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leeyammie · 2 months

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Beach Savior

Warning: Minors DNI / NSFW

Masterlist

Pairing: Top!Sangyeon x Bottom!Male reader

Genre: smut

Word Count: 1,987 words

You've been counting down the days, marking off each one on your calendar with eager anticipation. And now, at long last, it's here. Summer has arrived in all its sun-soaked glory, beckoning you with promises of adventure and relaxation.

The air is thick with the scent of sunscreen and saltwater as you load up the car, the excitement building with every item you toss into the trunk. Towels, snacks, beach chairs – you've thought of everything. You can practically feel the warmth of the sun on your face already, hear the crash of the waves in the distance.

As you pull out of the driveway and hit the open road, the anticipation only grows. Windows down, music blaring, you can't help but grin as you imagine the feeling of cool water enveloping your body, washing away the stress of everyday life. This is what you've been waiting for, what you've been dreaming of during those long, dreary winter months.

Fortunately, the traffic gods seemed to be smiling down on you today, as the roads were surprisingly clear and you made excellent time getting to your destination. With a sense of relief, you parked the car and eagerly began unloading all the bags and goodies you had packed.

As you carried armfuls of towels, coolers, and beach chairs to your chosen spot on the sand, you couldn't help but chuckle at the sheer volume of stuff you had brought along. It was as if you were preparing for a small army instead of just yourself. But that was just your way – always going above and beyond, determined to ensure that every moment of your vacation was filled with fun and relaxation.

Setting up camp, you arranged your belongings just so, creating a cozy little oasis amid the vast expanse of beach. Cooler stocked with refreshing drinks, snacks spread out within easy reach, you couldn't help but feel a sense of satisfaction wash over you. This was going to be a vacation to remember, and you were determined to make every moment count.

With a contented sigh, you settled into your beach chair, feeling the warmth of the sun on your skin like a gentle caress. The golden rays danced across your body, beckoning you to soak them in and bask in their radiant glow. With a determined grin, you reached for the hem of your shirt, pulling it over your head and letting it fall to the sand beside you.

As the shadow fell across you, breaking the warmth of the sun, you stirred from the edge of sleep, blinking away the drowsiness. With a slight frown, you opened your eyes to find yourself face to face with a towering figure, their features obscured by the glare of the sun.

"Sorry to bother you but I've realized that you've laid down for a while and it seemed that you didn't apply any sunscreen which may cause you some sun burns. Please do use this as for your safety."

As the stranger spoke, concern evident in their voice, you couldn't help but feel a pang of gratitude mixed with embarrassment. You had been so caught up in the bliss of the moment that you hadn't even thought to apply sunscreen, risking a nasty sunburn in the process. Taking the proffered sunscreen from the stranger, you nodded your thanks, feeling a flush of warmth spread across your cheeks.

As you stared up at the figure, the intensity of the sun slowly fading, you began to make out their features with clarity. Defined jawlines, a muscular physique that spoke of hours spent in the gym, and a presence that seemed to fill the space around them – he sure was giving you a special vibe unlike any other. With a sense of awe mingled with curiosity, you couldn't help but admire the god-like perfection of the person standing before you, their chiseled features and impeccable physique leaving you momentarily speechless.

It didn't take you long afterwards to realize the whistle tied around the other's neck "He must be a beach life guard", you thought to yourself. The issue was that you haven't even realized that you've kept staring at his chest while being taken away by your thoughts.

Feeling your cheeks flush with embarrassment, you quickly averted your gaze, realizing that you had been caught staring at the lifeguard's impressive physique. Heat rose to your face as you mentally scolded yourself for being so obvious, but before you could muster up a coherent response, the lifeguard's easy grin only seemed to widen as he added with his soothing voice that led shivers down your spine.

"If you need anything I'll be sitting over there, don't hesitate to come to me!"

With that, he leaned down, his proximity sending your heart racing, and gently ruffled your hair with a playful gesture. Seizing the opportunity to know you more he asked about your name. You barely made yourself coherent with your answer before he straightened up and walked away, leaving you to grapple with the sudden surge of emotions coursing through you.

As you sat there, trying to steady your breathing and calm the frantic beating of your heart, you couldn't help but replay the encounter in your mind. The lifeguard's playful demeanor and easy charm had left you feeling simultaneously flustered and intrigued, his presence lingering in the air like a tantalizing promise of something more.

The initial rush of excitement as you plunged into the cool embrace of the waves quickly gave way to a sinking sense of panic as you realized just how far you had been swept from the safety of the shore. The once gentle tides now seemed to churn with an almost predatory intensity, dragging you further and further from the safety of solid ground with each passing moment.

Desperation clawed at your chest as you fought against the relentless pull of the ocean, struggling to make any headway towards the distant shoreline. With each step forward, you felt yourself dragged back by the unforgiving currents, the water closing in around you with suffocating pressure.

Panic set in as you gasped for air, the saltwater stinging your eyes and burning your lungs as you fought to stay afloat. Your body thrashed against the water, limbs flailing in a desperate bid for freedom, but it was no use – the tides were too strong, their relentless pull dragging you ever deeper into the abyss.

Just as darkness began to creep in at the edges of your vision, threatening to swallow you whole, you felt a pair of strong arms wrap around your body, pulling you close to a solid, reassuring presence. With one final burst of strength, you clung to consciousness, clinging to the lifeline that had been thrown your way before blacking out.

As you blinked away the remnants of sleep, the unfamiliar surroundings slowly came into focus, the soft hues of the sunset casting a warm glow over the room. The presence of another person beside you drew your attention, and you turned your head to find the lifeguard from earlier seated at your bedside, his expression etched with concern.

His words washed over you like a gentle tide, stirring the memories of your near-drowning and the frantic struggle to escape the grasp of the ocean's relentless currents. The realization of what had transpired flooded your mind, bringing with it a rush of gratitude towards the man who had saved you from a watery grave.

"I... I think I'm okay," you managed to croak out, your voice hoarse from the saltwater and the ordeal you had just endured. "Just a bit shaken up, I guess."

The lifeguard's eyes softened with relief as he reached out a hand to gently brush a strand of hair from your forehead. "You gave me quite a scare out there," he admitted, his voice tinged with an emotion you couldn't quite place. "But you're safe now. That's all that matters to me."

You looked at him with a warm smile, feeling touched by his concern. Your gaze then shifted towards the window of the cabinet gazing at the sunset. "I must have caused you trouble during your shift, thank you again for dragging me and saving me out..."

"Sangyeon"

He responded by settling beside you, his touch gentle as he traced patterns on your back. The air between you crackled with tension as your gazes locked, a silent understanding passing between you.

Then, Sangyeon leaned in, bridging the gap between you to press his lips against yours. The kiss was electrifying, a blend of longing and heat that seemed to consume both of you. Reluctant to break the connection, he guided you down onto the mattress, his movements deliberate and tender as he began to peel away your lower garment. As his hands traveled down your stomach, both of you could feel your bulge taking form.

He licked your tip before taking you all in, all while gently fingering your lower opening as a manner to prepare you. The rim of your whole kept on clenching on his fingers as if begging him not to leave you empty.

In the meantime, your body started to sweat from the overstimulation and your moans started to echo within every corner of the room.

"Sangyeon, t-this feels so g-good... Please go in d-deep-per..."

The older took it as a sign to penetrate deeper inside your walls to the point where his knuckles started popping in. Once he has lubed his finger enough with your internal fluids, he pulled them out taking a lick around them. "You have no idea how good you taste..." he said placing his fingers in front of your mouth to have a taste, which you did, never having thought that you'd ever taste your insides.

Sangyeon then spread out the remaining from his fingers in his shaft trying to lubricate it and prepare himself. He then lifted your legs over his sweaty golden broad shoulders. "Are you sure you want me to go in?" he asked with a reassuring tone before you finally give him the signal to do so.

He went inside of you inch by inch making sure no to cause much of discomfort to you. "Holy shit... Your hole is engulfing me so well... This is the tightest ass I've ever had". He then started going in and out a regular pace while you let out high pitched noises every time he hit that sweet spot of yours.

"OH YES JUST RIGHT THERE!! KEEP ON HITTING IT I BEG YOU"

He adjusted his position as he leaned down closer to you. "You should take responsibility for this invitation then". He held on tight to your legs which were further pushed up in the air before completely slamming himself within you with a groan. After that, you two became unstoppable sinful machines as your bodies sticked together through sweat and precum. You were barely able to catch your breath as Sangyeon pounded into you non-stop. His thrust became so violent that the mattrass started to squeak and you were forced to balance yourself using his oiled biceps.

"Sangyeon... I t-think I won't last long I-I'm about to cum please!!..."

"It's okay my boy, a few more thrusts and we'll both be free, just hang in there" he replied sealing your lips with his again in a heated kiss.

And he was right, it only took a couple more ins and outs before completely emptying his thick white fluid within you, filling you to the brim. "FUCK!! OH YEAH TAKE IT ALL IN BABY BOY DO NOT WASTE A SINGLE DROP". As for you, your dick started pulsating in sync with Sangyeon's and along with it, the shiny strings that have emerged from within.

You decided to spend the night over, Sangyeon still inside of you keeping your insides warm and fixed while wrapping his figure around yours before dozing off to sleep.

note: I apologize for any typos as I have written this after spending a whole all-nighter! Hope you enjoyed the read!

#kpop x male reader #tbz x male reader #sangyeon #sangyeon x male reader #tbz smut #the boyz #the boyz sangyeon #the boyz x male reader #the boyz hard hours #tbz hard hours #the boyz smut #male reader

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moondirti · 8 months

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𝟏𝟒. WANT

CHAPTER FOURTEEN OF ANIMALIC | MIGUEL O'HARA X F!READER

↼ chapter thirteen / chapter fifteen ⇀

summary: miguel finally gives in to what you both want

explicit (18+) | 8.6k words warnings: SMUT, it's seriously just all smut, unprotected p-in-v, choking, light degradation, dirty talk, interrogation as foreplay, praise kink, mentorship with benefits, dirty talk, belly bulge, power play, bondage, dom/sub dynamics, teasing, angst, unrequited feelings, eye contact kink notes: figured i'd add in some fluff before shit gets rough

“Let me go.” Miguel growls. “Lest I change my mind about fucking you silly, you bold little thing.”

Enclasped in the yawning dark of night after twelve, you wonder how you must look to him. The lack of light, on your part, obscures his harsher lines – shadows smudging the sharp apex of his cheekbone, bleeding to his aquiline nose, where the feature dips into an ink-blot puddle with the rest of him. What you can deduce is based on what you can see; hardly anything, really, save for what’s highlighted by the window to your right. The mole by the corner of his mouth, bobbing upwards with the curl of his lips. The red, acute glint of an eye.

Are you as hidden as he is? Is his vision better adjusted to the murk?

You hope not. You pray he can’t pick apart the shock that flits across your face, the spate that washes you off your wit. It’s timidity. A stricken bashfulness you haven’t felt in a long while. Seafoam that froths and clogs the blood supplied to your lungs, draining all warmth to feed the stocks behind your cheeks. Your waterline stings, desiccated by the breeze that whistles in through the aperture left open – and out of everything that occurs to you, what manages to refine into clarity is the urge to high-tail and jump out of it as soon as possible.

Your fingers search for stability on his calf, clasping around its tense length as you clamber off him. Air syphons from you in rapid bursts – in, out, in – to sate a seemingly bottomless need for oxygen. He must be hogging it all, you reason, dismounting from his hips. Him – in all his grandeur, in all his broadness, stealing from you what precious left you can use to calm down. Everything he does feels purposeful in that way, curated with regards to both past and future, his contemplation on both. Like neglecting to mention that this was even a possibility, blindsiding you with the very thing you spend hours fantasising about.

It wouldn’t surprise you if he knew this whole time. If he had somehow read your guilty conscience as fluently as an open book, saw where your fingers gravitated to in your free time. The way he says it – filthy language dripping in promise, so unlike the clinical ways with which he’s approached this before – makes you suspect one of two things. Either he truly recognises what the prospect does to you, and is therefore employing it to petition for his release, or–

Or. He means it.

The rumble in his voice, charred and ready to snap into ashes, supports the latter. And try as you might, you can’t begin to understand it. His desire, if real, has come completely out of left field.

“Well?”

“I–” You swallow the rock lodged in your throat, patting your hips like a solution will materialise in your pockets if you pray hard enough. You can’t help but baulk at your poor planning. “I don’t have anything to undo you with.”

Miguel releases a sharp breath from his nose, tipping his chin back. You glance anywhere but at the skin stretching along the column of his throat, contoured by taut sinew.

“If you point me to the kitchen, I can get a knife?”

“No.” The dismissal comes perhaps a little too quick. He doesn’t seem to consider the possibility, and it does little for your hope. His proposition – fucking you silly – feels like it exists on condition of a time limit. Like the longer you put it off, the more opportunity he’s given to retcon his lapse of judgement. This lust born from adrenaline. You’re familiar, and therefore appreciate how short it can last. “Just let them dissolve.”

Ducking your head, you take the acquiesce to observe the artificial webbing that binds him. It sparkles under indirect moonlight, dull white and wet-like, resembling the morning dew that would bud on blades of grass. Thin slivers branch out from the main line to wrap about his more complicated curves. With a more competent solution, it would prove almost impossible to get out of. You reason that only then would you have remained proud of the handiwork.

“They will dissolve?” He stresses.

“Yea– yes! Give it fifteen minutes.” You squeak, shaking out of your stupor to see him eyeing you incredulously. “What?”

“You expect to get anything done when your webs last fifteen minutes?”

“Hey, it’s not like I’ll be regularly apprehending bad guys back home.” Offence batters you back to your regular snark, conversation swaying until it clicks back into a comfortable tone. “Besides, it’s a prototype.” You shrug, turning on your heel to wander the room you lept into. It’s a clumsy segway away from the point, awkwardness rolling off your tongue in ugly chunks. “So… this is your place huh.”

He doesn’t fall for it. “Tell me how you got in.”

“It’s nice. Big. Of course when you own the building, the penthouse is kinda yours by default.” There’s not much you can see in the dark, the colours and aesthetics of his interior remaining lost on you. But it’s hard to ignore how high the ceilings rise, or the wide sweep of his tiled floors.

“Did you phase through the door?” He attempts to reel you in.

You dodge the line. “Wish you told me you were rich though. I could’ve really milked those rewards. A dog for ten push ups. A motorcycle for a hundred.”

“I wouldn’t get you a motorcycle if you stitched the multiverse back together yourself.” It’s amusing that, out of all baits, he should bite on the most ludicrous. You throw a small smile over your shoulder, forgetting yourself for a minute.

“So a dog’s still on the table?” Yet the sight of him fettered, immobilised on the ground, forces you to face your circumstance once more. His words, those parasitic words that’ve been gnawing on the supple tissue of your brain, worm their way back to the forefront. Bold little thing. Fuck. If he knew. If you recounted for him the events of the past half-day, how you’ve been following him since lunch – would he be more or less inclined to spread you out underneath him? “I jumped through the window.” You add, tentatively, toeing unsteady grounds.

His jaw flutters, tensing, though he doesn’t give much else. You traipse over to said window, winding the casement shut with the crank at its edge. It seals smoothly, expunging the ambient street noise until the room buzzes in its own, overwhelming silence. Given the sudden contrast, you puzzle about how he forgot to close it in the first place.

“You really ought to worry about security.” You continue your blind tour of his home, skimming the wall that guides your path. It’s harder to change the subject now that it’s been spoken out loud, your confession filling the gaps left by the outside tumult. Car horns and traffic, construction and wind – all substituted with a tension that drips like a leaky faucet, adding to a pool bound to drown you.

“How’d you do it?” He asks, hoarse and hedging a more dangerous accentuation.

“Dunno.” You trace the doorway he’d come out of, letting the coated stone frame cool the pads of your fingers. “What’s in here?”

When he doesn’t answer, you take a peek. Based on the rough shapes you make out, it could be an office. Had he been working before you arrived? It’s so late you can scarcely imagine it, especially after the already packed day you observed him to have.

The thought is suffocating enough that you back away, rounding the corner of the living room instead to find yourself in a galley kitchen.

