carefully. Your skin is still cooler than his, it’s always cooler than his in the dead of night, and he hisses at the content.

“I love you, you know?” you quietly confess to your lover, as though it might be a sin, as though it might be the greatest secret to ever be held on a patient tongue.

His skin is nearly velvet under your touch, pliant in your palm as you stroke him. Each movement and twist of your wrist begins to unravel him, his head dropping to the juncture between your shoulder and your neck. Every pant of his breath brushes skin just as his snores had.

Gold litters the shade of sunrise entering the room, but the only warm colors you care to entertain are the ones in his eyes as he finally looks at you and tugs your hand away.

“I love you more.”

You could argue. You could fight him on it, start to rattle off your list of all the things you adore about him, prove that no one has ever loved another person in this lifetime the way that you’ve loved him. The freckle below his right eye, the chip in on of his canines from an accident in his youth, the scar on his left knuckles from the first time he’d tried to do a trick with a butterfly knife at nine years old. The jokes he interrupts your day so kindly with, breaking up the mundane with laughter that seemingly fuels you to carry on with your time until you’ve returned home to just him. The passion that flows inside of him until it pours out over everything sacred to him — his music, his interests, his friends, you. A passionate and devoted man, yours to have and yours to hold.

But you don’t argue the point. You just smile as he kisses you, deep and searching, as he lines himself up with your entrance.

He loves you more, you love him most. He’ll figure it out — eventually.

The stretch of him is pleasurable, just like it always is. Filling you, warming you, making that closer you crave so ardently nearly tangible. Every roll of his hips has him reaching spots inside of you to elicit stars to cloud your vision. The morning light, the white hot pleasure — you don’t care what makes your vision blue. You only care that it does, all your mews and all his groans entangling up in the air.

Your palms slide over the back of his shoulders, your fingers dig into soft skin that you’ll spend the rest of your days memorizing.

Eddie. Eddie, Eddie, Eddie.

No prayer has ever been repeated with such need or belief as his name from your lips.

And he returns the favor. Gasping out your name, somehow finding himself just enough in his right mind to continue to whisper sweet nothings against your ear, timing them with his leisurely thrusts.

“So fucking tight and so fucking good to me,” he manages to gasp, digging his hips in a little harsher, “Could stay here forever. Kind of want to stay here forever.”

You don’t know how he’s coherent; you can’t form a single response, eyes rolling, hands clinging to him tighter.

“Look at me when you cum.”

He knows you. He knows you very well. You hadn’t even noticed that coiling in your stomach or the fluttering of your walls when he calls you out, forehead pressing to yours as your eyes open to find his.

It’s not world-shattering when the waves come — it doesn’t have to be. It’s something to wrap around your entire essence, something to soothe and something to coax you into oblivion. Something to get lost in as his movements stutter and his own eyes grow heavy.

He doesn’t close his eyes, and neither do you. Lost in that pleasure, and lost in each other.

You’re still rhythmically clenching around him when he comes, filling you up with warmth, burying deep in you and holding there as his mouth falls open and you're quick to pepper his outstretched neck with kisses. The smallest reminders of all the love you have for him. The gentlest of devotions, sprinkled across the skin of a man who will always know an affection like no other. Not everyone in the world will be so lucky as to know the fondness you offer him, and as far as you’re concerned, that’s how it should be.

Curses spill as his movements slow, before finally stilling. He drops his weight onto you, exhaustion finding its way back into his bones.

There’s things to do, a day to begin. Work and people waiting on you two, responsibilities to worry about and daily mundane accomplishments to achieve. But for now, it’s just the two of you. Awake with the rest of the world, but completely separate as you cradle him and he holds you.

“That was one Hell of a way to wake up, sweetheart,” he murmurs into your skin, and you only throw your head back in a laugh.

eddie's taglist: @capricornrisingsstuff @thisisktrying @hideoutside @vol2eddie @corrcdedcoffin @ches-86 @alovesongtheywrote @its-not-rain @feralchaospixie @cheesypuffkins87 @thebook-hobbit @babez-a-licious @eddies-acousticguitar @aysheashea @kellsck @cosmorant @billyhvrgrove-main @micheledawn1975 @eddiesxangel @siriuslysmoking @witchwolflea @tlclick73 @magicalchocolatecheesecake @mizzfizz @nanaminswhore @mikiepeach @ali-r3n @hawkebuckley @alwaysbeenfamous @darkyuffie-blog @vintagehellfire @lilmisssiren @elvendria @loveryanax @stylexrepp @princessstolas @fangirling-4-ever @eddiesguitarskills @babez-a-licious @josephquinnsfreckles

join my taglist!

#ghost's stories #smutty party #eddie munson #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson smut #i just really like the idea of waking up to eddie #especially like this #i wrote this half asleep so it might not be the best my brain wasn't really working #i just needed to write it out before work and before i got out of bed #the run on sentences in this one are strong

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nkogneatho · 1 year

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𝐁𝐋𝐔𝐄 𝐋𝐎𝐂𝐊 𝐃!𝐂𝐊 𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐘𝐒𝐈𝐒.

#emergency commissions!!

#mlist #taglist #liawot #whoreclub

—Characters- Isagi, Shidou, Nagi, Rin, Bachira, Barou.

—cw: gut clenching, deep, vulg@r analysis, gagging, choking, size kink, hex codes.

—A/n: You can hate me but you can't disagree with me on this. Writing this made my mum whoop my ass because the milk on the stove burnt while I was thinking about the color of Barou's cock.

Reblogs are highly appreciated.

𝐈𝐒𝐀𝐆𝐈 𝐘𝐎𝐈𝐂𝐇𝐈

code: #EBC4A7

Alright listen. Yoichi's dick is not too girthy, not too long. BUT, it's just perfect. It's 5.7 inch. The head takes up about an inch. It's not fat but rather a bit aligned with the body of his dick. It's perfect because he slides in so easily, your juices and the skin on his shaft creating noises that are nore lewd than your moans. He isn't really veiny but there are slight green traces visible. If you lick a stripe on it, you can feel the veins on your tongue. Yoichi loves the way you adore his dick. You know how his personality switches up so fast in the field when he scores? Yeah he feels the same shit when you have your eyes scan that perfection. He really has a pretty face and a pretty dick. Yoichi is proud of his size though. He doesn't care about having a big monster cock(eyeing bachira rn) because he still has you moaning, screaming, whimpering his name when he rails you after a win.

𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐃𝐎𝐔 𝐑𝐘𝐔𝐔𝐒𝐄𝐈

Code: #734125

Here me out. Shidou is just a little longer than average but fat asf. He really doesn't give to fucks about being longer because that fat meat??? That cock will slide in anyone and rewire their brain into loving his size. He is girthy, it looks like a big love sausage (not my words. that's what he calls it. Slut asf). You know when he is getting turned on, his dick does that spring thing where it slowly gets up until his mushroom tip has surpassed the trimmed hair on his crotch. You thought that shit only happens in porn but Mr. Shidpu Ryuusei from big dick community proved you wrong. Speaking of tips, Shidou's tip is fat, one shade lighter than his brown base. He has a pretty visible opening on it. You can always see the way his cum seeps out and falls on your face (if you are lucky enough to dodge the string of it reaching your lashes, blurring your vision because this mf always shoots it near your eyes) He does it on purpose btw.

𝐈𝐓𝐎𝐒𝐇𝐈 𝐑𝐈𝐍

Code: #F2BCA5

Oh boy!! Rin has a long one. We're talking about atleast 6.5 to 7 inches. Again the one where his length makes up for the girth. So what if it isn't fat? it's long enough for you to choke on it. It is frustrating because you always struggle swallowing him whole. Rin wants nothing but to hit the back of your throat while your lips atleast brush against his balls but it is impossible to do so without gagging. He knows it, but he'llnevwr show that smug expressionon his face. Instead he's awarding himself for making you gag on it, internally. He always needs to guide you to it. His dick is like a lighter peach color, but the tip is pink. Again the tip isn't what is big but the body of his cock. You have to have a hand at the base to make sure you are stimulating his whole shaft while giving him head.