“Fancy!” You shout, echo bouncing around the cavernous space. Counters and other facilities line either side of the spacious hall, one side breaking off into an L-shape by an attached island, which functions to divide the kitchen from the dining room at its end. Floor-to-ceiling terrace doors take up the wall directly opposite you, backing the table with views of the Hudson river. It’s gorgeous enough that you think about revisiting during the day – when the sky pulses cerulean blue and the sun butters the sight with warmth, painting a picture you’ve only read about in architectural digest or seen in film.

One where the title sequence jumps to upbeat music, dancing credits cutting onto screen. The genre that calls for a place like this is doubtfully a sombre one. Perhaps a musical, then, or a comedy. Something where you’re introduced as the main character while sitting out on the balcony, cradling a mug of steaming coffee. You’re stressed about work, or the date that hasn’t texted back, but none of your issues will summit at death. Not when your next meal is always guaranteed, or a shower whenever you’re down. When this is home; not just the house, but the world itself. Clean and functional and packed with life. Slated in shades of green, of life – so different from the red and grey hues of antimatter fallout. How grateful you’d be.

But then you remember where you are, why you’re here. The reality spurs you to move again, stumbling stupidly out of the kitchen to where Miguel is likely fuming at your unwelcome exploration.

(On your way back, though, you take notice of an abandoned object by the fridge. It’s rubber, oddly moulded. Bright pink in a similar shade to Lyla’s glasses. Condensation beads and drips upon its surface, the insides certainly filled with ice, and it takes you a short bout of confusion to realise that it’s a teething toy.

When you imagined Miguel as a father, it was to a child burgeoning school-age. Now, your imagery morphs to accommodate this new information. A baby girl, no more than seven months old. One who might live with her mother given his busy schedule, but visits constantly because he would make the time for her. That is, if the toy is any indication.

You can take comfort in the fact that, if not you, someone else leads that imagined life. Someone more deserving.)

“You hanging on in there?” You call out, checking up on the man whose presence you’d temporarily forgotten. He doesn’t respond. It isn’t as worrying a development until you re-enter the living room and notice it looks bigger, emptier now. A nest of snapped webs cushion where he once lay. “Hello?”

That’s what you get for taking your eye off him. It certainly hasn’t felt like fifteen minutes – maybe ten, at best – but he’s escaped irregardless, shedding the disadvantage as you remained entirely oblivious. Trepidation blossoms like a mushroom cloud in your gut, billowing smoke and the migraine-inducing smell of petrol. He can be anywhere. Judging you from a secret alcove or on his way out, already regretting the salacity he’d resorted to. Each possibility is a shot to your flesh. You hadn’t realised how much you’d been counting on it; to be pinned down the instant he breaks free, fucked until you forget your name. And now, that’s been flipped on its head when he’s…

He’s–

Where the fuck is he?

Trailing the perimeter of the room with cautious scrutiny, you watch the ceilings, the pockets between couches in which he might be hiding. He isn’t in his office when you check, nor had he snuck up behind you into the kitchen. There are a few more doors – a laundry room, a toilet – that remain steadfast and shut. He isn’t in any, though you sense his presence as you always do. This universal force of attraction that draws you in, bound to his centre of gravity, negligent of all things physical. You track it – the direction in which your arm hairs spike, spider-sense tickling – until you reach the bottom of a spiral staircase.

“If I hadn’t made it clear before, you’re a dick!” You hope he internalises it too. The second floor to his penthouse was the first thing you’d noticed on your self-guided tour, yet ascending it felt like trespassing beyond the degree you already have. Based on the amenities you’d counted, there’s only one left that could be stationed up there. His bedroom. A space that is wholly, privately his.

And while you don’t know where you stand on Miguel’s hierarchy of interpersonal relationships, something tells you it’s not at that level.

(Then again, you’ve experienced him in deeper ways. More intimate. And now–

He’s gonna fuck you. That’s what he said, at least. And of course you have half a mind to take it with a grain of salt. Though the credulous part of you poses – a little recklessly – what the harm could be in indulging him.

In indulging yourself.)

“O’Hara.” You warn, tension gnarling in your chest. There’s only one way this’ll end for you. Anticipation makes it pretty clear. So, perhaps you bark his name rough and short for decorum’s sake. To prelude your concurrence, the foot you slot up on the first step. Then, the second – marching gradually upwards, clasping the railing all the while. It’s frigid and bites your goose bumped skin, licking up the heated flesh.

Eventually, the loft sinks below your eye line. Forehead looming slightly over the landing, you try to piece together his whereabouts. It’s no easy feat – his bedroom is trapped in the same tenebrosity as the rest of his place. You have to strain to separate hazy forms; lamps from his towering frame, a dresser and not his crouched self. Through increasing efforts, you find yourself standing in the midst of it all, the trench-parallel staircase long since abandoned for a more preferable angle.

Despite it, you can’t locate him.

Hope wheezes, deflates, shrinks until it inhabits only the pinched area between your ribs. Whatever – you whisper to yourself. It doesn’t matter, even if the gaping hole it leaves behind pulses, devastating to everything on its horizon line. He probably had something to attend to, a commitment more important than this game of yours. You won, anyway. You hadn’t been promised anything but your own satisfaction, and while that’s been long diminished, swapped with notions of his body pressed against yours, you still won. Pinned him down in a plan entirely of your own creation, counter to all odds, when all you’d been given was a corrupt method and told to make do.

That should be enough.

(A lie you have to tell yourself to dissuade from the disappointment of his lacking praise. The need itches violently within you, marring your insides with crimson dissatisfaction. It’ll be your ruin, you think)

“Have it your way.” You say. It’s a last proffer of your will, extended to ears that might not even be listening. You wait a beat, riding the anticlimactic wave, before giving up and heading towards the staircase again.

Until hands pluck your waist.

They’re big, enveloping, heavy clutch seizing the sides of your abdomen. The fabric of your shirt glues to your skin where they radiate steady warmth, and your heart chokes with how high it soars, skyrocketing to pump thundering bursts of blood. The sequence of events that follows is tumultuous, a rapid execution away from the expected, of which you have a hard time understanding yourself. You try to break it down – have to, actually, to abate the erratic flutter of your chest when all of a sudden, you find yourself shoved on a plush surface. Wrists pinned behind your back, face half-smooshed down.

In short, this is how it goes–

You’d been unobservant. Too quick after his absenteeism, your guard had lowered enough that your spider-sense had dimmed with it.

It allowed him to grab you. That much was clear the instant you felt it. Grabbed and hauled you to his bed, across which you’re currently bent. Your terrified shriek still rings in the gagged lull that follows.

So now, it’s his crotch pressing flush to your rear, closely mimicking the position you’d found yourself in that morning in his office. Relentless hold, tungsten wrought around your limbs. Hips curved over the edge, toes barely reaching the ground as the mattress bolsters you upwards. This time, though, he fits his chest to your back so he’s folded above you, mouth caressing the shell of your ear. Your temples bloat with pressure and your tongue wrings dry. On the opposite end, your panties slip over the wettening slit between your thighs. It’s erotic, delicious in the manner that makes it hard to focus on anything else.

Hot air wades through the piqued hairs on your neck when he speaks again. You jerk away from it, face shrilling like a kettle kept over flame. It’s almost impossible to shift under the heavy moor of his body on yours

“That’s how you sneak up on someone.” He whispers, nudging the locks that fall between you away with his nose. The attention is too much too fast, flaying you alive until your innards and secret mortification spill, exposed to the elements. “It’s not so good, is it? Being ignored.”

All you can do is whimper, lower half wriggling for a friction that could abate the ache waxing in your core. It drums to the rhythm of his breaths, expectantly tensing everytime his chest swells. The act is desperate, much like the worm that still cleaves your brain apart. Rumbling promises, blasphemy, about leaps of faith into your mentor’s apartment. Or revelations like being fucked silly.

His voice takes on the same quality when he presses for a reply, canting forward to eject the burden from your lungs. The hard line of his erection stamps onto your ass, roughly illustrating an example for what’s to come. “Hm?”

“N-No.” You stammer, nails grazing the calloused layer on the heel of his hand. His grip readjusts around your crossed arms, momentarily affected by the gentle brush.

“No.” And if you’d been a stranger to the nuances of his expression, you would have assumed he’s unaffected. But you’ve honed an ability to read between the complexities of Miguel O’Hara. (Majorly for self-preservation, however it’s proving useful now.) The mock is hummed in a husky, dulcet note, whipped somewhere in the back of his throat that turns the simple reiteration into a taunt. He’s teasing you.

Fuck, why is that hot? You have to be a special grade of messed up to find his derision sexy.

(You’re convinced anything could be in this moment, though. Reality warped through rose-coloured glasses; except it’s your own, debauched lens.)

“Here’s how this is going to go. Are you listening?” Words gather on your tongue like clods of parched soil, too weak to build or nurture anything. They fall, crumbling in great flakes, until you have to recourse to nodding wildly, face stuffed into his sheets. They smell like him. Softer, sure, but woven with the same cedar-spiked musk, patchouli in diluted volumes. Your pupils roll to the back of your head – and even if you could reign your senses, you can’t stop your bottom from bucking for release at the aphrodisiacal scent. He continues. “You’re going to answer every one of my questions. I want total honesty. That means don’t sell yourself short.”

The squirming must bother him. His free hand dips to your back, smoothing along its subtle arch. He applies just the correct amount of pressure to tame the feral movement of your hips.

It lingers afterwards, warning you to hasten your reaction time. You can’t manage anything other than:

“Ok–Okay…”

But he takes to it.

“Good.”

Shit. It almost feels fucking purposeful. He has to taste the potent head of your desire, the shameful state curling in your marrow. It sucks the soft tissue and imbues the calcium with diffidence instead, until all that’s left is a dependency on approval. Admiration. And he has to recognise it, because how else does he strike exactly what you search for? Good. Gruff and terse but still directed at something you’ve done that’s pleased him. Good. Planting a spot of heaven in your mind, forcing you to spend forevermore chasing a similar rapture. Your consequential whine is high-pitched and needy, muffled on the canyons of his wrinkled duvet.

His palm treks lower, kneading the plump of your ass. It threatens to permanently configure to the valleys of his fingers, the hard press pad of his thumb.

“How did you get in?” He tests. You give him the same explanation you did last, albeit broken with hoarse yearning.

“T-the wind… window.” You cock your head to the side to be better heard, but find yourself face-to-face with him. The sudden eye contact burns a straight hole through you, snapping your skull into a million little fragments. You flinch, synapses firing at you to turn away, scalded as if you’d touched a piping stove. But Miguel catches on faster than you, left hand unwinding from your arms to instead hold your head down in place. Everything is automatic. Instinctual. The both of you resort to whatever path brings the most pleasure. For him, that must mean maintaining mutual gaze. You certainly feel him, harder now, rubbing on the back of your thigh.

And you–

The second you’re released, you shoot to grab his right wrist behind you, rummaging for purchase against the determined path of his fingers. Lower, they skim the cliff where your cheeks meet. You think, if it wasn’t for your leggings keeping them together, he would’ve spread open like a packaged feast already.

But he stops. Doesn’t work to shuck off your pants, or to rip them off entirely (of which you’d be willing, maybe overly enthusiastic about.) He just…

Stops. Then, sweeps the wisps away from your hairline so your face is fully unsheathed to his scrutiny. His handle is familiar in a way that’s crept up on you – successively learnt, like resilience or courage, over the course of your tutelage. You’ve come to anticipate the dry scrape of his palm, the overwhelming warmth of it. Even so, you shiver against him, biting your lip when he asks again.

Stricter this time. “How?”

A small part of you understands what he’s digging for. The complete picture, colours mixed and painted exactly how it’d happened. Yet a haar of delirium creeps up around your memory, obscuring details you’ve no mercy to exclude. And if you could wrap your mouth around them, you wouldn’t be able to choke it out with how close he veers. His nose brushes yours and his lips fold in that tantalising way they do when he’s pushing patience. A little closer and you’d be kissing him.

You don’t, of course. Instead:

“You left it– ah!” His caress picks up again, gliding over to your inner thighs. “Open… You left it open a-and I vaulted over. F-from the hall outside.”

“And how’d you know to find me here?” He probes, tapping the firm plate of your crotch, teasing a descent to where you need him most. Encouragement, you realise. He’s rewarding your compliance in the medium that’s proved successful in the past.

That’s why, when you finally register his request, you blanch.

“I–” The truth flutters on your tongue like a cornered bug, frantically evading every attempt to pin it down for dissection. You’re reminded of the rather extreme lengths you went to to execute your plan, and its aftertaste is foul. You do the only thing you have the strength for, then. Dodge his severe stare and lie. “I guessed.”

No sooner after it exits your mouth does he call you out on it. In a cruel play on irony, he finally reaches your cunt, swirling over the clothed centre. For a blissful, naive moment, you actually believe he buys it. He can’t read your mind, after all, and your eye-contact avoidance can be misconstrued as bashfulness. It seems so when he touches you in the way you’ve been praying for, delicately tracing up and down. All’s well and good. Yeah–

And then he pinches you through the fabric.

Pinches. Gathers your puffy lips between forefinger and thumb, made simple by the thin material, and nips them together until your clit is sandwiched in the smarting hold. Your jaw unhinges for what’s either a silent moan or scream. It’s hard to infer, your body oscillating between various conditions under his command. What feels like a bruise – dull, a gradual onrush of heat that laps at your limbs like water on a sun-drenched shore – melts on your nerves. It blooms and wears down to the colour of ripe plums, deliciously tender in the way all contusions are. Press on the pain enough and you get used to it, start salivating at the thought of doing it again.

(Penance, you muse, then shake it off. This delight is no holy thing. Nothing can fool you to think you’re doing it for a greater reason than yourself.)

Your skin prickles – glitches, more like, body flickering back and forth from materiality in different sections. Its consecutive order is the only factor preventing you from falling through the bed.

Then, when Miguel eventually lets go, you find yourself wishing he’d do it again. Do more. Spank you until you relive the memory every time you sit. Come loose, like when he’d grabbed your face and fucked it within an inch of asphyxiation. You couldn’t speak for the day afterward, and for some reason, it’d please you to carry a similar mark now.

He pulls you from your thoughts by directing your gape to his, locking you onto those carmine irises once more. Vaguely, lined up at the back of your concerns, there’s the throb of your scalp as he uses your hair to steer you around. Tears smudge the bottom of your vision, blurring his already shadowed expression.

“Try again.” He mutters. A thickness accompanies it; molasses poured onto an open bonfire, popping as it hardens. You have no choice but to listen, intoxicated by his perpetual presence. It properly hits you, perhaps all too late, that this is his room. You’re being defiled on his bed, on sheets he wraps himself with every night. And they smell like him, but soon enough, they’ll smell like you too. The very concept – that you might have as much of an impact on him as he does you – could make even the strongest of spider-heroes keel.

“I followed you.” You groan, blinking through the milky glaze that spools over your lashes and douses the world in a layer of euphoria. Though he keeps your gaze on his, you’re unfocused. Delirious. “Since lunch, I’ve… I’ve been f-following you. To catch you at th– what I supposed would-d be the perfect time.”

“Why?”

You expect he knows why, has known why. That he surmised all the answers himself the moment you pinned him down to gloat your victory, and that this whole thing is just an elaborate ploy to squander your ego.

“I w–” You hiccup over the word, unable to voice it. It strikes a primal fear in you, subconsciously altered by the several instances where it went wrong. Want. Though he mouths it, hovering right over you. Want. Guides you into the house haunted by the enormity of your desire. You purse your lips around the letters; the round start and harsh end, teeth clicking before you ever make a proper sound. He circles where your pussy dampens the layers separating you, chest bearing down on your shoulder blades, forcing you to surrender your panting to his more consistent pattern.

And, as you breathe in tandem, air ultimately supplies power to the verb.

(Or, he does.)

“I wan–wanted to win.” You relent, echoing the confession when he flattens two fingers over your clit, winding it in firm circles. “I wanted to win.” Then again, over and over, coherency petering out until you’re left blabbering in splintered heaves. “I… wanind. W–” Miguel works you through it, contrasting the catharsis with a sort of gentle pleasure. Not enough to make you cum, not yet. Just peeling back petals to expose a bud in early development. Making you aware of it, of yourself.

“There we go.” Beyond the hazy realm of your current cognizance, you hear clicks coming from where his fingers rub you. You’re wet enough now that it’s soaked through your panties and leggings alike, and that’s him having barely done anything. He notices it too – or otherwise enjoys the way your clutch tenses around his wrist, humiliated – because his thumb soon wedges itself into the divet between your folds, teasing your hole. “And what do you want now?”

Why ask? Your body has been begging for it, striking fervent flashes of light, rolling between his arms as you disperse all your energy into convulsing flesh. What do you want? Everything. Everything he has to offer you – more praise, more nicknames born of success and not strife. For him to rip a hole at your crotch and slip his cock in until you’re stretched over it. A ripple of universes, each plea and possibility greater than the last. Seaweed lashes around your ankles and you find yourself tripping into the wave, skull inundating with so much seawater that all you can yell out is: “More!”

Miguel’s thumb creeps away, objecting to your answer. Too simple. Not the type he was looking for. You whine, nails digging into skin to keep his hand where it is, and drive forth.

“This! More of- of…”

His fingers follow soon after. It’s a noiseless deterrent, but an effective one nonetheless. If you didn’t catch the hint, he throws the gruff addition. “No.”

“Shit. Shit, I jus’… W-want more– Please please…” Drivelling until you can find the magic plea that’ll get him to yield. It ends up finding you; thrashing up your gut, possessing every muscle to bid a madcap decree. You squeeze your eyes shut and twist away from his face, screaming into the sheets until you can’t stall any longer. “Want you! Miguel, please! Fuck me, fuck me. Fuck…”

It doesn’t hit you when he orders you to bring your knees up and arch your back for him. Or as you crawl to the centre of the bed, thrusting your haunches up to present your ass. Not when you extend your arms in front of your bowed head, and he peels your shirt off to your wrists, twisting it so both are forced together, keeping you bound and in one position. You’re too lost in the woes of titillation – manna sliding down your gullet – to process what you said. Food to feed a thousand. Forever sustained. Godsent. The evidence of it smeared over your chin in drool, over the swollen mound of your sex as he pares off your pants. There’s no space for it as cool air hits you, or when he grabs either ass cheek and pulls them apart to inspect your readiness. No space for anything apart from the thrill blistering down your spine.

So–

No. It doesn’t hit you (for all that it should) that this is the first time you say his name out loud. Not when it feels so right. A perfect seal, trim to the edges of this molten encounter.

(Much, much later though, you’ll wake up in a cold sweat with it still flaming on your tongue. Miguel. Miguel. And when you sober up, turn the memory over in your mind, you’ll clasp your chest while it flops rebelliously, betraying the fact that – despite your mortification – you’ll want to say it again.

And again. And again.)

Given the makeshift handcuffs, there’s not much you can do besides knot your knuckles into his sheets, clinging on against heavenly ascension. There’s a shuffle, the sound of fabric rustling as his one hand remains on your rear, kneading the tacky softness of it as if to say hold on. You moan in spite of it, wiggling your hips impatiently. You’ve waited enough. Evidence to your arousal coats your inner thighs, dribbling from your clenching hole and carving a line down the already damp-with-sweat skin. He, better than even you, should be able to see that.

A hazy picture refines in your mind’s eye in the meanwhile. This scene, reimagined through his perspective. It’s tinged with the liberties of your own ignorance – the extent of your vision ending where your forehead nuzzles into his comforter – but succeeds in that it builds itself off barebone facts. Where night still rages on, dousing everything in parallel values. Navy, black, grey – broken up only by the lurid blue light that would highlight your edges, streaming from the sloped windows on your right. It’d offer a vague suggestion of your form; curves folded in a pose resembling a cat’s stretch, rounding where your glutes plummet to anchored knees. They spread obscenely wide, affording him your unobstructed cunt.

“M- Mmf, pmfeeease. J-jutht… just fuck me already, you b-bastard. Need it so bad.” You wail. The scent of patchouli that had swamped his bed has since been watered down by brine – tears and saliva that mottle your face, glossing it with a sort of wetness that has you sniffing, heaving through the suffocating layer. You’re thankful he stays crouched behind you. If he has to witness your desperation, then let it retain a modicum of attractiveness, in contrast to the pathetic display up front.

“Need it?” He taunts, tapping his cock on your clit. It’s done lightly, the heft of it controlled in his grip. Nevermind, you lapse. You wish you were laying on your back instead, neck propped on a pillow as you crane to watch the gorgeous thing sway between his legs. You haven’t seen it since you’d sucked him off. It’s always been about you; your pleasure, your satisfaction – not that you haven’t tried to return the favour. Several occasions had you reaching for the bulge in his pants, glowing in a post-orgasm high, only to get swatted away to continue whatever the two of you were working on that day.

“Shhh-Shut up! Oh my God, I–” Your temper wanes, a crack splitting its centre, threatening to expand with every hit he aims at it. His length glides between your folds now, absorbing the searing heat like he has any reason to stall further. If you’d been closer to your inhibitions, you’d think he’s hesitant to do it with you – but lust isn’t always an inebriating force. You’re honed in on other matters; the leaden heaviness he grinds on you, fully stiff and about to burst. The way it slips, up and down and back up again, veins catching on every crevice. It’s plenty of indication that he’s as far gone. “Keep t-t-teasing and I’ll… I’ll le-eave.”

“Mhm.” He huffs, but tugs on one side of your ass to pry it further apart. You don’t understand why until he repositions his tip to catch onto the brim of your hole. “I don’t think you will.”

And then he bottoms out.

In one, swift move. Wholly plunges in, groyne slamming your behind with a force that strikes the air straight from your throat. Your jaw falls open, meant for a scream that becomes a wheeze instead, energy diverting to better serve the effort of taking him in. You were under no illusion to his size, his cock searing bright in your memory. Long, thrumming, thicker than what you can wrap your hand around. But it’s almost like he’s gotten larger, somehow – nourished by your walls that squelch and suck him in deeper. The skin around your opening aches like a taut elastic, stinging with the stretch, and in a completely contradictory condition, you wish he should’ve gone slower. Allowed you the time to adapt.

As though he senses your affliction, he returns to your clit, easing things by flicking the swollen bud while he steadily draws back out. Your pussy sheathes every ridge, every vein that adorns his ample muscle, rippling until just his head plugs you shut.

“Solid?” He checks. And it’s so unlike the croons he’s used thus far, so much more like him, that it polishes you up to a clearer state. Sniffing, you count the sensations battering you from all angles. The tension headache. The pressure at your core. The undefinable pleasure buzzing from where his cock continues to stuff you.

It’s better than you could’ve imagined. Intense, yes, but in varying multitudes. None of your begging had taken that into account. You’re no virgin, yet all the people you’d slept with before had been strangers. Back then, it had seemed absurd that things could feel any different when sex sprouted from rich history. (Pleasure is pleasure.) Or more satisfying when, at each thrust, you’re preoccupied with the person behind them and not your own, selfish desires. (Because what could matter more than your next fix?)

It startles you that Miguel is the first non-stranger you’ll get to know in that way. In different ways. With every wave of pleasure, he proves your previous experiences wrong. Cups the foundations of your worldview and slips them over one another; breaks the ground and crust in magnitudes. Rolls an electric ruin on the valley of your legs.

Though, you suppose, that’s always been his role.

(Non-stranger because there isn’t any other word for what you mean to each other. Not friends. Nor lovers. Dancing the wary line between all plights, concurrently. Foolishly. One trip and you’ll find yourself barrelling down onto a term you’re not ready for.

But for now–)

For now.

You shake the tangent off and harrow out a playfulness that got lost in the mix. It flips and curls like a ribbon, bouncing around in your gut, generating the courage necessary for you to push your hips back on him. As you do, you note that it’s just as much of an adjustment the second time. Swifter, smoother now that he’s lubed with your natural slick, but he bulges thicker midway, and it takes force to push past that on your own. Once you manage though, your eager cunt engulfs the rest with ease, seating you on the base. You make sure he has no room to pull out, wiggling onto his crotch until he’s nestled right against your cervix.

Dragging your arms back until you’re situated on your elbows, your neck twists to the side, a wry smile winding across your cheeks. His eyes are closed, fluttering, grappling with your tight clutch. You speak anyway. “You plan on warming your dick forever? Or are you gonna fu–ungh.”

He’s quick. You’re barely able to perceive the furrowing of his brows before he dives to wrap his arms around your midriff. Chest slotting neatly onto your back, hand grinding onto your lower belly, feeling for where his cock dents as he snaps his pelvis back and thrusts into you. Or– doesn’t thrust so much as he manhandles, slamming you back and forth onto the ample breadth. Brutally done, rough in all the right ways. It spurs him, you realise. This back and forth. Snatching the power from him like a bone from a dog, throwing it out for him to fetch. It makes it all the more rewarding, perhaps, when you bend and break and become the dog yourself, snarling under his heavy pet. He’d take greater satisfaction that way, boiling you down to a keening mess.

Which he does, in record time. Nose mashing onto your shoulder blade and fangs extended to skim the flesh there. He kneads your clit and targets a very specific part of you – that patch of spongy tissue on the flipside of your mound – pounding until it memorises the mushroomed shape of his tip. It should hurt. The sounds spilling from you are those of a wounded animal, snivelling like every inhale is your last. The expanse where your bodies meet should rub abrasively, but you’re both sweaty enough that it’s a frictionless process. And you’re both sweaty – both, because he’s affected by this too. Up from his pelvis, to his palms, to his pecs. Bare pecs.

He’s shirtless.

You don’t know how you missed it. Like a shot of espresso as warm as the naked muscle that cradles you; he’s shirtless. Your moans escalate, cranking to a higher octave. They fluctuate, thumping in your lungs to the sharp beat of his pumps. There was no reason for him to strip. Your shirt was used to keep your wrists fastened, and your bra still cups each breast. Your nudity is a given, as it’s always been, but there could be no purpose behind his. Not if what you assumed is true, about power play and how it turns him on. If anything, this only knocks him down to an equal peg. You’re on level ground.

Not that you’re complaining, of course. As it stands, you can feel every part of him. His body is a furnace, rolling coals onto your own, enveloping you all around. Forearm barring your tits, pure brawn keeping you from peeling your frame off his. Abs grate across your back, happy trail chafing the small of it, the vale running along the centre. He noses your shoulder, doesn’t kiss. Just runs his chin and teeth along the curve of it, groaning inaudible phrases in both English and Spanish, of which you strain to pick up on. You want to hear it. To be closer, to be privy to what he has to say about you. About this. To crack open his mind and pick his complicated psyche for the tasting.

And–

And maybe he wants that, too. Maybe he took his top off to feel closer in the most material sense. You won’t fool yourself into thinking he holds similar admiration, but your body has gained definition in the past weeks. Physically, you’re more spider-hero than you’ve ever been. It wouldn’t surprise you if that’s what’s got him going. The fruits of his labour. Your progress. With the way he takes in your form, all the questions, his demeanour cleans up to seem vaguely… proud.

Proud.

Is that it? Did he ask you to recount your achievements because he’s pleased with you? Don’t sell yourself short. That’s what he said when forwarding his interrogation. It would make sense – for all that it settles at the forefront of your brain, refusing to dissolve.

But God, you think, it doesn’t even need to be true. The mere notion lights your nerves until they whistle like soaring fireworks. You watch as pyrotechnics burst behind your eyes, lashes drooping with tears, jaw strained as you clench your teeth. Miguel fucks in short, hard pegs, forgoing pulling out all the way to instead beat your g-spot in rapid succession. His breath bursts hot and heavy, lips – those perfect, full lips – pressed to the shell of your ear. He’s stroking your sore clit with three fingers now.

“Ay, mierda. Shit.” He curses. “I-Is this it, huh? Is this what… all I had to do to shut you up, you needy little thing? A good fucking. Just a little attention and you-you’re happy.”

“Nnnngh. M-Mi… Puh-ple–”

“No. I want to hear it.” He squishes your cheeks together, squeezing with one large hand. When you try to speak again, your words come out slurred. “Use your words.” The grip guides your head back until you can catch his gaze in your peripheral. He’s already looking at you.

“G-Gon…”

“Hm.”

“C-cuuuu… mmuh uh uh–”

“All together now.” He picks up pace, practically battering your insides. It’s enough to threaten your enhanced healing, bruising your walls at a quicker rate than it can work. You’ll hurt in the morning, you’re sure.

(At least, you hope you do.)

“Gon’ugh cum. Gonna– Mig… Please.”

Your spine goes rigid. Blood rushes to your head.

“Do it, then. Go on. Fuck.” His middle and forefinger push past your mouth, hooking behind your teeth to hold it open. “Cum. Cum on my cock, p-pretty.”

The world burns white-hot and bright. You can’t see, can hardly feel him anymore. Just that word, branded onto your skull where it’ll stay forevermore. Pretty. He thinks you’re pretty; or is otherwise too wrapped up in the moment to dispute the intrusive conviction. It should be concerning that you don’t care either way. That, in any reality, it still bestrews a kaleidoscope of butterflies in your gut. Your insides flutter with them, frantic and galvanised at the deluge of dopamine, flooding through every synapse until everything, everything, becomes about the high.

Your orgasm finds you a ragdoll in his arms. Bones liquid, riding the wave that continues to scroll over. He doesn’t stop jackhammering into your spent pussy, still seeking his and draining you of all the evidence of your devastation in the process. You’ve no doubt soaked his lap. That’s if the noises are any indication, downright sloppy from where you’re attached. Schlicks and slaps and low grunts that tell you he’s close.

Before that happens, though, you’re flipped over on your back. He holds your legs together and pushes them high so your ankles sway mid-air. You’re tighter like this – something even you can feel when he re-enters you, cock cleaving you apart. Another, weaker orgasm pulses in your core. You’ve no energy to voice it, let alone moan. It’s all you can do to take him in. The striking sight he’s allowed you access to.

Not as bronzed in this lighting, but fit just the same. Grainy shadows stretch around the canyons formed by sinew, delineating the anatomy of his torso as though it senses your ogling. He’s huge. Bigger, brawnier when not constricted in a tight top. With arms that curve and cut perfectly into his broad chest, bridged by shoulders that seem to have a life of their own. They provide a golden ratio to the trim angle of his waist, partially hidden behind your thighs.

A curl falls over his forehead. It’s heavy with sweat. His palm crushes into your flesh.

“Inside.” You croak, exercising the title that started this all. Bold.

“No me haga eso.” He shakes his head, pinching his eyes shut. “I–”

“Y-You sca…scared?”

“Fuck– Fuck!”

It’s misleading. You’d think – with how his voice breaks, winded and tight – that he’s about to accede. Burst and pipe you full of his seed. But he pulls out, dropping your legs to scramble on top of them. A trade off, you reason. It’s hard to rue with disappointment when his cock finally makes an appearance, fat and heavy in his hand. Your palate immediately salivates with the thought of sucking him clean after this is all over, putting your talents to good use. Maybe, if you do good, he’ll soften enough to call you pretty once more.

That’s getting ahead of yourself, though.

Miguel cups your neck, pinching either side to cut your oxygen supply. Your vision dots with stars – black holes and supernovas, dying suns blazing on your eyelids. It’s the combination of everything; the victory, the suffocation, the weight and magnitude of his presence. The sheets you lay on, the room you occupy, the heights you leapt across. They weave to create a shroud that slowly descends on your consciousness.

You don’t pass out, but you’re barely lucid when he spurts out onto your stomach. Dense, searing fluid coats your skin, pooling into your belly button and reaching the ravine between your breasts.

“I’m–” Voice hoarse, you cough to rid of its scratch. “You c-coulda done, y’know. I can’t… The spider radiation–”

“I know.” He says, then scoops some cum onto his finger. You automatically open your mouth when he reaches over to smear it on your tongue. “Good.”

It’s a peculiar scar, you dwell. Buttressed on his deltoid. Geometrically circular in a way vaccine marks aren’t, with marks like teeth equidistant around its circumference. Blinking heavily, you try to deduce its origins on his otherwise unmarred body, only to give up as you draw blanks, unable to think at all. Sleep looms, a heady fog lurching up your neck.

Miguel sits, picking apart the complicated knots of your shirt. It still circles your arms, looser with his effort thus far. When you flick your study over to his worn face, you find that his attention is centred onto your own blemish. Situated above your wrist – four discoloured punctures in the same size of his claws.

“If you think that’s bad, you should’ve seen the other guy.” You quip, smiling minutely. The man just shakes his head, pretending to reoccupy himself with his self-assigned task.

What do you say in this situation? When you can’t separate guilt from the fraught expression he dons. It’s not okay that it happened. It’s not fair that you have to bear that memory for the rest of your life. But… you don’t mind. Your self-respect is nonexistent and you don’t mind the fact that he’d resorted to whatever he could when desperate. You've done the same. Worse, even.