𝐍𝐀𝐆𝐈 𝐒𝐄𝐈𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐎

Code: #F2CDC2

Nah cuz Nagi really won. He us another guy who's dick is as pretty as him. Like we're talking about immaculate facial feature and a beautiful dick??? *Chefs kiss* Now about the size, it looks the right size, right? But you're proven wrong because he is one of those guys who gets bigger as he is more turned on. You underestimate him, thinking you can take him, but tears brim your eyes when you find his tip kissing the spot, and he isn't even fully in yet. AND HE HAS THE NEVER TO SMILE AS YOU STRUGGLE TO TAKE HIM IN. He isn't even mocking you. That's just Nagi Seishiro's amused expression. Again Nagi has a pretty similar tip as a Isagi. It isn't a big mushroom tip but a bulge that softens as it follows the lines on the cock. Sei has a color somewhat similar between a pink and peach, with a cooler undertone.

𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐀 𝐌𝐄𝐆𝐔𝐑𝐔

Code: #EEC0A2

Haha all the best y'all. He is one of those guys who looks short but has a monster cock hidden inside his pants. He is so casual about it though for what??? Like sir hello?? I can see that dick print through the sweats. Bachira never flexed about his size. He didn't care and thought it never mattered. It's so funny that he gets confused when you widen your eyes when he is out of the shower ALL NAKED, and you have to witness it all hard, fat and sprung up becaus ehe was in there thinking about you. He has very visible veins on his cock. You can the dark and light green lines on them. Despite having a big dick, Bachira makes sure to ease it in you. He has a fished-mouth tip, flushed rose pink color, and he cums a lot. I am talking thick ropes spurting on your stomach when he pulls out.

𝐁𝐀𝐑𝐎𝐔 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐄𝐈

Code: #FCDDC7

I am being biased here but I couldn't give two shits about it because I know y'all will agree. Listen. HORSE COCK BAROU. You know it bitch. Don't deny. He is biiig. You thought he was fucking around when he said he has a big package but DAMN. Homeboy wasn't lying when you saw him in the locker room for the first time, with a boner that surpasses his belly button. You gulp down after a while of hanging your jaw open with awe. Barou had thick veins baby. Dotted condom who??? We have Barou with them thick veins that pleasure you the way no mfing condom can. He also has fat balls which means now you get why he has the balls to call others donkey and that king complex shit of his. About his tip? Yeah it takes up about 1.5 inches of his cock, and pops out like champagne cork when he pulls out of you.

Thank you for coming to my TEDtalk. I am your host, pasi. REBLOG REBLOG REBLOG for part 2

Tagging: @milophiliac @satorhime @witchofoe @gojoest @tetsuclez @pu-re-love @sugardaddyreo @loml-riri @aztecbrujeria @his-saiko

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anthonsgi · 10 months

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★’･ﾟ:｡･:*:HSR Men random bf!headcanons:｡･:*:･ﾟ’★

【Note: Hello! I have decided to write short headcanons for a few men in this game [playable only, sorry Oleg simps (*_ _)人], excuse any fluency errors, English isn't my first language, and I am still learning as I go! Please enjoy, and don't hesitate to request anything; I'm open to suggestions!】

【Pairings: Dan Heng, Gepard, Jing Yuan x GN!READER】

【CW: none!】

☆〜DAN HENG〜☆

He enjoys your company even if you two aren't speaking; simply being aware of your presence near him when he's focused on something insignificant, like reading a book, relaxes him.

Definitely has a soft spot for you and lets go of his usual cold and reserved demeanor when you two are alone.

There have been a few instances of him unconsciously beaming at you as he got lost in thought, looking at your excited face while you rambled about something you're passionate about. He'd never admit to it, though, if you called him out on it.

Prefers to be the big spoon mainly because he loves the feeling of your back pressing against his chest when your breathing slows as you fall asleep.

However, he appreciates it if you ask to be the big spoon whenever he has a nightmare or one of his visions.

He has little relationship experience [renheng ＼(º □ º l|l)/], so as committed as he is to making you feel loved and appreciated, he searches the data bank in the archives for information on romantic gestures and comes across a book about the significance of pet names. After "educating" himself more, he may refer to you as "my love," "darling," or even "baby" if he's feeling particularly lovey-dovey.

Dan Heng isn't a jealous boyfriend; nevertheless, if something bothers him, he becomes touchy! Always holding your arm or wrapping his hand around your waist.

Haven only just awakened, he's such a sleepy cutie! He'd try to kiss you but miss and peck your chin instead.

☆〜GEPARD〜☆

He's an exceptionally blushy guy, and it's pretty simple to make him flustered. Just hold his hand, and he'll melt.

No matter how long you've been together, Gepard loves to kiss but will never do it without getting your consent first. His kisses are short and gentle, but they are also tender and reassuring, given that he frequently cups your face in his hands.

Even though this guy evidently struggles to keep his plants alive, he will make every effort to grow a lovely flower as a gift for you.

He attracts kids like a magnet; some of them aspire to be captains like him, and it's the cutest thing ever to see him grow nervous as they shower him with compliments and questions.

Sometimes he'd find you asleep on the couch, and he'd pick you up bridal style and carry you to bed carefully so as not to wake you.

Oftentimes, Gepard's responsibilities prevent him from spending time with you, but he always strives to make up for it.

Used a cheesy pickup line once and never tried it again after feeling the second-hand embarrassment.

He always looks for a way to impress you with his strength.

☆〜JING YUAN〜☆

His duty as General usually keeps him occupied with work stuff, so when you pay him a visit during the day, he'll light up almost instantly and he'll be in a good mood.

You have to constantly kick him (gently or with force depending on how much sleep he has robbed you of) so he can turn to the other side and stop snoring.

When writing about his day in his diary, he always mentions the instances where something reminded him of you. (Spoiler alert: the majority of his day description is him adoring your facial features).

Jing Yuan's kisses are typically quick, although if he's feeling exceptionally touch-deprived, he prefers deeper, longer kisses.

If you decide to move in with him, it will be incredibly domestic; you would prepare each other's favorite drinks and meals just the way you like them without needing to ask, and you will share each other's clothes and accessories on a daily basis.

Routine, even if secure, can be exhausting, and he finds himself trapped in one. Therefore, Jing Yuan appreciates it when you try new things with him and make him feel like he can breathe freely again. Without worrying about any boring responsibilities, just you and him spending time together. Those are his most treasured moments.

He's very protective of you. Secretly that is. It might seem that he's not that bothered by the times you may have spent a while longer on an errand or went exploring, but he's actually worried! Sometimes to the point of sending someone to go look for you, just to be sure you're all safe and sound.

Has asked you to massage his back on multiple ocassions after a particularly tiring day.

#honkai star rail x reader #honkai star rail x male reader #dan heng x reader #dan heng x y/n #dan heng x you #dan heng x gender neutral reader #dan heng x male reader #gepard x you #gepard x male reader #gepard x reader #gepard x gender neutral reader #jing yuan x you #jing yuan x male reader #jing yuan x y/n #jing yuan x reader #honkai star rail x gender neutral reader #honkai star rail x female reader #honkai star rail #honkai x reader

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proxima-writes · 6 months

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pairing: tommy miller x waitress!female reader

rating: explicit (18+ MDNI)

word count: 2.9k

summary: what if joel didn’t answer tommy’s call from jail? and what if the waitress he’d been defending that night bailed him out instead?

author’s note: a brief tommy interlude inspired by a line from taylor swift’s song “slut!”. i hope you enjoy and if you do, please consider reblogging or commenting! 🩵

tags/warnings: explicit sexual content (18+ MDNI), no outbreak au, no use of y/n, reader gets harassed by a drunk bar patron and physically grabbed, bar fights, mentions of alcohol, friends to lovers, tommy smoking cigarettes, i gave tommy an insane amount of game and for what reason, thigh riding, semi-public sex, car sex, vaginal fingering, unprotected p in v, dirty talk, pet names, creampie. if i’ve missed any, please let me know!

“You’ve reached Joel Miller. Sorry I can’t come to the phone right now…”

“Son of a bitch,” Tommy hisses. The voicemail tone beeps and he continues with, “Joel, answer your goddamn phone. I’m at county. And no, it ain’t my fault. Just…get here when you can, I guess.”