You’re about to speak up when a crackle on your left fills the silence for you. A radio he keeps on his bedside shelf, to connect him to all emergency personnel, blares a hurried alert.

“Possible superhuman event. Downtown city hall. Suspect is–”

He sighs, rising to a stand to shut it off. Your shirt slips off your limbs.

“It’s late.” You pose before you can stop yourself. The protest is instinctual – even you don’t know where you’re going with it – and no sooner does it leave your mouth do you cringe. It’s too big now to stuff back into your throat, spoken out loud and stupid. You’re free now, aren’t you? Unbound, literally. There’s no reason to stick around.

“So?” Miguel calls you out on it.

“You– um. Just, good luck.” Is all you come up with, curling into a foetus position to dissuade the embarrassment blooming behind your ribs. Now that his body isn’t on top of yours, his room seems that much colder.

“You’re right.” His briefs slide back up his legs, fitting snug around burly thighs and snapping low on his hips. “It’s late. You can sleep here tonight. I have to go deal with–” He gives a vague gesture to your left, referring to the dispatch call.

“Right.”

He offers nothing else, oscillating between attached rooms in the quiet that follows. A bathroom and closet, you assume; confirmed when he walks out in full spider garb. The sight of his suit knocks you back into place. The fact that it’s more familiar than the bare skin you were only just getting used to is a sobering enough fact.

And you watch as he moves to leave, shucking a window frame open to allow him access to Nueva York’s skyline. Perhaps it’s his back – turned to face you, at a guarded distance once more – that spurs you to ask. A distressed attempt for any tenderness he might have left.

(That wounded animal, raking for solace before death.)

“You opened it, didn’t you?” You ask, pitching the suspicion you’ve been ruminating over for a while.

He stops, turns his head to indicate he’s listening.

“You opened the window. You knew I’d been following.”

You wish the mask didn’t obstruct his reaction. What a small blink, or smile, could do to dissuade the charged pace of your heart. Eventually, though, he nods.

“Why?”

And there’s really one answer you’re hoping to hear. A comfort, along the lines of for you. But Miguel is funny in that way. Sometimes – as seen by the cum that glazes your abdomen, or the soreness between your legs – he gives you what you want. Readily. Seems to want the same thing too, if you’re lucky enough.

And then, there the other times.

“To see what you would do.”

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honeykyeom · 1 year

Text

white noise / track 2: smoke

pairing: lee seokmin x afab!reader

series summary: seokmin had always been there for you. after a rough heartbreak, you find out he’s there for you in more ways than just one.

series notes: uni!au, best friends to lovers, friends with benefits, 97 line antics, 18+

chapter warnings: alcohol & food mention, mcu mention (lmao), the gang actually goes to class?? (not really but), seokmin kinda being dumb, mingyu being pouty (what's new), the full gang!! FINALLY!!!!!, mostly slight angst (not sorry)

wc: ~5k

a/n: after much anticipation, the second track (even though i'm nowhere near done with the third LMAO)! thank you so much for all the renewed interest and love on the first track, i really really REALLY appreciate it. seriously it means the world!

read track 1 here!

Walking out of your shared English Literature class with Jinsoul, you grab your phone from your back pocket, the light from the homescreen illuminating your face even in the cloudy daylight. The weather matches your mind: murky and foggy, obscuring your clarity. As you focus on the LED screen, zoning out Jinsoul’s voice and looking through the endless notifications you received while in class, there was one that was still noticeably absent.

No messages from Seokmin.

It’s been about a week since the party, since that fateful night, with no word from Seokmin. You were left alone the next morning, waking up next to an empty space and cold sheets. You sat up in your bed, your mind running a thousand miles a minute with the finish line nowhere in sight. You felt lost on the track, stuck on where you two go from here and no chance to speak with him about it.

Did he regret that night? Was it a mistake to cross that line?

“Hey!”

You felt a sudden pain on your arm, breaking your attention from your thoughts. You look over at Jinsoul, rubbing the sore spot that she playfully hit. “What?”

“Are you even listening to me?”

“...Yeah, of course.”

Jinsoul rolls her eyes, your dazed expression making it apparent that you weren’t listening to her rant about your class. “Okay, you’ve been out of it all week. What’s up with you?” She asks you, an earnest shine in her eyes, treading lightly on the topic.

You falter in your steps, unsure of how to answer her question. You wanted to tell her, air out your frustrations, explain the current predicament you were in and finally get the heavy burden that was weighing you down off your shoulders. Something in your brain stops you from doing that, however, leaving you to twiddle your fingers and your thoughts taking refuge in the back of your mind.

You settle with, “Nothing. Everything’s fine,” in a meek voice, avoiding Jinsoul’s worrying stare.

She can tell that you’re lying, your entire frame sinking into itself; it’s not hard to see your demeanor changing, but she keeps her mouth shut, not wanting to overstep her boundaries. Even if she wanted to say anything, her own thoughts are interrupted with your smile and wave to Haseul and Yves, who are both meeting you halfway in the courtyard.

Haseul is the first to greet you back, running up to hug you immediately. Yves saunters, a smirk on her face as she sits at the table that’s situated in the middle of your group. You move your attention to her, continuing to hold Haseul in a tight hug with an eager smile. “So… how was your date with ViVi?”

Jinsoul is even quick to change the subject, her excitement for her friend showing in her bubbly appearance. “Oh my god, yes! Tell us, please!”

“It was good… We just walked along the river and went to a coffee shop that wasn’t too far. Wasn’t like an extravagant date or anything.”

“ViVi asked to see her again,” Haseul adds, ever the overbearing mother, embarrassing Yves with her admission. Squeals contribute to her embarrassment as you and Jinsoul berate her with questions and requests for more details and Yves is unable to hide her excitement, her own screams joining the group. You’re sure to be annoying the sleep-deprived students around you in the courtyard, but nothing can dull the joy in your circle.

“What are we screaming about?”

Your chatter is interrupted by the entrance of Minghao and Mingyu, sliding in beside Yves. You notice quickly that there’s a missing body from the usual trio, only adding to your anxieties of the day. Why is Seokmin avoiding me, you think as the two men join the group.

“We’re screaming about Yves’ date with ViVi,” Jinsoul responds, a laugh coming out of her lips as she excitedly recounts the conversation. Mingyu wraps his arms around Yves when he hears the news, joining in on the celebration and Minghao has a smile of endearment gracing his face, a clear sign of love that’s bursting through the seams.

“It was just one date,” Yves mumbles through Mingyu’s tight grasp, still grinning from ear to ear. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

Minghao interjects in the conversation, “So! You’ve been talking forever. It’s about time you two did something about it.” He brings his water bottle, which was encased in a decent amount of glistening water droplets, up to his lips and clears his throat once he swallows the liquid before he continues his sentiment. “We’ve seen how you’ve been around her. She makes you happy and that’s all that matters and we’re excited for you.”

A rare demure expression is seen on Yves’ face. A tight-lipped, shy and curved smile flashes as she responds quietly, “Yeah… It’s exciting.” Her body relaxes as waves of approval from the group assures her. She never needed your approval, nor does she ever ask for it, but you’ve seen her heart go through men and women, her confidence gliding through the acute pain she never spoke about.

“Get more excited! It’s about time one of us got cuffed,” Mingyu comments, loosening his grip on Yves, but still keeping an arm around her shoulders and keeping her warm against his body.

“Yeah, why isn’t it you, Gyu? Being a hopeless romantic and all that,” you retort, falling back into your playful banter with him to hopefully ease your own anxieties.

“Why are you asking? Trying to cuff me?”

You scoff at his cocky expression, “You wish.” He returns your statement with a cheeky wink, playing up the faux attraction. The back and forth with Mingyu doesn’t make the thought in the forefront of your mind go away as much as you hoped. “Where’s Seokmin? Isn’t he in the same class with you guys?”

Minghao is the one to respond, “He said he had to leave for something. Not sure for what.. He’ll be at movie night, though.”

Okay, he’s definitely avoiding me, you think. He’s never been this MIA before, usually taking any opportunity to casually talk to the group but more importantly, you.

The hole you were feeling in your life is greater than any heartbreak you’ve ever felt. No breakup, no fallout, nothing hurt like the slow disintegration of the friendship between you and your best friend, all because of a stupid decision.

“Y/N?”

You look up to see everyone around the table looking at you expectantly.

“I’m sorry. What was the question?”

“Do you need help with setting up for movie night tonight?” Haseul asks. “Minghao and I get out of class early so we can head over after?”

You bring your mouth up in a lipless smile, trying to muster all the happiness you can fake as you respond, “Yeah. Sounds great.”

At least you’ll see Seokmin tonight and maybe then you’ll get some answers.

“Have you guys noticed anything weird with Seokmin lately?”

Minghao stops setting up the blankets on your couch to catch your gaze, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. His expression matches Haseul’s, a slight frown forming when they meet eyes, trying to think about your mutual friend. Their heads come up empty, Minghao returning to look at you as he responds to your inquiry, “Nope. Everything seems normal to me?”

“Yeah, I haven’t noticed anything with him,” Haseul agrees. Her melodic work at making room in the fridge for incoming abundance of drinks fills the otherwise quiet room, the only other noise being the soft r&b coming from the television. She stands up from her kneeled position, slowly joining you at the kitchen island. “Why do you ask?”

Your body tenses, biting your bottom lip as your hands play with the plastic of the popcorn bags you’re prepping. The crinkling sounds fill your mind, playing with the static of your thoughts. You’re certain the pause is suspicious. Minghao and Haseul were naturally attuned to people’s emotions and you were no exception, no matter how hard you tried to hide them. You bring your focus away from the comfort of the plastic wrappers back to Haseul, attempting to steady your mind. “I just feel like he’s been avoiding me since the party. Like, outside of the groupchat.”

“That’s weird. Why?”

“I don’t know.” Lie.

“Did something happen during or after the party?”

“Not that I know of.” Another lie.

Haseul’s hands rest on her hips, eyes downcast as she thinks over your responses. “Huh.” Her tongue comes out of her mouth, pointed out in thought and she looks over at Minghao, who has now joined the two of you at the kitchen island. “Minghao, did he say anything when he got back home?’

“Not at all. He made it back to our apartment before us and when we got back, he was already asleep.”

You were brought back to that night, after everything was said and done.

You and Seokmin were quiet, his arm around you like a protective blanket, holding you against his chest. You couldn’t lie–his touch was comforting and while unfamiliar, not unwelcome. You two weren’t strangers to cuddling or being close, the behavior at the party making that evident, but this felt different. Maybe it was the obvious fact that you two crossed a line, a line that had been drawn in the sand for the both of you for the past two years–now, the small granules lifted in the air and swept away with the wind, blurring that already thin line.

Despite his own heart's pleas, Seokmin was the first to speak, his own voice small and faint. “I think I should go… before the guys’ get suspicious.” His actions fail his words, not loosening his grasp. He wasn’t ready to go, not ready to leave your presence, but he’d rather rip the bandaid off now than later before he has to go back to reality–the reality that you two were just best friends and nothing more.

“Do you think they’d be suspicious? I mean you’ve stayed over before?”

He winces at your question, the hopeful lilt in your tone making his decision that much more difficult. He has to do this, he thinks. It’s for his own good.

“I think it would be better if I go.”

Suddenly, there’s a knock at your door, breaking your memories and bringing you back to Haseul and Minghao, both of them still discussing the behavior of Seokmin. Their conversation stops when they hear the chatter of your friends behind the door.

You leave the kitchen to open your front door, revealing the rest of your friend group, ready to join in on the festivities. Jinsoul is the first to enter, a bright smile gracing her face as she exclaims that she brought more snacks for the night, leaving the group with plenty of food to satisfy themselves. Yves and Mingyu are quick to follow behind her, carrying cases and paper bags. The clinking of glass and aluminum make it apparent that they did not disappoint with their task of grabbing drinks for the night. They greet you with loud howling, the excitement of the night and finally being able to unwind after a week of exams and assignments getting to them.

You lock eyes with the lone straggler, the last person in the line of people joining you in your apartment. He keeps his cardigan close to him as he looks at you, a tight-lipped smile emphasizing the small dimple underneath his lips. You drink him in as you realize this is the first time you two have seen each other since that night.

You almost forgot how attractive he was, the week apart making his features more prominent in your mind.

“Hey,” you’re the first to crack the ice barrier between you two, hoping for it to thaw enough to make the night less awkward.

“Hey.”

You could cut the tension with a knife with how well this conversation was going. The air suddenly felt thick, so thick and dry that it sucked the moisture right out of you, causing you to swallow any saliva you could muster.

Alright, you think. Here goes nothing.

“So, um… about that night-”

“Are you guys going to watch the movie from over there? Hurry up!”

Damn it, Yves.

Seokmin clears his throat and quickly moves past you in the door frame, joining everyone else in the kitchen to situate himself for the movie night. You watch him leave, turning around as your front door slams behind you. He grabs a plastic cup, opting for water for the night, much to Mingyu’s chagrin.

This is going to be much harder than you thought.

You didn’t think it was possible to care any less about the fight scene in front of you, but here you are. You thought that picking one of your comfort films, or one where you turn your brain off and ignore all the plotholes, would help with your uneasiness but the absence of a familiar warmth next to you makes your brain aware of how apparent the flaws of the MCU have always been.

Mingyu’s big body acts like a heated blanket and the plush cushions of your sectional are comfortable enough for you to fall asleep if you wanted to. He happily took the opportunity to get close to you, saddling up to your side and enjoying Captain America trying to save his dear friend, Bucky Barnes and you wish you could do the same. It’s not that Mingyu’s cuddling wasn’t welcomed.

It just wasn’t Seokmin.

You and him had always sat together during movie night, acting like two peas in a pod, attached at the hip. But now here he sits, on the opposite side of your couch fumbling his fingers with your fuzzy, lilac blanket. It’s hard to keep your attention away, trying to focus on your steady breathing as opposed to his movements.

Soon as the movie dies down, Steve and Natasha breathing heavily on the doorstep of Sam Wilson, Seokmin stands up and wipes his hands on his jeans. Clearing his throat, he addresses the group, “I’m going to go to the bathroom.”

Although everyone moves their focus from the television, Jinsoul, who lifts her head from your shoulder, is the one to speak. “Do you need us to pause the movie?”

“Nah, you guys are good. It’ll be quick.”

Seokmin disappears into your bedroom, the door to your adjacent bathroom clicking shut. Everyone’s attention returns to the movie and you wish yours could do the same, but it was never there in the first place. You bounce your leg as the time passes, the scenes in front of you blending into one another. It’s not long before your mind settles on a decision, hoping for an end to this madness and before you can change it, you’re breaking away from Mingyu’s grasp and following Seokmin’s footsteps.

“Don’t wait up, I need to use the bathroom too.” You don’t even look back to see the group’s reaction or wait to hear their response before you’re entering your bedroom.

Looking at the bathroom door, the harsh yellow glow of light seeping through the floor haunts you. The toilet flushes, the sound filling your own brain with water and your head gets fuzzy, almost like you’re underwater. The waves begin to climb, threatening to suffocate you.

It’s now or never.

“What the fuck?”

You slam the bathroom door behind you and you’re met on the other side with a shocked Seokmin. His hands were dripping with water, soap bubbles following the path of his veins that run down his skin. He looks at you incredulously, completely taken aback by your presence in the space that he’s taken refuge in from the increasing anxiety of your current situation.

He knew it was only a temporary relief, but it was a moment to breathe–a moment away from you. He expected to have just a few minutes to collect his thoughts, regulate his breathing and try not to think about you being in his vicinity. What he didn’t expect was for you to break into that solace, infecting every piece of his mind.

“What are you doing in here?”

“Why are you avoiding me?” you ignore his question, rendering him speechless and babbling, trying to collect his thoughts.

He walks over to your hand towel, the blues of the fabric bleeding dark from the water. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh ok! So, leaving me on read all week, walking away anytime I enter a room with you and saying 3 words to me face to face isn’t avoiding me?” Seokmin takes a deep breath, leaning against the faux marble counter. His eyes stay downcast, evading your accusing stare and he keeps silent. “You’ve been weird ever since last weekend… You promised nothing would change after everything.”