He hangs up the receiver, head low. The officer watching him clears his throat.

“C’mon, Miller. Back to the tank,” he says. Tommy sighs.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m comin’, Chuck.”

Tommy drags his feet across the dingy linoleum. His jaw aches from a sloppy right hook that managed to hit its mark and his eyes burn thanks to the unforgiving drunk tank fluorescent lights. There are two other people in the cell with him this evening — a man who reeks of vodka slumped in the corner in a wrinkled suit and another man who is staring solemnly at a spot on the floor as he tries not to topple over.

Tommy takes a seat on the long concrete bench and stretches his legs out, crossing them at the ankles and folding his hands over his stomach. He might as well get comfortable, there’s no telling when his brother might check his voicemails. As he sits his thoughts drift to what even landed him here in the first place.

Tommy watches you as you approach the bar, a frown tugging at the corners of your lips. You tap the service machine, entering an order with more force than strictly necessary.

“Everythin’ alright?” He asks. You glance at him.

“Yeah, just some group of assholes over by the darts table that think cleavage is an invitation,” you reply. “It’s an invitation for tips. Not hands.”

“You need me to step in?” He offers. You wave a hand at him but your frown turns into a bright smile.

“No, no, I can handle it. Thank you, though, Tommy.” You slide another bottle of beer across the bar. “Here you go.”

“Thanks, darlin’,” he says with a wink. “You let me know if you need savin’.”

“Always such a gentleman.”

The bell to the kitchen window rings and you leave to pick up the order. Tommy watches the sway of your hips in your low rise jeans that hug your ass just right, wondering what it would be like to peel them off and get his hands on the soft skin underneath.

He’s watching the fight on the TV above the bar when he hears a glass shatter behind him. He turns toward the sound, thinking that maybe someone had gotten too rowdy and knocked their glass off the table, but instead he sees you struggling against the hold of a man who’s pulled you onto his lap.

“Let go!” You shout, kicking your legs.

“Come on, sweetheart,” the brute says, arms wrapped around your waist. “Just one lil kiss is all I’m askin’ for!”

Tommy is out of his seat with red in his vision, hands curled into fists that are begging for a target. Other patrons watch with interest, and he’s not sure if he’s angrier at the man putting his hands on you or the crowded room of people not bothering to help.

“Get your fuckin’ hands off of her,” he barks, the same tone he developed after years of service in the Army.

The man releases you, the sudden loss of support causing you to slide to the ground with a shout of surprise. Tommy moves to help you up but the asshole stands, blocking him and shoving his shoulders.

“This don’t involve you, pretty boy,” the man snarls. Behind him, you’ve managed to get up and you hurry away from the scene. “Mind your fuckin’ business.”

“It became my fuckin’ business as soon as she said no and you didn’t listen,” Tommy says, straightening his shoulders. The man laughs and looks back at his friends.

“This fuckin’ guy,” he slurs. “Defendin’ some whore waitress.”

Throw the first punch, Tommy thinks. Come on, asshole.

The man focuses his attention back on Tommy, stepping close enough that they’re toe-to-toe now. He’s maybe an inch taller and he tilts his chin to stretch that inch as far as it will go and he’s breathing through his nose like a bull about to be released from its holding.

“Get out of my fuckin’ face,” Tommy says. The man laughs, the stench of beer pouring from him. A fist cracks across Tommy’s jaw and he stumbles backwards from the force of it.

Showtime, he thinks.

“Miller!” An officer calls out, yanking Tommy from his thoughts. He looks up and the officer jerks his head towards the door. “You made bond. Come get your stuff.”

Tommy stands, relief flooding him. Joel must have finally check his voicemail. At least he won’t have to spend the whole night in here.

“‘Bout time you showed up,” he says as he enters the lobby while he tries to thread his belt through his jeans at the same time.

“Sorry, had to finish my shift,” you reply. His head snaps up in surprise, task forgotten as you wave your fingers at him.

“What’re you doin’ here?” He asks.

“You said your brother was busy tonight, so I was worried you might not have someone to bail you out,” you tell him with a shrug. “Besides, you’re in here because of me. It’s the least I could do.”

Tommy laughs. “Ain’t your fault, sweetheart.”

“Thank you, by the way. Guess I did need saving, after all.”

“You could’a handled him fine. I just sped up the process.”

He’s staring at you now, gaze caught with yours as you give him a soft smile. Tommy spots the time on the clock hanging on the wall above your head.

2:32 a.m.

“You wanna get breakfast?”

The diner Tommy directs you to boasts a neon sign that advertises twenty-four hour breakfast. The booths have cracked red vinyl and the menus are faded from use but you can read it well enough to order French toast while he orders chocolate chip pancakes with a side of hash browns. He builds pyramids out of the coffee creamer cups while you talk and talk and talk. You laugh as he drowns his food in syrup and you steal a bite of them despite giving him a hard time about it.

Afterwards, as you walk together to your car, your palms are a little clammy and your heart pounds the slightest bit faster. You’ve had the biggest crush on Tommy since the first time he slid onto a bar stool at your shitty bar and ordered a Miller Lite (“It’s funny ‘cause it’s my last name!”). He’s always polite, never leaves a mess, and makes you laugh even when you’re having a tough night.

"You alright? You got quiet," Tommy says. You swallow nervously.

"Yeah, I'm totally fine," you reply. He looks like he doesn't want to believe you but he doesn't press for more.

"You mind if I have a smoke before we go?"

"That's fine."

He digs a crumpled box of Camels from his back pocket, sliding a cigarette out and bringing it to his lips. He pats his thighs and then his chest in search of his lighter, finding it in the pocket of his button up shirt. Metal Zippo lighter finally in hand, he flicks it open and brings it closer to his face, flickering flame casting an orange glow over his features.

He breathes in as the cigarette catches the flame and closes the lighter with a quick snap, exhaling the smoke with the cigarette still held between his lips. Lighter tucked away, he inhales again and pinches the filter of the cigarette between two fingers to pull it away and exhale the smoke into the air.

“You gotta quit lookin’ at me like that,” he says. “You keep watchin’ my mouth and it makes me want to do somethin’ real stupid.”

You lean against your car and he steps close. He smells like a mix of smoke and syrup and sweat, three things that shouldn’t have your pulse pounding and yet combined with the way Tommy’s dark eyes focus on you and the dimple in his cheek as he smirks, you don’t stand a chance.

“More stupid than getting in a bar fight?” You finally ask.

“That wasn’t stupid. Got me here with you, didn’t it?” He inhales another lungful of smoke and tips his head back to exhale. “You gonna let me kiss you?”

You smile at him, lifting your hands to smooth your palms over his chest. His cheeks turn a faint shade of pink that trails down his neck, disappearing beneath the white tank top he wore beneath an unbuttoned pink shirt.

“That’s your big stupid idea? Just kissing me?”

Another drag from his cigarette, another smirk, a hand on your hip as he shuffles closer. “Mm, to start.” He brings his lips close to your ear, warm breath tickling your skin as he murmurs, “You didn’t answer the question.”

“What question?”

“You—“ a kiss beneath your ear “—gonna—“ another to your jaw “—let me—“ a third to your cheekbone “—kiss you?”

“Yeah, Tommy. You can kiss me,” you whisper. He wastes no time, greedy lips pressed to yours as soon as he gets the green light. His tongue explores your mouth and tangles with yours, leaving behind the taste of pancakes and smoke.

A thigh presses between your legs, a new pressure and friction that you explore with a tentative roll of your hips. That hand on your waist urges your movements — forward and back at a slow and steady pace. He pulls back from your kiss and brings the cigarette to his lips.

“So goddamn pretty,” he whispers, smoke spilling from his mouth and disappearing into the night air. “Pretty as a fuckin’ picture.”

He flicks the butt of his cigarette to the ground and then he’s on you with renewed purpose, kissing you deeply with a broad palm to your cheek, tilting your face to the best angle to devour you. When he’s gotten his fill of your mouth, his hungry lips slide across your jaw and down your neck, teeth digging in roughly against your pounding pulse and making you gasp.