Walking Seokmin to your door, you keep his hand intertwined with yours. You can’t help but notice the change in atmosphere–the glow of your kitchen lights shine a more golden hue, the air around you has a different stillness and even the feeling of his skin on yours clashes with the usual relationship. It’s all subtle, but it’s enough to notice.

You stop in your tracks, Seokmin moving forward until you pull him back, not letting go of his hands. Biting your lip, you look up at him as he gets closer, eyebrows furrowing with confusion as to why you stopped.

“What’s up?”

After a beat of silence, you respond but your apprehensiveness remains, “Nothing’s going to change between us because of this… right?”

Seokmin’s eyes shine with sincerity and his mouth is slightly left agape as he ponders on his response. He’s never been one to be certain of the future, choosing to live in the moment and take each moment day by day–all with a positive attitude. Once he collects his thoughts, there’s a finality to his tone, as if he’s never been more sure of anything.

He releases your hand, only to present his pinky finger. You chuckle at the silly ritual you two have, but at least you know he’s serious.

“Nothing is going to change between us. Pinky promise.”

Seokmin can only stare at his reflection in the mirror, dirty water stains peering back at him. “I wanted everything to be normal,” he states, simply.

“Well, why wasn’t it?”

“Because I liked it, maybe.” He breaks his gaze from the mirror and finally looks at you. The fine lines in his face are more apparent this close, like the stress from the past week had caught up to him. “I liked it. And I didn’t know how to tell you that or maybe, I didn’t want to admit it since it was just a drunk hookup.” Seokmin lets out a shaky breath, unsure how to continue, if he even should. The heaviness that has been weighing him down all week was lifted, his chest heaving from the truth that’s been released.

You approach Seokmin apprehensively, closing the distance between you two. It isn’t until your hands are touching on the counter do you respond to him, ending the silence. “I liked it too,” you confess.

“Would it be bad to admit that I wouldn’t mind doing it again,” Seokmin’s voice is soft, afraid to break the glass of the situation. He keeps his eyes focused on your hands, not willing to meet your face again. The air around you two has shifted, a fluid current flowing between your hands.

“Who says that we can’t do it again?”

He chuckles, shaking his head before he says, “The thing is I don’t want to stop.”

“Maybe I don’t want to stop either.”

Seokmin thinks he’s dreaming. When he looks at your face, there’s a playful spark in your eyes and the tone of your voice tempts him, as it always has. He could be imagining the smirk that tugs at the corner of your lips or the slight squeeze you give his hand and the small actions may cloud his judgment on how he should handle this situation, but he doesn’t care. He’s acting on pure adrenaline when he brings his hands to your face, connecting your lips together.

Everything about the kiss is different from the last time you kissed Seokmin. The shivers run down your body all the same but the soft nature of him has vanished, replaced with a fiery exterior. As his fingers leave your cheeks, falling to your waist and bringing your body closer to his, the touch kindles at your insides, your skin on fire.

Your bodies meld together from the heat, pulling yourselves closer until it was physically impossible. Seokmin’s lips work feverishly, eliciting a moan out of you and your nails leave crescent moons on his skin from the grip you had on him. It all makes his head spin, somehow more than you already did. He was insatiable–confirming that last week, he was not only drunk on alcohol, but drunk on you.

You feel like you’re floating, on the surface of a cloud, only to realize you aren’t 10 feet in the air when Seokmin pushes you against the bathroom door. His hands hold onto your waist tightly, making sure the impact isn’t too loud or painful. The only thing that fills the air is the heavy breathing shared between the two of you.

Between frantic hands and heated kisses, the two of you weren’t willing to break apart from each other. In the back of his mind, he begins to think of the others that sit in the room next door.

He could stay like this forever, but he didn’t want anyone to get any ideas. Seokmin separates your lips, albeit reluctantly, and you’re quick to chase him, not wanting the moment to end. Labored breaths fill the humid air and your lips are red from the constant contact. Softening his touch, he brings his forehead to yours in a moment of solace, trying to clear the static in his mind and regulate his breathing.

“We should get back to the others before they get suspicious,” he manages to get out through his dry throat. Seokmin’s voice is low, raspy and especially cautious, careful to keep his words contained to these four walls. “We should keep this between us.”

You only have enough sense in you to nod, agreeing to his statement. Head still foggy from the heat and dampness of the air, you finally open your eyes and respond, “I think so too…” You take a deep breath before you continue, “Don’t want to change too much.”

“It’s probably for the best.”

Seokmin internally winces at those words, the same ones that left his mouth when he had to leave your place last week. His statement cuts through his heart, exposing his flesh and reality–the reality that he’s helplessly in love with you, his best friend.

Or best friend with benefits?, he thinks. There’s no way this won’t end in disaster.

But he can’t deny the lightness he feels or the way his stomach churns at the thought of holding you, kissing you, or having you moan his name amidst a dizzy spell from pleasure. The situation he’s bringing upon himself is selfish and foolish and everything he shouldn’t be doing when it comes to his adoration towards you, but your charm has him under a trance; one that he doesn’t know if he wants to leave.

“I’m going to head back now,” Seokmin giggles with a shy smile, not taking a step away from you to do what he says.

“Okay,” you respond. Leaning off of the door and giving Seokmin room to leave, you return his smile with a coy smirk of your own.

But before you can get too far, Seokmin pulls you back into him and brings your lips to his in another hasty kiss. It’s quick, it’s rushed and it still leaves you breathless all the same. It’s new territory for you two, deviation from a path you never thought you’d stray. It lights a fire within you to be exploring it with him.

He separates from you to say, “Okay. I’m actually going to go now.” His smile reaches his eyes, his signature wrinkles prominent on his face when removes his hands from your waist. “I just had to do that first.”

“Okay.”

“Bye.”

“Bye, Seokmin,” and with a giddy smile, he leaves you in the bathroom, the sound of a soft click of the door filling the air. The buzz of electricity from your lights adds to your daze. As you lean back against the door, feeling weightless from the pressure of Seokmin’s fingers through the cotton of your t-shirt, you think of how reckless this is and how destructive this could be–not only hiding it from your friends but how fragile it can make your friendship.

It would be easy to go to a party and cling on to a random person for the night. It would be easy to bat your eyelashes and play with the hem of their shirt, adding a playful lilt to your voice and an air of mystery around you. It would be easy to lose yourself in the moans, chasing your highs and then easily forget each other, as you tried to do with Jaehyun. It would be so easy, so simple and so careful.

If everything could be so easy with someone else, why does it also feel even more effortless with Seokmin? As it always has been with him.

Even through the carelessness or the secrecy, no random hookup made you forget like Seokmin had. His gentle worship and care of your body had you on cloud nine and seeing the galaxy. Your comfort was the most important thing to him, even after a few too many drinks. There was something about that night, something in the back of your mind, that guides you blindly through this winding road of uncertainty. You just hope that the road you were walking together doesn’t crumble beneath you.

“Sorry, you were gone for so long! I needed a new cuddle buddy.”

Of course, Mingyu couldn’t be alone for even just five minutes. When you return to the living room from the bathroom, Mingyu has his head on Jinsoul’s lap, her hands playing with the strands of his hair. He looks content, more relaxed than when he was on your shoulder, his huge body somehow compressed in the small space that you left.

Jinsoul’s fingers stop their movements as she states, “I can move,” teasing the boy.

“When did I say I wanted you to move?”

Jinsoul chuckles at his retort, bringing her hand back to his scalp and a pleased smile returning to his face. You probably weren’t going to get your seat back if Mingyu’s comfort was anything to go by.

“There’s room over here if you’re looking for a replacement cuddle buddy.”

Seokmin’s voice carries your attention, his smile hiding a sly intention that is imperceptible to the untrained eye. He does have tons of room. With Yves and Haseul huddled on the floor, a plush gray blanket covering their bodies, Seokmin is able to spread his legs on the sectional, taking up much of the left side.

Nonchalantly, you shrug and give a casual grin, “I guess you’ll do.”

“Shut up.”

As you saddle up to Seokmin’s side, resting your head on his shoulder, slotting to him like a puzzle piece, you can’t help but notice the small side glances that Minghao and Haseul give you. The flash of confusion on their faces goes quickly, trying to wrap their heads around how the tense situation between you and Seokmin dissipated so abruptly.

You’ll explain it to them later, you think. At least as best you can without giving you two away before there’s anything to begin with.

With the movie drawing to a close, Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson on a search for their friend and the Maximoff twins revealed, the atmosphere has a much lighter and relaxed feel–the weird awkwardness and walking on eggshells between you and Seokmin gone. There’s retelling of old stories, laughs that could be considered embarrassing to most, and the playful banter that is signature to your friendship group dynamic. From the outside looking in, you would've never known there was a bump in the road.

And to your friends, they were none the wiser as to why Seokmin stopped talking to you or how you suddenly made up. They don’t know the hidden tension that his hand being on your thigh holds, looking casual enough to be considered normal affection.

“What time is it?” Minghao’s voice cuts through the loud noise, everyone turning to him. His shoulder slacks as he relaxes, leaning back and blending into the soft gray of the sectional with his oversized sweats.

Yves reaches for her phone, the device laying face up not too far from her figure. “It’s like 11.”

“Ugh… I need to head home. I love your sofa, but my bed is calling me.” Jinsoul gently pushes Mingyu off her lap, making a pout form on his lips from the loss of contact. “Can we please go home?” Jinsoul addresses Haseul, hoping that her roommate is ready to return to their own apartment.

“Yes, we can go.”

“Minghao?” Mingyu looks over at his own roommate, a pleading smile on his face.

“Yeah, fine, let’s go,” Minghao stands from the couch and turns his body to Seokmin, the remainder of their trio. “You coming?”

Seokmin’s eyes flash between you and Minghao before responding, “I was actually going to stay and help clean up.” He addresses you when he asks, “If that’s okay?”

At first you think, why would you need help with cleaning? The group has never made much of a mess, especially with Mingyu around. The most that needed to be done was putting away the extra drinks and snacks, finding enough room in your pantry. But taking another look at Seokmin, you read between the lines, his eyes glowing and mischief pulling at the corner of his lips. No cleaning is going to get done, not immediately anyway.

“Yeah, that’s fine with me.”

#seventeen x reader #seventeen smut #dk x reader #seokmin x reader #seokmin smut #dk smut #dokyeom x reader #dokyeom smut #svt smut #svt x reader #seventeen scenarios #svt scenarios #happy friday!!! 🤭

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pinknipszz · 3 months

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adagio for strings 2/4

↷ ˊ- true form!ryomen sukuna x f!reader

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"i'm not a crook!"

' - wc: 3.7k

you look more yūrei than human with how you stagger down the winding path, your breaths short and quick and shaky. the moon looks at you like how a mother would when her child is up to no good. she hides behind thick clouds to obscure her light in an effort to keep you from reigning carnage, but you move. to hell with the moon, you think, squinting your eyes to make out the dark shapes ahead. i don’t need a mother to guide me, much less the fucking moon.

you drag your feet across sharp stones hardly wincing, like a crippled animal on broken legs. the weight of your weapon is the only friend you have left, and you swallow the noise that crawls up your throat. you don’t know what it might’ve been. maybe a scream or even a sob, but it doesn’t matter now that the village is close. your eyes adjust to the darkness and you recognize the water well, the stone steps, the statues of yokai that are supposed to protect from natural disasters. you nearly bark a laugh at the irony.

is this what it takes to become a ghost story? you soak in the silence as you limp. in a hundred years or so, you think that farmers will warn their children about playing outside after dark, lest they want to be stolen by a pauper turned vengeful by those who damned her. it feeds your delirium and takes your mind off the ashes. this is only fair. an eye for an eye. considering the years of verbal and physical torment, you find this generous. mosquitoes swarm your space when you stumble over the steps of the first house.

it’s a humble thing, nothing impressive about it, belonging to either a cowherd or a farmer, but there are no sandals or scattered tools on the porch to confirm. after a quick assessment of the surroundings, you slip through a crack between the sliding doors. this’ll work, i’ll make it work. the inside is just as bland upon entering. you scoff, disappointed. there are no pots or paintings or portraits to take, no trophies to collect, but you find grass cushions around a low table for eating. tell-tale signs of life. they encourage you to move.

it doesn’t take much time to find a room, the only room, at the end of the sandalwood hall. you press your ear against the door, heart hammering in your chest, and wait for a few seconds. it remains silent. you pull back to stand face-to-face with the thin paper. a serpentine tongue flits across cracked lips. you don’t know what you’ll see inside. maybe a man and his wife, perhaps a family, sleeping soundly in proper, padded mattresses. they are probably dreaming about silly things, like conquering demons with sharp teeth or becoming the next shogun.

hot jealousy swirls in the pit of your gut. it bends and snaps unnaturally, dragging its claws along the walls to tear apart your innards. dreaming of silly things is such a fucking privilege. you are more than happy to rip it from them.

but your hand never touches the wooden frame, held back by a ubiquitous force. cicadas whine for you. you blink with a bit of clarity and, for the first time in a while, think twice. your anger comes down to a slow simmer, diluted by a cold wave of realization. you don’t know what you’ll see inside. it repeats like a mantra in your head. you are thin and weak and don’t know how to fight. the words don’t feel like yours, but you listen. a man might draw his sword and strike you down. a woman might scream her head off. what then? the hand around your hatchet loosens its grip.

it repeats, you don’t know what you’ll see inside.

your jaw is tight when you turn away, refusing to waste your chance on a bunch of strangers, before leaving as quietly as you came. realistically, you aren’t capable of fighting more than one person at a time. adrenaline has a timer that you don’t want to test. plus, there are people more deserving of death, like the kamo women. you consider it but decide that they’re not worth the effort. their esteemed estate sits at the top of the hill, and you’ll likely succumb to exhaustion before reaching it. the female seller is also out of the question; you don’t even know where she lives.

your best bet at revenge is the butcher, knowing that his house is tucked behind some trees down the street. you hesitate a little though. he is strong and powerful with burly arms that can snap brittle necks like yours, surely from experience. he is a challenge far greater than climbing a thousand steps for two women who know nothing about fighting. at least then, the playing field is even. but you remember how scared he was, and how his cowardice ran so deep that he had cried to a clan to get rid of you instead of doing it himself.

dried leaves crunch where you step. a grasshopper jumps away disturbed. that is one thing you hold over his head, it seems, one thing that makes you stronger than a man of muscle.

the walk is short. you reach it in just under five minutes minus the limping. you know that he earns more money than a cowherd and a farmer combined, if the size of his house is anything to go by. he must also be smarter because the door doesn’t budge when you try to slide it open, almost as if he anticipated your imminent arrival. but death doesn’t come knocking politely, and neither should you. you remember how you joked about squeezing through a hole in the back wall, rumored to have been from a strike meant for his prostitute wife. you’ll use it tonight to deliver the punchline.

you round the house and find the secret entrance. it’s boarded so poorly, almost as if he had just filled it with a couple of large rocks from the river and called it a day without bothering to take extra precautions. it takes the same amount of effort to pull them down with sanguine-wrought claws. luckily, the hole is large enough for a person to slip through, and you silently thank his wife, keeping your hatchet close. you hope she’s doing well wherever she is. you haven’t seen her at the market since the rumors have stopped, but you’re not overly concerned. she wasn’t kind to you either.

immediately you notice the air is different inside, almost stagnant. it’s colder too. hairs behind your neck stand on end, but you don’t let it deter you.

you explore the home with light steps. every once in a while, tatami floors creak underneath your feet. you freeze when they do and wait for frantic movements, but there’s none. you take a moment to calm yourself before continuing. in the kitchen, you find the butcher’s most prized possession: his cleaver. it rests on the wooden table abandoned by its owner. you approach to trace the metal. it’s cool to the touch and still sharp despite all of the flesh that it has cut through. this must have cost a fortune, you think. metals are hard to come by.

it would be a valuable thing to have by your side. it’d scare both people and animals more than a rusty hatchet with a weather-stained handle, and you’d never have to live in fear until the day it also deteriorates, but you don’t think that will happen for a long, long time. it’ll serve a message to the rest of them too. you’ll get to spend your final days eating peaches and melons offered out of fear, before being taken by the shogun’s army for a necessary execution. your fingers tingle. i’ll teach myself how to use you, and you reach for the foul weapon.

but your spine straightens at the sound of shuffling from somewhere deep in the house. it’s faint. horribly so, but you hear it. blood rushes to your head. you turn around half-expecting to see something behind you, but the space is empty. the shuffling continues, only this time a little louder, coming from the eastern hall with a single bedroom at the end. the butcher, you breathe shakily, forgetting the cleaver. it must be the butcher. he’s awake. you are tempted to run out of the house, tail tucked between your legs, but you swallow your fear. this bastard is the reason you’re sleeping without a roof tonight.

you exit the kitchen and walk towards the room, your weapon ready. the shuffling grows louder, more frantic. you focus your energy on standing upright, eyes burning from the effort to make out the darkness of the hallway. your hand glides along the wall for guidance, dust collecting at your fingertips. you only stop when you feel the familiar wooden frame of a door. when you hesitate for the nth time, the cold air curls around you with its tendrils, urging you forward. it whispers incoherent things. unable to resist temptation, you slide it open with one swift movement.

you think you’re ready for the butcher. you expect to find him twisting back and forth on his futon, or practicing his secret swordsmanship with ungraceful feet, or maybe even pacing the room like all men do. you’ve already thought of a million ways to catch him off-guard, and one of them might have worked if it'd actually been the butcher in the room, but nothing could have prepared you for this. there’s a large mass that’s darker than darkness, hunched in the far left corner, morphing between shapes as if it can’t decide between looking human or plant or animal.

you refuse to take your eyes off of it, like a sick audience for a sick show. the creature contorts unnaturally, bending this way and that before groaning a loud, horrible sound. it bounces off the walls in powerful waves that strain your ears. hissing, you don’t think twice before stepping back, but it’s already too late when tatami floors creak under your feet. immediately it silences, changing form in a blink. it is thinner and taller, closer to a corpse than anything, with features still indistinguishable in the dark. your mouth goes dry.