“Hush, sugar,” he says, a reprimand with little heat as he smiles against your skin. That hand on your waist has found the fly of your jeans, deft fingers working the button open and the zipper down. “You want a little more attention?”

“Mhm,” you reply, nodding your head quickly. He slips his hand beneath the elastic of your panties, quickly swirling over your needy clit. He lets out a deep groan, one that has you clenching on nothing and desperate for more.

“God, you’re fuckin’ soaked,” he says. He presses two thick fingers to your tight entrance. “You can take it, right?”

He doesn’t wait for an answer before pressing them inside, the tight pressure making you rise up on your toes in surprise. He’s got a limited range of movement thanks to your jeans but he still manages a sloppy grind of his palm to your clit and curl of his fingers that has you squirming as your release builds inside of you.

“You want more, baby?” Tommy asks, dark eyes a little wild and desperate. “You feel so good in my fingers, I just know you’d take my cock so fuckin’ good.”

“Tommy,” you pant, your hands clutching at his shoulders. “Oh, fuck, I’m gonna cum.”

He yanks his hand from your jeans and before you can complain, he’s opening the back passenger door and urging you into the back seat of your sedan.

“Pants off,” he demands as you shuffle across the seats. He sits beside you and starts to unbuckle his belt. “If you’re gonna cum, it’s gonna be on my cock.”

His words have you scrambling to remove your boots and pants, graceless movements in the cramped space. Your elbow connects with his ribs and he hisses as you giggle, wiggling your pants and underwear off. It’s dark in the car, dim light from the parking lot filtering in the windows enough for you to catch the smile on Tommy’s face.

“C’mere,” he drawls, patting his thighs. He’s freed his cock from his jeans and you admire the thick length of him for a brief moment before obeying, straddling his lap. You drag your wet pussy over him, twin groans filling the still air of the car as you do. His hands flex against your thighs and his head tips back against the seat. “Fuck, you feel so damn good.”

It’s not the most comfortable encounter you’ve ever had, with your neck bent so that you don’t hit your head and your skin already slick with sweat from the cramped space and the Texas heat but, heaven help you, the look on Tommy’s face makes it worth it. You reach between your bodies and wrap your hand around him, holding him still as you position him at your entrance.

“Oh, fuck,” you hiss as you lower yourself, your eager cunt adjusting to him with only the slightest pinch of pain that quickly transforms into a delicious fullness. “Oh my god,” you whimper.

“You can just call me Tommy,” he teases, but his voice is just as wrecked as yours. You rise up slightly on your knees and drop down sharply, a satisfied smile on your face when his laughter morphs into a choked curse and his hands grip your hips tightly.

His fingers find the hem of your shirt and lift it up only enough to expose your bra, the cups of which he roughly pulls down until he’s able to get his hands on your breasts, groping you roughly. You moan as his lips wrap around one pert nipple, tongue swirling over the sensitive flesh and light dragging his teeth across it.

The windows grow foggy and your skin starts to get slick with sweat the longer you work yourself over his cock. It’s messy and dirty and uncomfortable, your thighs burn and your neck aches, but Tommy’s making it his goal to get his lips on any skin he can reach, whispered praises between each bite and kiss that has your head growing fuzzy and your core getting tight.

“Feel so good, darlin’,” he groans. “Goddamn, I need you to cum, baby. You were so close before, weren’t ya? I can get you there again, right?”

You nod, mouth open in a silent moan. He presses his thumb to your bottom lip, slipping it experimentally over your teeth until it presses against your tongue. You suck on the digit, reveling in the way his eyes roll back and he groans, hips flexing to meet yours and making you cry out.

“‘M so close, Tommy,” you whisper when he withdraws his thumb from your mouth.

“Yeah, I can feel it, sweetheart,” he growls. When you lift up he holds your hips steady, suspended above his lap. He pounds into you from below, rough slaps of his hips that make you press a hand to the ceiling of the car to steady yourself against the onslaught of sensation. “Come on, baby, come on,” he says through gritted teeth.

It’s the dark look in his eye and the flex of his jaw, the shimmer of sweat on his light tan skin and the feel of his fingers digging bruises into your hips, the lewd noises and the desperate moans against each others mouths that all combine to shove you over an edge you’d been balancing on since, if you’re being honest, he rushed over to help you back at the bar. You bite into his lip as your orgasm crashes over you, his sloppy thrusts and the heat blooming inside of you telling you he reached his peak as well.

You slump forward, panting heavily against Tommy’s neck. His head tips back against the seat, chest heaving with his own labored breaths. His fingers draw patterns against your sweaty back.

“I feel gross,” you groan. Tommy laughs.

“Sure know how to make a guy feel good about himself, don’t ya?” He teases.

“I just meant I’m all sticky.”

“Mm, don’t worry. You can take a shower at my place.”

You pull back to look him in the eye. He’s sporting a satisfied grin as you raise your eyebrows at him. “Oh yeah? You taking me home, Miller?”

“Sure am.” His confident look falters the slightest bit. “I mean, if you want.”

You kiss him, slow and sweet.

“Yeah. I want that.”

The loud ringing of a phone breaks through Tommy’s slumber. He reaches out a hand from beneath the sheets and blindly finds the offensive device amongst the clutter on his nightstand.

“What,” he groans when he’s managed to flip it open.

“Tommy! What the hell, man,” Joel snaps. “I just got your voicemail. Left my phone upstairs and fell asleep on the couch. Are you alright?”

“What?” Tommy asks again. Joel sighs.

“You called from county and said you’d gotten arrested. I called ‘em this morning and they said you got bailed out. One of your friends come by or somethin’?”

Tommy glances over to you, where your bare shoulder peeks out from the sheets, the fabric draped across your curves. He smiles.

“Yeah, a real good friend. Guardian angel, even,” he says.

Another sigh from Joel, this time one of relief. “Well, good. Quit gettin’ into trouble after ten, I can’t stay up that late anymore.”

“Sure,” Tommy agrees. You turn over, sleepy eyes blinking up at him. “I gotta go.”

He hangs up without waiting for a goodbye. You scooch closer and lay your head on his chest.

“A guardian angel, huh?” You ask. He kisses the top of your head.

“Yep. Saved my ass from the wrong place at the right time.”

Masterlists available here!

#tommy miller x female reader #tommy miller x reader #tommy miller #tommy miller tlou #tommy miller x you #tommy tlou #tommy miller x f!reader #tommy miller x y/n

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verbenaa · 1 month

Text

to bask in your warmth

𝑠𝑢𝑚𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑦:

“I’m not the only one who would look lovely with ribbons around my wrists, you know.” Your eyes flick up to his own as you wet your lips at the thought—dear, sweet Astarion writhing below you with the same rosebud hue tracing his wrists to keep him pinned as he is able to do nothing but accept the love and pleasure you have to give him.

“Something you think about often, hm?” His lips quirk up in amusement, his eyes finding your own as he basks in the heat from your warm body tucked into his side, thinly veiled interest present in his gaze.

✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧⋄⋆⋅⋆⋄✧

𝑝𝑎𝑖𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔: Astarion/F!Reader

𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑟𝑒: smut, fluff, slice of life!

𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡: 7.5k

𝑤𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠: soft fem dom, light bdsm, switch Astarion, use of restraints, body worship, oral sex (male and female receiving), 69, lingerie, face sitting, anal play, anal fingering, double penetration (in two holes), p in v sex, multiple orgasms

MDNI, 18+ CONTENT

𝑎/𝑛: hello hello, this is likely the filthiest thing I've written thus far? idk, but it sure feels like it! this is technically a sequel to another fic of mine (so that i may dream tonight), but you don't have to read it first to enjoy this! I always attempt to write these so that they can be enjoyed individually or as a little series <3. I hope you enjoy and let me know your thoughts! I appreciate and love you, dear readers!!!

ao3 here

masterlist

You peek out from between the small breaks in the painted wood of the partition screen, eyes on Astarion where he lays upon your shared bed—looking quite comfortable, all things considered.