“what the hell—” it lunges forward. you fail to dodge.

the force of the fall rattles your bones, pushing out the air in your lungs. there is a resounding thud from where your hatchet falls. you aren’t given a chance to recover before it digs its long, black nails into your shoulders, drawing liquid copper, and claws at your flesh. the air is metallic on your tongue when you screech in pain. the creature shakes in turn, mimicking a laugh, and pushes against the lower half of your body to render it useless. you’ve only ever felt like this once in your life, when you had sleep paralysis as a child. the old sensation is ingrained in your memory, and it resurfaces only now.

a coil snaps in your chest. “get off me!” you scream, thrashing violently. your hands curl into fists that jab at its sides. the creature doesn’t take a definite shape. you might as well be hitting air, but your efforts aren’t entirely futile. it recoils just enough for you to twist to your side and frantically search for your hatchet. when you see it in the far end of the hall, just a few arms-length away, you scramble towards it in desperation. but the creature is relentless. it grabs your ankle and pulls hard, dragging you further into the dark. no. no no no. you fight the paralysis that threatens to consume you, and with one final burst of strength, you kick.

you aren’t exactly sure why the creature lets go, wailing as if it came into contact with hot coal, but you don’t have time to ogle at how it presses itself against the wall in fear. you push yourself back on your feet and wobble quickly towards your weapon. when it’s back in your possession, you hold it tight until your knuckles turn stark white. this time you have no intentions of dropping it. your lungs burn when you breathe, and you’re sure you injured something, but you don’t dwell on it for too long. adrenaline has a timer.

you bare your teeth when the creature approaches. you’re ready to raise the hatchet. you remember the laws of nature when it lunges again, and you dodge. the strongest survive and forget the weak, who are branded for death the second they leave the womb. it runs through your veins like forbidden ichor. those gnarled hands shoot forward with inhuman speed, intent to kill, but you move just in time. you need to be the strongest in the room to win. the creature’s strikes wildly, its steps unpredictable. you cough blood at a particularly hard hit to your side. you need to be the strongest.

the creature falls forwards when you slash its legs. taking advantage of its vulnerable position, you rush forward and watch as it scrambles for footing, before you pull the hatchet up high. it looks at you then. though it lacks a proper face you think that it’s trying to mimic human emotion. you don’t know what it wants to evoke within you, but you hope it knows that it’s useless when you look back without a hint of remorse. the hatchet hits the juncture between its neck and shoulders, digs deep into black, warping mass, and comes off clean from the other side.

you watch it dissipate into nothing as if it was never there. the silence is nearly deafening. i did it. i killed it. your feet move before you could process what just happened, or what you just killed. the world blurs around you. when you pass the kitchen and catch a glimpse of the cleaver, you remember the butcher. he feels like a distant memory. you doubt he’s even alive anymore if the creature had been here the entire time. when you step out, the cool air hugs you tight. it’s still dark. you wonder if any time has passed at all.

when you reach the bottom step, you collapse forward and get a mouthful of dirt. adrenaline leaves your system before you get a chance to say goodbye, replaced instead with bone-deep exhaustion. your body remains glued to the ground as it succumbs to the exertion, fading in and out of consciousness. you dropped your hatchet again, you realize through the haze. you summon enough strength to prod at the space beside you. you swipe left and right, up and down. nothing. your vision blurs with unshed tears.

the pain is unbearable, gripping you like a vice and unwilling to go. even breathing is a difficulty on its own, with each inhale accompanied by a sharp pain in your chest. you know the injury is lethal. you wonder who will find your body first in the morning. maybe a child or a seller. you wonder if they’ll celebrate your death with sake or fresh meat before dumping your body into the river. maybe they won’t want to waste anything at all, so they’ll leave you here to rot and go about their day. before you could enjoy your pity party, a gruff voice cuts through the silence. “pathetic. that thing was hardly a curse.”

you blink, startled. a few tears fall and mix with the dirt. you don’t dare to look.

“what happened to that spirit of yours? don’t tell me you’ve given up. get up.” it’s harsher now, like the sound of sharpening two swords.

what else is there to lose?. you force two arms under you, shakily planting your hands to push your upper body off the ground. you find a pair of feet, attached to two strong legs, a solid waist and—

your eyes widen in horror, and for the first time in your life you see a real monster. he possesses four— four— arms, two of which hold weapons you do not recognize, a second pair crossed over his chest. all four of his eyes watching you with disgusting amusement. he reeks of arrogance and condescension, etched in the grooves of his hideous face and the criminal tattoos worn with pride. you don’t know what kind of expression you’re wearing, but he laughs at it so loudly that you wonder how no one has woken up yet.

no, not again. your breaths turn rapid, eyes full blown and wild. i can’t do this again. this guy is different from the one in the house. i can’t— you could only imagine what he sees. a woman with sunken cheeks and torn skin, dressed in dirt and bloodied, battered garbs, lying on the brink of death. you come to think that he’s here to finish you off. at least one of you is enjoying themselves. “there you go,” he purrs, smiling sharp with pointed teeth stained red. “you nearly had me worried. it’d be a shame if you died already.”

you want to scream with what little voice you have left, but it only comes out in short, pained grunts. the monster notices this. carelessly, he throws his weapons behind him to crouch in front of you. he abandons them so easily that you wonder how he thinks of himself so highly that he can fight without them. he’s still massive from this angle, and your neck hurts from the effort to crane up at him. he props a now-free hand on his knee and rests his chin on its palm. “sounds painful,” he drawls, dripping with feigned concern. “need some help?” you simply stare.

“did you forget how to speak?” you think for a moment before shaking your head. “then speak.”

“i c-can’t,” you nearly punch the words out of you.

a heavy sigh blows over you as he massages the bridge of his nose, grumbling something under his breath. the situation is almost comical. you can’t discern between his anger and disappointment. they blend so well together that you think he only feels both simultaneously, one unable to exist without the other. you aren’t surprised if that’s the case. everything about the monster came in pairs. two arms, two faces. of course he’d feel double the hatred over you. you just don’t understand why he hasn’t killed you yet. a creature like him doesn’t look like he’s capable of patience.

“you know,” his eyes narrow to thin slits. “you cause a lot of trouble in these parts. you’re like a fucking spawner, creating a bunch of pitiful curses.” so he’s not going to help you. the monster leans in to grab your face with one hand, squeezing your cheeks tight until your lips pucker. it feels like he’s trying to shatter your jaw with how much pressure he uses. “bet you don’t even know what curses are.” you don’t, but the word is familiar. you think that he catches the glint of recognition in your eyes, because his smile turns devilish.

“it’s a shame that you’re ugly,” he continues, humming to himself as he turns your head left and right. “you barely got any fat on you. you’re giving me close to nothing to work with.” fear shoots down your spine at his words, suddenly realizing the full extent of your vulnerable position. you think he notices that too because he simply chuckles and offers no clarification. his large hand crawls up the side of your face before tangling itself into your matted hair. he pulls back harshly and you wince.

“tell you what. i’ll give you food, water, and a bed if you make a deal with me.” his promise is vile. he takes advantage of your silence knowing full well that you’re unable to ask for its conditions.

but still, you weigh your options. there is nothing left for you here in this small village. no family or friends to remember, no home to turn to. you were never liked by the residents either, and you doubt you ever will be no matter what you do. plus, people will think that you have something to do with the butcher’s disappearance. although you were supposed to, you’d still be falsely accused for a kill that wasn’t yours, which you still think is highly unfair. you’d be doing everyone a favor if you disappear anyways.

so you look at him with the last bits of your bravery and nod. he grins fiercely, pleased with your decision.

“uraume,” he says. your eyes widen when a familiar figure materializes from nothing. the monk-child, who you saw at the market, the one that gave you your first pomelo. when they stand side-by-side over your collapsed form, something in your mind clicks. this four-armed freak is what leaves the village so restless. when sellers and ladies aren’t complaining about you, they talk about him. the “cursed object.” you still don’t know what that means. uraume’s expression is just as unreadable when they study you for the nth time.

“prepare a room at the temple, and cook twice as much for dinner,” he orders, his eyes raking over you. his companion, who you’re starting to believe is his servant, bows their head and mutters a humble “yes sir” before dissolving into air. you gape, eyes are fixated on where they stood. the monster merely chuckles at your ignorance. his grip on your hair loosens, and he pushes your head back into the dirt, surely leaving a mold of your face for the sellers to marvel over the next morning.

you don’t know about the other hands hovering over your back, expelling enough energy to seep through your robes, past your flesh, and into your bones. “you don’t understand now, but you will soon,” his voice is hypnotizing, bleeding through the static in your ears. you feel your ribs click back into place, and you taste earth when you gasp. “i’ll make you an expert in curses.”

exhaustion finally pulls you into its arms. it is your last embrace for a long, long time.

(masterlist) | listen to adagio for strings!

#jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen sukuna #sukuna ryomen x reader #jjk sukuna #sukuna ryomen x you #heian period #true form sukuna #uraume #jjk x reader #jjk #sukuna #ryomen sukuna #jjk imagines #sukuna imagine

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phonydiaries · 7 months

Text

Target Practice - P x Reader

Warnings: reader getting the absolute shit kicked out of them by enemies and a significant amount of blood and violence. Other than that, nothing I think?

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The cold hard clang of your steel blade hitting the marble column rings through the courtyard.

Off target.

You’re fucking off target, again.

You step back, try to redistribute the weight of the weapon in your hands. Your palms are sweaty, your grip becoming loose and clumsy. You blink hard, eyes trained on the dummy. Somehow in its blank expression you see pity. Mockery. The knowledge that for all your effort, it's not enough.

You’re not strong enough.

Anger rises to a rolling boil in the pit of your stomach. You slash the dummy across its felted chest. It’s a poor hit, sloppy and devoid of form. You’ve been at this for hours, hacking away fruitlessly in the courtyard. You wince and bring a hand to quell the stinging pain in your side. Under your clothes you know the skin is still raw; all rust-colored and lacerated. It was that very wound which led you to this obsessive over-exertion in the first place.

Three nights past you had very nearly perished in the arms of Gepetto’s puppet.

In your half-conscious delirium, you hardly remember all the details of the mission gone impossibly wrong. You and P had stalked into the night together, watching each other's backs carefully. There were the typical dust-ups, mundane scrapes and bruises and otherwise totally expected snags. None of this phased you, it was standard fare. But somewhere in the now fluid and tenuous events of that night, you got careless. You must’ve. How else would you find yourself backed into a corner, disarmed, swarmed by a legion of damnable automatons. This piece of the memory is both vivid and obscured, bits and pieces of sensation overwhelming in their clarity and others entirely lost to you. You have no idea how many times you were struck or with what manner of weaponry.

You recall curling in on yourself on the ground, arms twisting above your head in a desperate attempt at self preservation. And then all at once there was a mad chaos surrounding you. The air crackled with electricity, brazen sparks of light, the smell of smoke, a horrible crunch of faulty machinery. Your head pulsed dully as a cold arm slipped around your torso and heaved you upright. White hot pain shot through your body and you cried out in the darkness. Your eyes wavered open long enough to catch P, looking as grim as you had ever seen him, carefully scooping you up, your legs dangling limp over his human arm.

The journey to Hotel Krat was one which you were almost certain you would not live to see the end of. For starters, your hands and feet had gone utterly numb, probably thanks to the outpouring of blood from your abdomen, which ran thick and viscous down the front of P’s shirt as he carried you. The parts of your body that could still feel throbbed with a terrible searing pain and you longed for a spell of unconsciousness. This was in fact soon to come, after a ghastly cough which left the metallic taste of iron in your mouth and even more bloodstains on your poor companion’s clothes. As your vision faded you only mumbled to him,

“Sorry… Oh God, I’m sorry…”

You were bedridden for the better half of two days, floating in and out of consciousness like a specter. Flashes of things from that night, dreamlike and watery, come back to you, pilling at the edges of your mind. P bursting through the doors of Krat in a frenetic panic, your head lolling against his chest, your body shivering relentlessly from loss of blood. The marble floors of the hotel were stained a deep crimson. You recall Sophia rushing to meet you both, communicating with P in some way you couldn’t understand either due to the nonverbal nature of it or of the way your head swam every time you opened your eyes. Somehow you were brought to your room, and faintly recall the dressing of your wounds, a feeling of coolness on your forehead, some herbal concoction being held to your mouth, its contents warm and sweet.

Though most of those days were spent in a deep and cavernous slumber, when you were lucid enough to open your eyes, to perceive the room around you, you’re certain that Pinocchio had never left your side. With each foggy fragment, there he knelt at your bed; brows knitted and hands clasped over his mouth as he leaned forward on his elbows. A thoughtful intensity had overcome him, and in this posture, he seemed almost to be praying.

He doesn’t know what to do with me. You thought to yourself. He knows now how easily I’m broken.

In the brief moments Pinocchio could be pulled from your side, Sophia took gentle inspection and inventory of your condition. In one such instance you suddenly found yourself tearful, frustration and guilt wracking the whole of your being. Sophia attempted comfort and assured you it was not out of weakness that you had landed yourself bleak and bloodied in this bed, that it wasn’t a fair fight, that this could’ve happened to anyone. But it didn’t. It happened to you. You who were charged to accompany Pinocchio in all his ventures. You who were meant to be his trusted companion, his ally, his protector when it was required of you. He was made of magic after all, and you were only a mere human. Expendable. You’d failed him.

Yesterday was the first time you had even managed to stand since it all happened. You walked barefoot in pyjamas through the hotel, searching for P in silence. The cold marble is a shock to the soles of your feet and you wrap your arms around yourself at the draft that ripples beneath the loose fitting silk sleepclothes. When you finally catch sight of him in the library tucked between the towering shelves, your throat goes completely dry and tight. Your eyes feel glassy. You can’t face him knowing how he last saw you, making a fool of yourself. A sorry excuse for a soldier.

That evening it was impossible to bring yourself to dream. Thoughts ruminated, their thorned and gnarled roots delving deep into the recesses of your restless sleep. In the darkness, you change clothes and take your weapons from their holding place and head for the garden. You wanted to blow off steam at first, just clear your head. But as you night crept slowly into dawn, hues of blue and indigo shifting into a brilliant orange, here you still stood. Haggard and weary in the garden with callouses burning into your palm. Fixation on failure had poisoned you.

You were exhausted. The wear of such exercise would’ve been present even in your normal physical condition, but the presence of deep yellowing bruises and disrupted gashes along your limbs made it all the more wretched. You would not allow your body even a moment of peace. How could you quit now? How when your mind still ran rampant and relentless?

You glare at the dummy before you with pointed bitterness. With a groan you slice wildly across its throat, and the lifeless head tumbles into the grass. Your shoulders slump forward at the weight of your sword. You stare at the head, rolling to a stop. Hair falls over your eyes in an unkempt curtain and you find it difficult to catch your breath. Some stalker I am. You think to yourself.