“Darling, how much longer are you going to make me wait?” You can see the mercurial impatience building in the slight downwards tilt of his brows as they move low across expressive crimson eyes, his breath leaving him in an impatient huff as he shifts the tiniest bit on the blankets.

“Patience, Astarion.” You adjust the slip once more around your figure, making sure the rosy silk sits perfectly across your curves, the soft lace falling just above where the matching lace garter rests high on your thigh.

It was a delicate thing, the slip. Astarion had made it for you some weeks ago, every measurement perfectly tailored to caress your every curve as it falls to the tops of your thighs, delicate lace trim tickling the skin there with every move you make.

What lay underneath the dainty slip, though, was a surprise. You had tried so very hard to find the perfect set of lingerie, making sure the color matched as closely as possible to the same pink of the ribbon that had once wrapped around your wrists in bows, keeping you bound in place to the bed.

The words come back to you in a warm rush, the memory still fresh in your mind despite the weeks that have since passed.

Still in that delicate haze of your earlier lovemaking, the pink ribbons no longer tied to the bed but resting on the night table instead, your head laying on Astarion’s chest as your body is pressed in close to his own.

“I think about everything when it comes to you.” You seal the words with a quick kiss to his lips as you brace yourself against his chest.

With one last breath you step out from behind the partition, eyes falling to Astarion as you take in the vision of him tied up with that same perfect, pink ribbon.

He reclines on the bed, the worn softness of the linen blankets brushing across the bare skin of his back as his arms flex against their bonds, testing them from where they extend to either side of the bed, each tied lovingly with perfect, pretty bows around his wrists.

Astarion looks divine like this, his lean figure perfect as he lays there naked, his skin ethereal within the dim light of the room as the finest of silver moonbeams shine onto the floorboards.

“Like what you see?” His eyes rove your own figure as you speak to him from across the room, a hunger evident in his eyes as he looks you from head to toe, taking in the fine silk and lace of the slip that covers precious little of your form.

“How could I not?” You smile with painted lips at Astarion’s reply as you make your way to the bed with slow steps, letting Astarion’s eyes capture the sway of your hips as you near the foot of the bed.

With a smooth motion you glide onto the luxurious linens, moving on hands and knees as you kneel over Astarion’s form, the silken slip brushing over his uncovered skin as you slowly move over him.

You feel more than see the subtle twitch of him as the silk flutters against his length as you hover just above him, careful not to let your body touch his own as you make your way over him.

“If you can be good, maybe I’ll even let you see what I have on underneath.” You keep your words light, playful even as you give him a wink; you have no real intention of keeping much of anything from him tonight and you certainly have no punishments planned.

No, you would worship him as much as he was willing to let you. Prove your love and appreciation of his trust to allow you to bestow this pleasure upon him.

There’s another telltale twitch of his growing erection as you finally make your way to where his head lays on the pillow, your hands pressing into the bed on either side of silver curls as you hover there, looking down on him.

“I have to say, Astarion, you look so very beautiful like this.” You lean your head down towards his own, the tip of your nose brushing down the side of his cheek as you make to whisper into his ear, lips brushing absentmindedly against his skin, a small shiver making its way through his body at the tiniest semblance of touch from you.

It was tantalizing to be in control like this, to have Astarion tied up beneath you and at the mercy of your whims and desires. But it was a careful balance, one you were so deeply and intimately aware of—the many implications of Astarion’s trust in you, that you would never stray too far beyond his comfort level; the fact that Astarion has even given you a chance to have such power over him at all may be the most important detail of it all.

You lower your body down to rest on his, silk against cool skin, as your hands move to run through his hair in soothing motions. Astarion’s eyes search the features of your face, waiting for further instruction as his legs widen beneath you, welcoming your weight between them as your stomach presses against his own.

“Astarion,” His name on your lips captures his attention, his eyes snapping to your own. “You have to promise me that you will use your word if you need to.”

You watch as the weight of your words fall upon him, Astarion nodding in agreement as a familiar affection fills his gaze.

“You have my word, dearest.” Astarion gives you the smallest of smiles as you lean down to press your lips to his own, sealing the promise with a kiss.

Astarion’s lips press back against your own, your lashes fluttering shut as you bask in the feeling of it. You lean back only slightly, just enough for you to lick at his bottom lip, asking for entry. Astarion obliges, opening his mouth to you as you meet him, your tongue swirling with his own as you deepen the kiss.

With the slightest motion you move back to take his bottom lip between your teeth, nipping it lightly, enjoying the small sound he makes in response as you begin to move your lips down his elegant jaw, your kisses hot against the coolness of his skin as you head towards the line of his neck.

You settle back onto your knees, your weight pushing off of him as you nip at the skin below his ear, tiny little bites that serve to only make him shiver in response to the feeling of your teeth against his skin.

With the tiniest of kisses, you make your way up the shell of his ear, careful to keep the touch light. He’s always so sensitive here, the delicate point an easy target for you to begin your little plan of worship.

You kiss up to the very tip, the warmth of your breath and the soothing touch of your lips has Astarion letting out a gasp underneath you as his body tenses, the ribbons pulling taut as you give him another soft nip. Astarion groans as you soothe a kiss to the bite, and you don’t have to look back to tell how hard he must be already, even with such little touch from you.

He always was so very susceptible to your attentions, once he let you in, once he trusted you enough to allow you to shower him with the affection.

You smile against his skin as you kiss down the other side of his ear and onto his cheek once more before slowly moving lower, mouth dragging down his neck and onto the sharp collarbones of his chest.

“Your skin is so pretty, Astarion. So soft and smooth…” You nuzzle into the side of his throat as you bring your hands up to caress over the planes of chest, brushing over hardened nipples that have nothing to do with the cool air of the room.

Astarion gives you another one of those delectable little gasps as your lips continue downward, strands of your hair brushing against his bare skin as the heat from your mouth makes its way to his nipple.

“Everything about you is pretty though, isn’t it?” You look up at him under lowered lashes, letting your head rest on his chest as you pause your ministrations.

“Well, I certainly like to think so.” Astarion says with his usual air of haughtiness, despite the hardness of his cock bobbing beneath you and those elegant hands of his still bound in pink ribbons.

“I’m quite tempted to agree.” You flash a devilish smile at him for only a moment, before turning your head back down to the open expanse of his chest to lick at his nipple with a flattened tongue.

Astarion moans at the unexpected sensation, his eyes closing in pleasure as his head tilts back against the pillow, the line of his throat exposed. The sight of him brings a flush to your cheeks that runs to the tip of your ears, your own arousal heightening at the obvious bliss that decorates his features.

You bury your face against his chest, kissing and nipping and licking at him while your other hand comes up to give his other nipple attention as well, just as you know he would to you.

Astarion’s sharp little gasps and moans, the bucking of his hips into the space between where yours still rest elevated above him, the sight of his hands flexing against the ribbon binding his wrists is all such a sight—one that you burn into your mind, a memory to be kept and held for the rest of your life.

It was such a gift, to be able to give him the same attentions he so frequently showers your body with, to worship him in such a way beyond your usual loving and affectionate words or gestures. The feeling of the trust that you know stretches both ways giving you a high that is indescribable.

Lips move, kissing their way to his other nipple to give it the same attentions, your hand tracing teasing lines along his abdomen—lower, but certainly not as low as Astarion would like.

His back arches off the bed ever so slightly, your fingers teasing on his hip as your mouth continues its work, his noises only fuel to the fire building between your thighs.

You move down his body with aching slowness, marking the lines of his body with kisses pressed to his skin—the expanse of his chest, the soft lines of definition of his muscles, the dip of hips as you make your way to a destination that waits eagerly for your attention.

You kneel between his open legs, careful to avoid any touch on his erection as it rests against his stomach, bobbing as your lips move closer and closer, your hands on his hips gently pushing him into the mattress.

With a motion to the side you avoid where he wants you most as your lips press against the skin of his hips instead, so near and yet so very far from where his cock waits for the promise of your warm mouth.

Kisses and licks press on either side of his body as you continue, reveling in the precome that leaks from the tip of him and the soft cries from his throat. You had always assumed Astarion would be vocalwhen being denied, though you never quite thought he would be so wordless and without clever retorts, instead reduced to these small little sounds.