You’re drawn out of the ever-tangled web of self-pity by a feeling of being watched. You throw a glance over your shoulder, and there he is. Your trusted Pino.

You feel sick.

At the knowledge of his presence, you straighten up your posture and readjust your clothes. It’s pointless, you know, but still. You don’t want him seeing you like this. You attempt to coolly smooth your hair back and acknowledge him with a nod, not knowing what to say. The two of you stand, shifting your weights awkwardly, in a permeating silence.

P is the first to attempt conversation, pointing in the direction of your bedroom, his face portraying confusion.

“Ah. I’m fine now.” You lie, poking absentmindedly at the ground with your weapon. “Sophia gave me some… something or other. I’m right as rain.”

P doesn’t look convinced, and he shouldn’t be. You were knocking on Death's door not 48 hours ago. You hadn’t forgotten he was the one to lug your delirious self for miles, pale and languid and spurting blood. It's a service for which you’re afraid he can never be repaid. He reaches for your hand, but you flinch away. His eyes flash with something deeply sad and your heart crumbles.

You’re being cruel.

But you can’t accept his help anymore; he can’t keep offering you these undeserved kindnesses. You want to say sorry, not just for swatting him away, but for everything. For not being more careful, for causing him so much worry, for putting both your lives at risk. But you don’t. Instead you turn your back to him and kick up dirt.

“You can just go back inside, P.”

Your face feels hot and you wonder if you’re really going to cry with him still standing there. As salty tears pool at the corner of your eye, you feel a sharp prick in your back. You yelp and whip your head around to find P now equipped with his rapier, holding it to your back. You lift your sword reflexively in return.

“I’m not in the mood for-” You start, but are cut off as he crosses his weapon with yours. Your eyes scan from the hilt of his rapier to meet his eyes, which narrow at you. The corner of his mouth is lifted just barely in an inviting and appetitive smirk. You resist returning the look, which disappoints him. You give in just a little and draw your weapon to his chest. Now his expression is broken into a full blown boyish smile. It’s almost enough to lure you out of yourself. Almost.

The duel begins between the two of you at a crawling pace; there’s a kind of thoughtfulness to your movements. You size one another up as if this were the first time your swords had crossed and not an uncountable thousandth. Your steps are in orbit with each other, methodical, calculated. His gaze is unrelenting and makes something in your chest twinge.

You catch even yourself off guard by striking first, but of course he’s able to parry it easily, shaking the rhythm of your movement. He slashes back at you and your blade catches his, just barely, as it slides away with a ring. A minute inkling of pride swells in you.

You’re surprised at how quickly things between the two of you seem to realign; it’s all in an ebb and flow, but it's good. It’s real, this energy you feel in practice with him.You’re struck suddenly with the thought that the simple act of sparring could never feel so -you can’t think of a better word for it than- spiritual with anyone but him. The bond you’ve cultivated, held and protected between yourselves is inimitable, ritualistic in a sense. A private and intimate practice between you and he.

By the time the sun descends into the horizon, casting its shadows deep across the garden walls, the two of you have succeeded in making an absolute mess of the space and of yourselves. The dummies have become innocent casualties to the line of fire, and several rose bushes hang limply in ribbons, their crimson petals strewn about carelessly. As for you; your hair is whipping across your face, clothes rumpled. You’d both thrown off your coats a while ago, the practice making you sweat. You move wildly in tandem with the puppet, each of you equally stubborn not to crack. It was endearing, you had to admit, the competitive streak in your trusted companion. But your iron will would win out in the end.

At the very edge of the courtyard where two walls meet, you face P, your mouth set sternly in a straight line, brow furrowed in concentration. You’ve been waiting for him to falter this whole time. Unfortunately as a puppet he seems far less prone to such follies as a mere mortal like yourself. However, he’s also less accustomed to common human tricks. With only the tiniest bit of guilt, you widen your eyes and drop your jaw, gesturing behind the boy in front of you. You watch his immovable expression twitch and his eyes follow the sharp line of your finger.

And with that, your window is open.

With a well timed flick of your sword, you disarm your opponent, and his rapier clatters to the ground. The tip of your blade rests firmly at the center of his chest.

P’s head spins to look back at you, his face awash with betrayal. You can’t help smiling. It was so stupid, so juvenile, so unbelievably oldest-trick-in-the-book that you honestly can’t believe it worked. But that doesn’t matter. You’ve won.

P’s face drops and he shakes his head at your victory, but you see the glimmer of a grin beneath it all. He’s happy to see you like your old self again.

“Oh cheer up, poor puppet boy.” You say, a lilt in your voice. You inch forward and draw your weapon up to the collar of his shirt. It wilts at the touch of your sword and his pale freckled collarbone is just barely exposed. “Better luck next time.”

Your eyes flicker back to his face and you’re surprised to find it softened into an expression even you don’t recognize. It’s watery, shifty and an utter mystery to you. His attentions seem to play tug of war between you and your weapon. You quirk an eyebrow quizzically, but he offers you no answers. You feel something akin to annoyance towards him, as if he’s being purposefully coy with you. Almost absentmindedly, your blade draws an invisible thread away from the dip of his collarbones to his throat.

You watch, waiting for him to flinch. He doesn’t. Instead, the strait of his jaw settles against the blade of your sword. His eyes close and he looks as if he’s sinking into a warm embrace rather than cold hard steel. Despite the warmth of exertion, you feel a shiver run down your spine. A prickling curiosity rises in you. Experimentally, you tilt the blade gently against the square of his jaw. He lifts his chin in response, leaving his throat vulnerable to your will. The pieces click in your mind. It’s a display of trust; of total devotion. He’s putting himself in your hands, and you want to grasp at him greedily.

His beauty is intimidating, looking nothing short of an angel in the firelight of the setting sun. The orange glow bounces from your sword in a soft line that settles over his face, and the waning sunlight catches the edges of his pitch dark hair like a halo. Deep shadows of violet are cast beneath his brow, giving his eyes the appearance of two precious stones hewn into living rock.

You feel yourself impossibly drawn to him in the heat of the moment. You attempt to maintain your coolness, and lower the blade. You do this slowly, savoring each minute movement as he lowers his head to meet your gaze. You open your mouth to speak but no words fall from your parted lips. Your hand twitches around your weapon and you toss it to the ground. It’s much too heavy to hold suddenly.

You step forward. Pino steps back. His back is pressed flat against the marble wall now.

Fuck.

Your heart pounds beneath your ribcage and you wonder if he can hear it, that desperate thudthudthud. The sight of him proves too overwhelming. Your mind is no longer flooded with doubts of your strength, of his care for you, of your deep bond. Fuck it all. You need him like air.

In one swift motion your hand is at the back of his head, your fingers instantly lost in the mess of ravens-feather curls. Your mouths crash together clumsily, though you hardly care. Your free hand scrambles to find his waist and you pull him close against your body.

Against your lips you feel his breath. A sound somewhere between a gasp and a whine is pulled from his mouth and you feel weightless as it echoes in your mind. You break your point of connection and hold his chin firmly in your palm. Gentle handling doesn’t come easy to you. This all feels like a long time coming, you realize. Perhaps this fire was lit long before you had the words for it. Before you ever had a chance of keeping it buried in your chest. Instead now it overcomes you.

With his face held tenderly in your hand, you admire each striking feature like a work of art. He does have a certain greek statuesque quality after all. His lids look heavy, dark lashes fluttering. The spread of freckles across his nose is illuminated by a subtle but undeniable ruddy pink.

You can feel his eyes on you now, as if he just woke from a dream, stepping into awareness again. He flinches towards you, but stops himself, mouth slightly agape in anticipation. You wonder if he has the capacity for nervousness. The thought is sort of charming. You sweep a lock of hair out of his eyes.

“Any day now, tin man.” You tease.

And before you have time to yelp, you find yourself in the dewey grass with a dully aching head. Pinocchio’s legion arm comes into focus, pressed palm-down into the patch of earth beside your head. Your eyes travel up the arm until you’re face to face with the puppet again. You’re stunned. His human hand drags along your cheek and the ends of his dark hair brush against your face. Your face flushes and you feel stupid; he doesn’t seem to mind. He recaptures you in a kiss and you feel yourself melt into the ground.

Soon your hand is lost in his hair again, your fingertips dragging along the back of his neck. You’re so tempted to leave an imprint on the fair skin of his neck, to temporarily marr his delicate appearance. God, what would Sophia and the others think? You opt for a less visual approach and tug at the back of his head. Pino’s shoulders tense in surprise, and as you take a moment to breathe you catch his brows creasing together, eyes fluttering shut. Did you just send a shiver down the poor puppets spine?

Your hand retains its firm grasp at the base of his skull and you press your foreheads together. His skin is cool and smooth and feels to you like fresh air. You soak in the feeling and begin a ritualistic repositioning of limbs until you’re straddling his lap, elbows propped up on his sturdy shoulders, your palms cradling his freckle-flecked face. His arms are anchored around your waist and you have to lean down to meet him. The look he gives you is nothing short of intoxicating, all needy eyes and shallow breath.

God, you feel drunk.

The fingers of his legion arm twitch and you feel them slip just barely beneath the hem of your shirt. You place one hand over his, about to guide it further, give him permission to be less of a gentleman, when something crackles above your head.

As you listen closely, flecks of rain begin to spatter across your skin. You look up at the sky. The sun has set and in its place hangs a cloud-obscured moon and a flash of blue lightning across the stars. In an instant, rain pours over you, cold and heavy. P raises his arm to cover his head and offers the other to you. Scrambling to stand with the wet grass beneath your feet, you loop your arm through his. You stumble forward and feel a laugh bubble forth from your mouth. You didn’t even know it was there. Pinocchio tips his head at you, puzzled, but you’re dizzy and hot and the rain feels good and cold on your aching muscles and your head is still reeling with the taste of him on your tongue and you laugh all the way through the courtyard and the entryway until you collapse against the wall.

Once you’re both inside, P examines your face, tipping it every which way as if ensuring you haven’t lost your mind.

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” you choke between lingering bouts of snickering. You shake your head. It feels as though you’ve been thrown into a hurricane of emotional and physical extremes and are only now finding your footing again in normalcy. The relief makes you lightheaded. Pino acts as your trusted lifeline, firmly holding you in place at the waist. As you stand dripping in the corridor, you realize you haven’t really spoken since the night of the ambush.

“I never thanked you.” You start, “For keeping me alive, I mean. If it weren’t for you finding me…” His face falls completely as you trail off, eyes becoming dark and stormy. He must hate thinking about it. The realization makes you a bit embarrassed. Your gaze darts to the ground. “I just um. I wish I could repay it.” And as you say it, with your face still in his hands, he presses a kiss to your dewey forehead. It warms you from the inside. Your hand finds his and you squeeze tight.

“Come on.” you murmur against his ear. You pull at your soaked-through clothes and gesture down the hall. “I’ve got to get out of these clothes.”

And with that, you lead him away to your room.

#p x reader #lies of p #lies of p pinocchio #lop #lies of p x reader #pinocchio x reader #hurt/comfort #kiss the fucking puppet #tw blood #ANGST #lies of p fanfic #my fic

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talkdutchtome · 6 months

Text

Glitch- chapter eight

pairing . . . max verstappen x reader / mason mount x reader )

summary . . . when mason mount finds out that his assistant has been harbouring feelings for him for years, he makes it clear he doesn't feel the same way. but once he sees her become closer with formula 1 world champion max verstappen, he realises he may have underestimated his feelings towards the girl he has now pushed into the arms of another )

genre . . . angst )

song . . . glitch- taylor swift )

series masterlist . . . available here )

a/n . . . after the trauma i inflicted on you all last time, i thought i'd treat you to a few chapters of fluffy max x y/n content <3 Also this isn’t proofread unfortunately as i just got done with part of my dissertation and if i look at my computer for another second my brain will explode )

Y/N was left stunned, her mind grappling with the weight of Max's unexpected confession. The vulnerable honesty in his words lingered in the air, and she found herself at a loss for a response. What could she say? She had accepted that Max simply didn’t see her like that and that’s why he left so abruptly; the last thing she thought he was going to say was this.

Max's next words pulled her back to the present moment. "Could you just let me in so we can speak in person?" he requested, his voice carrying a mix of urgency and sincerity.

Y/N, still processing the revelation, stammered, "What?"

"I'm outside your flat," Max confessed. "I know this is unexpected, and I'm sorry for just turning up, but I've been mulling it over in my head. When I realized how I felt, I needed to tell you immediately."

The gravity of the situation settled on Y/N, and she hesitated before responding, “I’m at a bar, with Mas- With the team. They won today and we went out for a few drinks.”

“Oh okay, I’m sorry I’ll leave.” Y/N could hear the deflation in Max’s voice and her heart sunk a bit.

“No, give me 15 minutes and I’ll be there” she spoke before quickly hanging up. She didn’t know what exactly to say to Max, but she knew they needed to talk.

The atmosphere in the bar hummed with celebration as the team and their friends reveled in the victory as Y/N re-entered the bar to inform people that she needed to go. She discreetly approached Mason, her face a mask of determination, and whispered, "I need to go, something came up."

Mason, concerned, furrowed his brow. "Is everything okay?"

Y/N offered a quick nod. "Yeah, just something I need to take care of. We can talk about it tomorrow, I promise."

Mason's eyes searched hers for more answers, but Y/N's resolve was unwavering. "Please, Mason, not now. Tomorrow, I promise," she reiterated, and before he could press further, she pulled away, heading towards the group.

She interrupted the lively conversation with a brief, "I need to head out, guys. See you tomorrow," leaving the group with confused glances. Mason, however, couldn't shake off his concern. He approached her once more, this time with a more direct plea. "Can we at least talk about what happened today?"

Y/N met his gaze, a mix of apology and determination in her eyes. "I really have to go now, Mason. We can talk about everything tomorrow. I'm sorry," she said, a heavy weight in her voice. With that, she turned away, leaving Mason standing there, bewildered and frustrated, with their friends watching the scene unfold.

The night draped itself over the city as Y/N approached her apartment building, the darkness obscuring the details of the world around her. In the dimly lit corner, Max stood waiting. The feeble glow of distant streetlights cast long shadows, rendering their faces almost invisible. Their greeting was muted, a hesitant hug exchanged in the dimly lit vicinity. Neither of them spoke much, the lack of clarity mirrored by the obscured visibility. The shadows seemed to swallow their words, leaving an unspoken tension hanging in the air.

Inside her apartment, harsh lighting unveiled the details that the darkness had concealed. Y/N's neck bore a series of marks, intricate patterns etched in the aftermath of a passionate encounter. The marks, though unintentional, now became vivid tattoos, stark against her skin.

As Max began to say something, his eyes fell upon the visible aftermath, and his words caught in his throat. The room, now flooded with the unforgiving light, accentuated the complexities of the situation. Y/N watched as his face dropped, the color draining from his skin. The realization dawned upon him, and an awkward silence settled in the room. The unspoken weight of Mason's presence loomed over them, turning the atmosphere into an uncharted territory where words faltered, and emotions hung heavy in the air.

She tried to find words to explain, to offer some justification for the marks, but her mind drew a blank. Max, observing the unspoken turmoil in her expression, interrupted her before she could stumble through an explanation.

"Mason?" His voice was devoid of emotion, dry and almost detached. Y/N, feeling defenseless and without a valid explanation, could only nod in response. In her defense, she had none. She could see the gears turning in Max's mind, trying to process the implications of what he'd just learned.

She anticipated Max's departure, expecting him to distance himself from the completely fucked situation that he found himself in through no fault of his own. Instead, however, to her surprise, he didn't retreat. Without uttering another word, Max walked over and took a seat on her couch. The air was thick with unspoken emotions, leaving the room in a suspended state of uncertainty. Y/N hesitated, unsure of how to navigate the conversation that loomed before them.

She hesitantly broke the silence, asking, "Aren’t you leaving?"

Max, however, countered with a question of his own, delivered in a measured tone that hung in the air. "Should I?"

Caught in the throes of uncertainty, Y/N admitted, "I don't know."

Max, still processing the situation, confessed his genuine affection for her. "I really like you," he said, his words heavy with sincerity. "But if there's something between you and Mason, something real, you should tell me now. I don't want to stand in the way."

The weight of his words lingered in the room, prompting Y/N to examine her own feelings. Yet, as Max continued, laying out the conditions for their potential future, the complexity of the situation deepened. "Unless you can definitively say that you want Mason and not me, then I'm not going to go away."