“Ah! darling…” Astarion’s voice is tight with unfulfilled pleasure as your tongue licks close and his hips buck against your grip on them, the sound of the slightest bit of desperation in his words enough to have you looking up.

Astarion’s head leans up off the pillow as he watches you, panting breaths escaping from his lips as he pulls the bonds tight, the expression on his face one of open yearning.

The silk of your slip brushes against his erection as you move back up his body with the intent of mercy, the smoothness of the fabric providing the slightest bit of friction that has Astarion bucking into your stomach in an attempt at relief, a sigh of relief leaving his lips as you feel tiny dots of his precome decorate your slip in a line.

“I thought I told you to be patient.” You flick his nipple lightly in response, his hips jumping into your own once more. With one last kiss to his chest, you rise atop him, your knees on either side of his hips, your bodies no long touching.

“Since you’ve been so good, I’ll give you a little treat. What do you say, love?” You run your hands down your front with little hurry, Astarion’s eyes following your every move as he watches your fingers finally curl around the lacy hem.

Astarion looks positively wrecked as you look down on him, the duality of being touched and kissed and licked but never where he so desperately needs feels almost cruel, his length painfully hard despite it never once being touched.

With unhurried hands you drag the slip up your figure, baring yourself to him inch by inch as he watches before you move to pull it over your head and throw it onto the ground beside the bed where it pools onto the floorboards to be forgotten.

Astarion’s eyes make their way up and down your figure, taking in the flush of your nipples from underneath the light colored lace that ensconces your breasts, pushing them up just so.

You’re unable to help yourself as you lean over his torso, hand caressing his jaw as you press a firm kiss his plush lips, nipping at his bottom lip once before pulling back upright.

“You’ve truly outdone yourself, darling.” You let Astarion’s praise wash over you, smile on your lips as you brush your hands over your breasts, fingers teasing above the lace as you luxuriate in the open wanting on his features below you.

What Astarion is not quite so prepared for, though, is your panties.

He doesn’t even notice them at first, simply passing the lacy undergarment over with his eyes once before returning up where your breasts sit high. The thought that your usually observant lover fails to recognize the fact that the small triangle of lace only conceals the very front of you while leaving your entire center bare only serves to send your confidence soaring ever higher.

The underwear—if you could honestly even call them such a thing—was simply that tiny bit of pink lace at the front, the rest nothing but the satin of the waistband and then two matching strips curving around the plumpness of your rear, leaving the entirety of your core and behind exposed to the cool air of the room.

It’s not until his gaze makes its way further down your body once more, claret eyes caressing your skin without touch as he takes his time to truly admire, that he sees the slightest bit of your center peeking out from under where the lace ends, his eyes zeroing in on the space between your hips as you widen your knees to better clue him in.

“Dearest, are those…” His words run off as you smirk, letting a hand run down your body and over the front of the ouverts to run lower instead, fingers brushing over soft lace before disappearing to run through your uncovered slit.

“Open at the bottom? Yes, they are.” Astarion’s mouth dries out as those fingers of yours come back up, hints of dewy wet glistening on your fingertips. His eyes watch with interest as you extend your hand towards his mouth and you delicately press damp fingertips against his lips.

He opens his mouth, pink tongue darting out to lick greedily at your slick on them. His tongue on your fingers has heat surging down into your empty cunt, and you can feel the heat blooming on your cheeks, certain that your arousal must show on your face with the way Astarion’s lips curve up into a smirk.

“I can do so much more with my tongue if you’ll let me have a real taste, my love.” He speaks the words with your fingers still touching his lips, pressing a small kiss to the delicate pads of them.

“A taste of what, exactly?” You tilt your head in mock confusion as you purse your lips, moving your hand from his mouth to instead trace the curve of his jaw.

“Oh, I think you know, darling.” His smile is pure sin as his lashes lower over half-lidded eyes, the picture of seduction as he lays beneath you, ready and waiting.

“I’m not so sure I do. I think I need you to spell it out for me.” You move your knees further up his torso despite your playing coy, your empty core all the closer to his waiting mouth as you feel curls of anticipation at the mere thought.

“What I want, dear mistress, is for you to move up here and put that sweet cunt of yours on my face.”

Astarion’s head leans up, mouth moving towards your thigh as his teeth grab at the garter resting there, pulling at it and letting it go. It snaps back against your skin, the slight sting making you jump as you narrow your eyes down at him.

His smile is nothing but deviant in response.

“And here I thought I was the one in charge.” You raise a brow at him, a corner of your lips quirking up in amusement.

“Are you honestly saying that this wasn’t part of your plan when you picked those out? Darling.” Disbelief colors his every word as his own eyebrows raise in skepticism.

“A mistress never tells.” You move to kneel above where Astarion lays his head on the crochet-trimmed pillow, steadying yourself on the carved wood headboard beneath your fingers as you widen your knees around his face.

His head moves to the side, pressing light kisses against the skin of your upper thigh, though his eyes don’t leave your exposed core, the lace stopping right before the place your slit opens to him. He can see everything like this, your center spread above his face, all soft and wet for him.

“Are you sure, Astarion?” You look down at him, waiting for his confirmation before you lower yourself down despite the hypnotic kisses he places along your thighs.

“There could be no finer honor than that of your sweetness upon my lips. So do it.” Such dramatics from a man currently trussed up with nowhere to go. There’s an open ardor to his words despite his levity that has you lowering yourself down upon waiting lips with little ceremony, eager to give both of you a reward.

The first touch of his tongue on you is euphoric, your eyes rolling back as he laps at your waiting wetness in time with the soft moans that fall from your lips.

Astarion’s tongue dives deep into your center as he whorls around your walls before he exits to lick up to your clit instead. He continues like this, a little pattern designed to drive you wild as he alternates between deep passes inside your cunt to sweet little licks around your clit, your moans ringing out in time with his mouth on you.

He’s always been so talented at pleasuring you like this, though the feeling is seemingly more intimate with your thighs around his head, body lowered down onto his face as you ride his mouth, his tongue precise as he pleasures you.

He laves at your center, leaving no part of your most intimate place untouched by him as he worships you, just like this. It would be so easy to come for him, to feel him drink up your very essence as it spills from your body with the same vigor he does the blood that runs from your neck.

Your hips jump as he presses against the small pearl between your legs just right, a soft gasp falling from your open lips as tension begins to grow deep in your belly with the pleasure. Astarion moans against your pussy, the sound and vibration of it only bringing you that much closer to the inevitable end.

“Let me hear you, love.” Every word has his lips brushing against your sensitive skin before he flattens his tongue, licking a broad stripe up the center of you before his lips attach to your clit, sucking at it.

You keen above him, letting him hear the soft moans and whines that fall from your lips as your lashes fall shut. It’s an effort to keep yourself up, knuckles turning white as you grasp onto the hard wood in front of you, Astarion’s pace intent to hurtle you towards completion far sooner than you would like, especially when you have other equally delicious ideas in mind as well.

You summon your will as you move your hips up and away from his mouth despite Astarion’s noise of protest, your own impeding orgasm ruined as you catch your breath.

“Oh, hush. I have a better idea.” You smile down at him between inhales and exhales of air, swiveling your body around to face your front towards the foot of the bed instead of the headboard.

“You’re the one in charge, dearest.” Astarion makes a show of licking at his lips in a way that has your flush deepening, the pink of them glistening with your slick.

You lower yourself back down onto his waiting lips, letting his tongue get back to work flicking against your clit as you lean your body down over his own, lace covered breasts pressing into his the hard lines of his stomach as you find yourself face to face with the evidence of his arousal.

Astarion’s ministrations pause as he feels you finally grab his aching cock between your hands, your lips finding the crown and placing a soft kiss, coating your lips in the precome beaded there.

Instinctively his hips buck into your waiting lips, the needy moan that falls from his throat music to your ears as you let your tongue peek out from behind your lips to lap at the head.

Astarion buries his head into the apex of your thighs, tongue lashing at your entrance as you lick down the length of him. Your tongue moves up and down his shaft as he licks into your core, each of your working towards the other’s release.

With plush lips you take him inside your mouth, hollowing your cheeks as you work him in as far as you can without choking, a hand coming up to assist in the act as to stroke the length of him that doesn’t fit inside. Your head bobs up and down, hair soft as it brushes against his thighs.

You pay your own pleasure no mind as you focus on the feeling of his cock in your mouth and on your lips, the taste of him mixing with your saliva with every pass up and down him.

You pop off his cock to lick, following a vein as you reach the base before swirling your tongue back up him again to suck on the head. Your let your weight rest on him as your other hand glides down his body and past where your mouth sucks at him to brush a teasing touch against his balls.

Astarion lets out a deep moan into your core, tongue pushing into your entrance as his nose brushes against your clit as he eats you out. With soft hands you squeeze lightly, cupping them in your palm as you take his length into your mouth once more.

You can see the tension in his thighs as your hands and mouth work in tandem, his mouth losing its cadence on you as you suck and lick and touch, eager to drive him to brink before you lose yourself to the cascade of pleasure heading towards you.

With a hard suck to his cock and a squeeze of the hand cupping his balls you feel Astarion tense beneath you, his hips bucking into your open mouth as his moans fill the air.

Astarion comes on your tongue in spurts of white that you drink down, swallowing his spend as you stroke him through his orgasm. His cum is warm as you swallow, the taste of him familiar as you let his hips thrust into your mouth.

He comes down from his high slowly and you finally lift off his softened cock, tongue licking off the remnants of his climax as you move your body to the side of his and look back at him. His head rests on the pillow, hair strewn as the ribbons sit slack, breaths leaving his chest in pants.

“You didn’t come.” Astarion annunciates each word as he cracks open his eyes to look at where you lounge beside him as you make a show of licking your lips.

“I had other pressing matters to attend to.” The completion of Astarion’s pleasure at your hands far overweighed your own desire, the point driven home by the sight of him, fully spent.

The raise of his brow is all the answer you receive as he recovers from his orgasm, his breathing evening out as he looks you up and down, gaze assessing.

“Would you do me the favor of freeing me, love?” Astarion makes a show of flexing his hands as he looks at you pointedly, tightening the bonds as he asks for release.

“Was this too much, Astarion?” There’s a slight worry in your tone, the pull of your lips the tiniest bit downwards as a crease between your eyebrows forms. You are quick to move over him, fingers grabbing onto the ends of the ribbons as you pull them undone, moving from one hand to the next.

“Oh, far from it, my dear.” Astarion’s hands dart out to connect with your waist, running up and down the skin he has yet to get to touch. His eyes follow his hands as they move up your ribs.

“In fact,” Astarion continues, “I could have taken much, much more. But I find myself wanting something else you have to offer.”

His hands tighten around your waist as he sits up faster than you could have expected, the hands bracketing your sides now giving you a gentle push onto your back as you give a small noise of surprise.

Astarion captures both your wrists in his hands and pins them above your head, newly freed fingers flexing as they circle your wrists. His nose brushes the skin of your neck, breathing in your scent as his tongue flicks out to taste your skin, his body hovering above your own as he pushes you harder into the linens.

He licks a line down the column of your neck that has you arching up into him, the coolness of his lips against the heat of your own skin always a sensation beyond description.

With slow kisses, he works his way across your collarbone and onto the swells of your chest, lips and tongue and nose brushing against the skin there as he caresses his cheek against the lace of a still covered breast.

With the turn of his head, he mouths at a nipple, the lace darkening with the wetness of his tongue against the now pebbled peak.

He buries his face in the cleavage made from the lingerie as he makes his way to your other breast, a hand coming down from where he keeps your wrists above your head to thumb at the damp lace left from his mouth.

“This has been quite the reward.” He licks over your other nipple as his fingers play with its twin, your lashes fluttering shut as your hips jump into his own.

“You deserve it. And more.” You whisper the words on a shaky exhale, Astarion’s cock already hardening once more as you roll your hips into his, pressing against his erection.

“Always such a sweetheart.” He punctuates his words with kisses up the line of your chest as he moves up a hand to cradle your cheek, his lips meeting your own with a tenderness he bestows upon no other being but you.

“On your knees, darling.” You hear that soft command in his voice, the sound of it kindling to the fire deep in your belly as you nod, his hands releasing you as he leans back to give you space to move. You turn over for him, pillowing your head onto the soft covers as you prop your knees up on the bed, spreading your legs for him.

You feel his hands caress the skin of your hips as they move up to your waist, his eyes glued to your dewy center exposed to him like this. He moves his hands up to your shoulders, fingertips briefly digging into the skin there as he rubs away any tension he feels before they trail back down the skin of your spine, fingertips moving vertebrae by vertebrae with impossible slowness.

“You had your fun, and it was absolutely delicious,” Astarion grips your hips as he leans forward to press a burning kiss to the base of your spine before leaning away once more, a hand moving lower to brush through your wet folds. “But now, I want to have mine.”

He gathers your arousal with slow, teasing passes of his fingers, moving up and down your slit from your entrance up to your clit and back again as he wets them in your slick, soft moans leaving your lips from his light touch.

“What a good girl you’ve been, picking out such pretty things and pleasing me so. You are far too good to me.” Two of Astarion’s fingers dip into your entrance, pressing in lightly as they glide in ever so slowly until they are fully seated inside you to the knuckle before pumping them in and out. “But you are an absolute menace in these panties, darling.”

You whine at the sensation, though the pleasure ends far too quickly. Almost as soon as it starts, Astarion’s fingers leave your aching pussy, pulling out of you slowly to trace around your entrance instead as you let out a noise of discontent.

“Patience, sweet thing.” He repeats your earlier words back to you as he collects more of your slick before moving them once more, fingertips brushing past your entrance to somewhere else instead, your wetness leaving a streak of arousal up the cleft of your bottom.

You gasp as the tip of a finger brushes over your other hole, body reflexively tensing as he rubs over the puckered entrance, spreading your slick in a light circle around it. Astarion keeps his touch feather light, small and simple circles that trace around the entrance, not yet working to press his finger inside you.

Even just the barest of touches on such a sensitive area has you swallowing in anticipation, the fire deep inside your body raging as you wait for him to give you more. More pleasure, more pain, more anything.

Astarion leans down towards your raised hips to press kisses to the roundness of a cheek, dragging his lips across your skin closer to the place where his finger keeps up its exploration.

You feel his fingertip move away only to be replaced by the wetness of his mouth. He licks at your hole, his tongue ringing circles around the sensitive entrance as his hands come up to spread your cheeks. The feeling of his tongue pressing onto such a place has you crying out, hips bucking into his face as he continues.

“Fuck, Astarion.” You pant, eyes closed against the pleasure as you breath out the words.

You feel him hum against you in response, tongue pressing harder against you as your moans turn desperate. Astarion’s finger joins back in with his tongue, coming to massage you as his tongue still licks.

He presses a soft kiss before he leans away, his own breathing heavy as he sits up. Your eyes open at the sudden absence to look back at him, taking in the sight of him with pupils blown wide in lust as his cock sits erect between his legs.

Astarion shifts slightly as he reaches over you and into his night table, fingers quickly finding his prize. He sits back upright, a hand brushing soothing fingertips across your lower back as he holds up the small vial of oil between his elegant fingers, the viscous liquid slowing moving from side to side before sliding down the glass.

You watch with bated breath as he uncorks the vial and dribbles the oil over his fingertips before moving it to dribble over your ass. The oil is cold as it drips, bringing a chill over your body as Astarion quickly corks it and lays it aside.

His finger touches you once more, smoothing the oil over your entrance with slow, soft motions as he readies you. His other hand comes to rest upon your hip, thumb brushing soothing lines up and down into your skin as he finally presses the very tip of his finger into your ass.

The feeling is visceral as it sends a spike of heat straight to your empty cunt, your body parting for him easily with the help of the oil, the sensation one so unlike any other.

Astarion leans in, his lips caressing the skin of your lower back, pressing soothing kisses as he slides his finger deeper, drawing a low keen from your lips as the pleasure increases with every inch his finger slides.

His finger finally fills you to the knuckle, Astarion giving it an experimental wiggle inside you. Your moans fill the room, eyes squeezed shut as you exhale, pleasure striking deep inside with that singular motion. With a slow, delicate movement, Astarion begins to pull his finger out, carful to leave the tip still inside, before he pushes back in.

Astarion lets his finger move with slow, even thrusts as your voice echos off the walls of the room with his every motion.

“Does that feel good, darling?” He keeps his voice quiet, but the undercurrent of heat you can hear in his words only adds to your building pleasure.

“Gods, yes.” Your words are a sob as you are unable to help the small noises leaving your lips as his finger moves, Astarion alternating between thrusting his finger and wiggling it deep inside, each action driving you closer and closer to the edge.

Your core squeezes empty as heat builds inside of you, your own denial of your pleasure earlier making it all burn all the hotter as Astarion lets his finger work you up higher and higher, edging you closer to your climax.

“Can you take another?” His words are soft, questioning, as his free hand grabs the vial on the bed, uncorking it with his mouth while he waits for your answer, drizzling more oil onto you.

You nod, unsure of your ability to form coherent words as Astarion has you on the brink like this, so close but still so far from your orgasm. You feel his finger pull out only to be joined by another, and together his two fingers press in to your body. Astarion gives you time to acclimate, working in slowly and stopping to give you time, only moving deeper once he is confident your body is ready.

“Are you alright, love?” Your heart could melt at the affection in his voice as you nod your head to him again, your lashes fluttering against your cheeks as your cheeks flush.

By the time both his digits are seated full inside, you feel lost to the pleasure, the slight stretch of pain only adding to the euphoria as Astarion pumps his fingers softly, your body writhing.

“Should I fuck your pretty ass open with my fingers? Get it all nice and ready for my cock later?” You whine at his words as he scissors his fingers, stretching you ever so slightly more as he says the words.

He can see the evidence of his ministrations, a new gush of arousal leaking from your cunt with filmy strings sticking to your entrance. He leans his head down, pressing his tongue out as he circles your entrance, licking at the slick he sees as his fingers keep working inside your ass.

“I want you to come, dearest, can you do that for me?” His tongue finds its way to your clit, giving it the smallest little licks as he waits for your answer.

“Yes. Please.” The words are barely a whisper, desperate and needy. Astarion obliges you, though, licking faster as his fingers keep up their motions.

Astarion draws your pleasure out masterfully, though it doesn’t take long for you to hit the peak, the flat licks of his tongue on your pearl and fingers pressing deep inside bringing you to your climax within what feels like mere seconds.

You cry out as the heat crescendos, your hips bucking as you finally fall over the precipice of your pleasure, mouth opened in an almost silent moan as white hot heat fills your body.

Astarion licks at your clit softly as you ride the wave of completion, fingers slowing in your ass as you come hard, your knees weakening from the strength and overwhelm of it.

You collapse onto your stomach, a veil of tears lining the edges of your lashes as your body still writhes with the aftershock of your orgasm, Astarion’s fingers pausing as you come down from your high.

“For fuck’s sake, Astarion.” You breathe out on a soft laugh, eyes still closed as you feel the slightest bit of drool on your cheek you failed to notice.

“Oh, I’m not done with you yet.” Astarion’s smirk is incorrigible as you feel his hardened cock pressing at the entrance to your cunt, the fingers still inside you wiggling ever so slightly once more.

“Do you think you can you take my cock, darling?” He leans over your back as he says the words, pressing his chest into your hot skin as he whispers them into your ear softly. The position has his fingers pressing harder, pleasure already beginning to build back up inside you.

“I think you already know the answer to that.” You buck your hips back into his waiting hardness, the tip of him breaching your walls has both of you sighing at the feeling.

“Always so insatiable, my love.” Astarion rocks his hips forward, pressing in slightly as he nips at your ear and his free hand grips your hip harder.

“It’s a wonder where I could have learned it from.” Your words are a gasp as he thrusts into your warmth with little warning, filling you in his entirety in a single stroke.

The fullness of him nestled deep inside your core while his fingers fill your ass is sheer bliss, a sensation that you weren’t sure you would ever get used to no matter how many times you’ve had tastes of this particular type of pleasure.

“So tight, sweet thing.” Astarion groans into your ear, hips still as he lets you acclimate to him. He presses a soothing kiss to your temple as he slowly begins to move his fingers once more.

Every movement of his fingers feels multiplied with Astarion filling both your entrances, your cunt clenching on him as you moan. You move your hips with a subtle motion, wanting as much from him as he would give you.

“Fuck me, then.” You press back into him as much as you can with him inside you, both front and back filled to the brim with him.

“Impertinent little thing.” Astarion tsks as he swats at your bottom playfully, moving his hand up over the curve of your rear to rest on your hip. He squeezes his fingertips into the skin of your hip as he grants you your wish.

Astarion pulls his hips away from yours, his cock dragging against your walls before plunging back in with a hard thrust that has you practically singing before repeating the action once more.

Astarion fucks you hard, hips slapping into the skin of your ass as his fingers piston inside you simultaneously, drawing your pleasure from both entrances as he times his thrusts in and out of your body with near perfect rhythm.

“You look so lovely like this, taking me in both.” Astarion is breathless as he thrusts, his cock hitting deep inside your cunt.

“I know. And I know you love it.” You try to move your hips back into his own, meeting his thrusts as well as you can despite your prone form on the bed. It’s so tight like this, the dual feeling of his fingers and his hardness beyond amazing.

“Oh, I do, darling. I do.” Astarion breathes the words hard as he keeps his pace steady despite the growing pleasure in your belly building up higher once more.

A particularly hard thrust has you both moaning as he leans over, pressing his forehead into your shoulder blade, his panting breaths warm against your own heated skin.

“I want to feel you come around my cock.” The words have you clenching harder around him, body tightening as his fingers continue to move inside your other entrance.

Astarion’s thrusts change their pace ever so slightly, the angle different as he finds the place deep inside that has you gasping in time with his cock. He hits your g-spot each time, the moans that fall from your lips nothing short of euphoric as you near completion once more.

All it takes is one more little quirk of his fingers inside your ass for your thighs to shake and your fingers to grasp at the blankets beneath you in balled fists as your orgasm hits just as hard as the first, eyes squeezed shut in bliss as your hips move against his own as you ride out your pleasure.

The feeling of your body squeezing around his length and fingers has Astation following right after, the warmth of his come filling you deep one you barely notice as his thrusts hit a fever pitch.

Your mind drifts as you come down from the high, Astarion’s thrusts slowing as he too works his way down from his pleasure. He gingerly pulls his fingers from you, moving the digits slowly despite his cock still thrusting lazily into your core, his come leaking from you and onto the linens below.

With one last kiss pressed to the back of your neck Astarion lets his cock leave your warmth, the mess of both of your spends decorating the blankets and your bodies.

Astarion walks over to where the washbasin sits in the corner, grabbing a soft cloth and wetting it before returning to where you still lay face down, catching your breath.

He kneels on the bed beside your body, reaching between your thighs with the cool cloth to clean the mess of cum and oil from your overheated skin.

“I think we made a mess,” You are quick to recover as you move to sit, reclining casually against the bed as Astarion comes to rest beside you.

His fingers dance over your skin in tiny patterns, the tips of them moving across your body as if tracing the lines of the many garments he now spends his time to make.

“Hardly, darling.” Astarion’s fingers dance up towards the clasp holding the lingerie across your chest, flicking it aside with clever feelings as he peels it off your body and throws it. “In fact, I think we can make an even bigger one.”

“Oh? Do tell.” Another raise of your brow, interest piqued.

Astarion climbs over where you lean against the pillows, now his turn to swing a leg across your hips as he straddles your form, eyes looking over the ever so tender skin of your neck as he licks his lips.

“Care for a snack, darling?”

#astarion #astarion bg3 #astarion x tav #astarion x f!tav #astarion x reader #astarion x you #astarion x f!reader #astarion x female tav #my writing #if you think you see a typo no you didn't #I’ve been up almost a full 24 hours but the need was too strong to finish and post this to sleep

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