He sought clarity, gazing into her eyes with a mixture of curiosity and expectation. "Can you tell me that?" he asked.

Y/N, entangled in the web of her own emotions, shook her head. She really didn’t know much, but she did know that she felt something for Max. She did feel something for Mason too, maybe she always would; but Max made her feel something she had never felt before, and she couldn’t just ignore that.

Max looked at Y/N with a sense of urgency in his eyes. "Do you have any holiday saved up?" he asked.

Y/N, caught off guard, nodded hesitantly. "Yeah, I do."

Max took a measured breath, his eyes reflecting a sense of determination. "How about this? Come with me to Monaco for a week, and then it’s Silverstone so you can come with me to that. Two weeks, just you and me. And if, by the end of it, you still want Mason, I'll walk away."

The proposal lingered in the night air, and Y/N felt the gravity of the decision pressing on her. "I... I don't know," she admitted, uncertainty threading through her words.

Leaning in, Max's eyes bore into hers. "Think about it."

Silence enveloped them as Y/N contemplated his proposition.

After a pause, she looked back at him. "I need to talk to Mason, to see if I can get the time off work and also.. Well, I can’t just up and leave for two weeks without an explanation. " she asserted, the resolve in her voice mingling with vulnerability.

Max nodded, acknowledging the necessity for clarity. "Sure. I can book a hotel room for tonight, and then you can talk to Mason tomorrow. If you decide to go, we can leave after that."

"Okay," Y/N agreed, the air thick with unspoken possibilities.

The next day, the weight of anticipation hung in the air as Y/N, accompanied by Max, navigated the familiar path to Mason's house. The drive was a quiet affair, with unspoken tension filling the car. Max, understanding the gravity of the impending conversation, remained in the vehicle as Y/N gathered her courage to face Mason.

Stepping into Mason's home, memories of shared laughter and easy camaraderie clashed with the somber reality of the impending discussion. Mason, sensing the gravity of the moment, met her gaze with a mix of concern and apprehension.

"I need a few weeks off, I’m going to Monaco with Max for a little while," Y/N declared, her voice a delicate blend of determination and vulnerability. Her eyes, once filled with an unwavering spark, now reflected the tumultuous emotions swirling within her.

Mason didn’t know what he expected when Y/N came to his door without any warning, but it wasn’t this. After yesterday, when they had- their moment. How could she just drop this on him, come and tell him that she wanted to go on holiday with someone else.

“What do you mean? What about us, what about me?”

Y/N, torn between loyalty and her evolving understanding of self, shook her head. "I need to, I like Max, and I owe it to myself to be able to give it ago. Being around you is confusing and complicated. I just need a break" she uttered; the weight of the decision etched in her expression.

At her words, she couldn't help but notice the stark change in Mason's expression. His features, once marked by familiarity and warmth, now contorted with a palpable hurt. The lines on his forehead deepened, and his eyes, once a source of comfort, now betrayed a pain he couldn't conceal. It was as if her words had struck a chord, unraveling the threads of their friendship, leaving Mason visibly wounded.

“Please don’t go, I’m sorry I- Well I was wrong before. I do see you as more than a friend," he admitted, laying bare the depth of his feelings.

Yet, Y/N, no longer content with half-truths, posed a poignant question that lingered in the air like an unspoken truth. "Would you feel that way if Max never came along?"

The room fell into a contemplative hush, the unspoken answer lingering like an invisible barrier. Y/N, her heart heavy with the weight of decisions, knew she couldn't settle for uncertainty. "Exactly," she asserted, her voice a mixture of resolve and sorrow. "I don't want to be with someone who only wants me because they don't want somebody else to have me."

In a reluctant tone, Mason finally agreed, "Alright, Y/N, take as much holiday as you need." As she uttered a sincere "thank you," she turned to leave, only to be halted by Mason's hesitant voice. His words hung in the air, heavy with remorse and an unspoken apology, "I'm sorry, Y/N. I ruined everything, and I don't... Well, I'm just really sorry." The weight of his regret lingered, creating a somber atmosphere as Y/N absorbed his admission before uttering. “Yeah.. Me too.” and walking away from her best friend.

As Y/N returned to the car where Max patiently waited, her eyes betrayed a lingering sadness that Max couldn't ignore. Concern etched across his face, he gently inquired, "You okay?" She offered a halfhearted nod, confirming Mason granted her the time off. Despite her affirmation, Max sensed something amiss. "You sure?" he pressed, genuine worry in his voice. She shook her head, signaling a preference to keep it to herself.

The atmosphere remained heavy with unspoken words. The engine roared to life, and they merged onto the road, the rhythmic hum of the tires the only sound between them. Max stole glances at her, concern etched on his face, but respecting her need for silence.

After a stretch of quietude, Max broke the stillness. "I need to pick someone up at the factory, they need to go back to Monaco too" he mentioned, his eyes focused on the road. Y/N nodded, speaking for the first time in a while “Okay no worries, who?”

"It's Daniel," Max revealed, the name hanging in the air. At Max’s words, her eyes lit up with genuine excitement. "No way, Daniel, as in Daniel Ricciardo?!?" she exclaimed, the unexpected joy momentarily pushing aside the shadows. Max couldn't help but smile at her animated response, grateful for the chance to divert her thoughts from whatever weighed on her.

Max chuckled at Y/N's admission, teasingly asking, "A fan of Daniel, huh?" She grinned, nodding, "Yeah, even though I grew up a Mercedes fan, there's always been something about Daniel." Max laughed, "Well, he'll enjoy hearing that. He's been excited to meet you." Y/N blushed at the idea, feeling a mix of nervousness and anticipation. Curiosity got the better of her, and she asked, "Have you told people about me?" Max's demeanor shifted slightly, a bashful smile playing on his lips. He jokingly responded, "Well, when I stopped making up excuses to get out of coming to the factory, they knew something was up."

The rhythmic hum of the car's engine melded seamlessly with the soft daylight as they continued their journey. Sunlight streamed through the windows, casting a warm glow on the cityscape passing by—a lively backdrop for the evolving conversation within the car.

Max skillfully guided their dialogue through diverse topics, carefully avoiding any mention of Mason. Despite the apparent ease in their exchanges, a delicate undercurrent of tension lingered—an unspoken presence that painted the atmosphere with a muted complexity. Max, attuned to the subtleties, felt the weight of Mason's words pressing upon Y/N's thoughts.

As they traversed the city, Max occasionally stole glances at Y/N, his eyes seeking clues within the nuances of her expressions. There was a magnetic pull between them, an unspoken acknowledgment of the uncharted territory they navigated. Max sensed that Mason's remarks had imprinted themselves on Y/N's consciousness, like an indelible mark that begged exploration.

Yet, Max exercised restraint, choosing not to pry into the depths of Y/N's emotions. Instead, he allowed the daylight to unfold, leaving room for the unspoken to gradually find its voice

The car pulled up at the designated spot to pick up Daniel, and as he stepped into the car, a vibrant energy accompanied him. Daniel greeted Y/N with a warm smile, his friendly demeanor putting everyone at ease. The introductions flowed naturally, and Daniel couldn't resist a playful comment.

"So, this is the infamous girl Max can't stop talking about," he teased, shooting a playful glance Max's way.

Y/N chuckled, feeling a mix of amusement and curiosity about what Max might have shared. As they continued the journey to the private jet, the conversation effortlessly ebbed and flowed. Y/N and Daniel discovered common interests and shared laughs, creating an atmosphere of camaraderie that surpassed the typical introductions. The initial awkwardness melted away, leaving room for genuine connections to form.

Upon reaching the private jet, Y/N couldn't help but marvel at the luxurious surroundings. The sleek interior, plush seats, and attentive service were a stark contrast to her usual mode of travel. Her excitement spilled into the conversation.

"Wow, this is amazing! I've never been on a private jet before. It's like a whole different world up here," she exclaimed, taking in the opulent surroundings. Daniel grinned, his eyes reflecting her enthusiasm. "Get used to it; you're in for a treat. Flying private is a game-changer," he remarked, settling into his seat.

Amidst the smooth hum of the jet engines, Y/N, engaged in an animated conversation with Daniel, seemed oblivious to Max's watchful eyes. Her laughter was infectious, punctuating the air and drawing everyone into the magnetic orbit of her joy. Max couldn't deny the fascination that swelled within him as he witnessed her seamlessly fitting into his world, connecting effortlessly with one of his closest friends.

For Max, the allure went beyond the surface. He liked the feeling of introducing Y/N to his realm, of sharing moments and friends with her. Watching her throw her head back in laughter, observing the spark in her eyes, Max found himself entranced by the unique melody she brought to the symphony of his life.

Meanwhile, Daniel, ever the observer, noted Max's subtle yet profound shift. It was as if he'd discovered a new rhythm in the music of his own existence. Daniel had never seen Max act so reserved, so captivated by someone's presence.

As the jet touched down in the Monaco, Daniel, having fulfilled his role as the transient third wheel, bade them farewell. Max guided Y/N through the picturesque streets to his apartment, a chic abode that overlooked the azure Mediterranean Sea.

Max's apartment, perched atop a hill, boasted floor-to-ceiling windows that framed the breathtaking panorama of Monaco's coastline. The decor seamlessly blended modern aesthetics with subtle nods to the city's classic charm. Y/N couldn't help but marvel at the tasteful art pieces adorning the walls and the plush furnishings that invited relaxation.

On the terrace, Max pointed out the landmarks below—the glittering marina, the famous Casino de Monte-Carlo, and the labyrinthine streets that told tales of luxury and opulence. The breeze played with Y/N's hair as she took in the view, the sun casting a warm glow over the city.

Inside, Max introduced her to his two cats, Jimmy and Sassy, who surveyed her with a mix of curiosity and indifference. The apartment resonated with a sense of Max's personality—elegant, sophisticated, and a touch playful.

Leading her to the spare room, Max revealed an unexpected surprise. The room was elegantly decorated, adorned with fresh flowers, creating an inviting and serene ambiance. Y/N, genuinely touched, couldn't help but express her gratitude. Max casually mentioned that he'd arranged for his cleaner to work her magic during their flight.

As Y/N settled into the room, a wave of fatigue washed over her. She thanked Max once more for the thoughtful gesture and embraced him before retreating to the comfort of the bed. Max assured her that dinner reservations were secured for later, and with a gentle smile, he left her to rest, closing the door softly behind him. The room, now silent, cradled Y/N into a peaceful slumber as the sun dipped below the Monaco horizon.

Tag list-

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theredofoctober · 2 months

Text

MANNA- CHAPTER THIRTEEN: TEA

Dark!Hannibal Lecter x Reader x Dark!Will Graham AU fic

TW for eating disorders, noncon, abuse, drugging, Daddy kink, implied child abuse and more

Read after the cut...

For a near week your deceptive submission endures, the hours newly tightened by a schedule your host has contrived to divert you from your anti-appetite.

Days rise from the borderless veil of time like castles from a dawn mist. Made a school child again, you sit before documentaries and foreign art films, take up a journal whose pages bear but glances of your internal woe.

You find yourself wishing that you could write with any particular talent.

As a girl you’d yearned to be an author, never daring to materialise the urge with any substantial effort. Now you can’t imagine you’ll ever be allowed so loose-penned a profession, if any at all, kept covetously home and infantilised until you cannot think beyond a fraction of words.

Why, then, does Hannibal go to such arduous lengths to educate you? Surely it is only so that—before the eyes of peers—you'll be the cultured averment of triumph through therapy.

In the soirees of your doctor's hopes you cleave, willing, to his side, bewitching the throng with smirking witticisms before sucking his cock with that same clever mouth when the last guest steps, merry and ignorant, into the night.

Already Hannibal aspires to materialise that abstraction. You find proof enough of it in the wardrobe he’s amassed for you, which expands as the days progress.

Some of his choices are attractive to you, reluctant though you are to consider this— long velvet gowns in puce, umber, black, blouse and skirt co-ordinations plucked from the runway, some still in boxes emblazoned with designer names.

Others of the selection offend you, however, in their bald intent for closed-door wear. Girlish dresses in light chiffon, corseted silk in flowering lace. Short necks and hemlines, some of them scarcely reaching the knee. Then there are sheer nightclothes stored in perfumed sheets, no practicality but for the sort of sleeping in which no slumber is to be had.

You’re to dress like some obscure young celebrity, a whimsical echo of an era thirty years passed. Still, there is an attempt in this incredible closet to appease you as well as to change, adapting your preferences to a style acceptable to Hannibal’s eye.

It’s of particular note to you that the garments are each the same size, implying that you haven’t gained significant weight since your last awareness of its value. Conceivably the labels might have been replaced, but it’s so unlikely a trick that the theory is quickly thrown out.

Hannibal is inviting you to trust his process with a peace offering of equilibrium, the second-best prize to starvation.

You are not such a fool as to take it yet, though in action you may appear to have done so.

When in the presence of your keepers you remain in unwavering character, an amplified, changeling copy of the child you'd once been. In this way you're allowed your little misbehaviours—pulling a face at food you do not like, or the shrugging rejection of an idle caress.

So long as you sit at meals, and don’t speak in any manner that threatens the illusion of family you are unharmed, and laden with unending gifts. It would be a winning childhood, had you been born into it through a far less insidious violence than that which brought you here.

Still, the awareness that you must simper and lisp for another month before you venture an escape soon wears upon your tolerance.

One Saturday morning, alone in your room, the silence of that cushioned cell amplifies your every thought to a piqued tenor.

You miss when hunger bled like smoke through your skull, ridding its halls of all but its fey shape. With a scalding clarity you behold what you are now: a homunculus, the issue of diablerie, cut small by men’s black magic.

You cast yourself amidst a tide of cushions and mimic your own words upon them in a bitter snarl.

“‘Yes, Daddy’”, ‘no, Daddy’. ‘Little one’. Oh God! It’s all so stupid. Stupid!”

An involuntary laugh chatters through you like a coin thieved from a beggar’s cup, hateful and maniacal. Yet you perform this anger as you do the docile coquette, the bounds between that self and your own a gradient that softens by the day.

It’s become rather easier to be a monster’s daughter than a woman, this you cannot deny. The longer you are extracted from the world the less you’ll remember of how to live within it, if you ever knew, before.

The misery of this thought proves too much to bear.

You cry until your head is as hot about the brow as a horseshoe turned white from the forge. The sobs wrench the muscles of your stomach in two pained halves, and still you weep until you laugh again, thinking how deranged you’d sound to any eavesdropper in the rooms below.

Afterwards you sit very quietly, like an ailing bride in a Victorian novel; you are, after all, very ill, and it suits you well to behave so.

Having nothing better to do, you switch on the television and skim through the channels with neither aim nor interest.

Thin, beautiful women populate the screen, their waists like darner flies, their wrists as narrow as your thumb. Even the history programmes feature experts with trim figures in sensible interview dresses.

Perturbed, you flick on and on until you find something on eighteenth century Paris, hosted by a grandfatherly old professor marked safe from scrutiny in the absence of compare.

You watch until your lids fall, thinking of catacombs full of monk bones, the cloying scent of ancient death, each as forgotten under dust as you are by all those who once loved you, and revered by those who never have.

In the afternoon Hannibal wakes you gently by turning the television off at the set.

“Are you feeling alright, little one?” he asks. “It’s unusual for you to sleep in so late.”

You hum in a noncommittal fashion, scarcely bothering to open your eyes.

Perhaps he’ll let you drowse the day away; you’d dream through all horrors like this, should your insomnia give you reprieve. A week, a month, a year sold to the sandman in exchange for peace— yet the dark would follow you there, also, antlered men in imagined night.

“You’ve been in bed long enough,” says Hannibal, peeling back your sheets with a brisk tug. “Up you get. Alana is visiting us this evening. She’ll have some questions for you.”

Weakly attempting to thieve back the blanket, you say, “I really don’t feel like talking to her. Can’t you do it? Please?”

“Jack won’t be satisfied with a second-hand report. Alana must see that you’re comfortable here. Not a particular incentive for you, but I can provide others.”

You open one eyelid, enticed by this readiness to bargain.

“So what do I get if I say yes?”

“A light dinner,” says Hannibal. “And—depending on your behaviour—perhaps another reward we’ll negotiate later tonight.”

At this you sit up; starving is a precious contraband in the doctor’s abode, worth more to you than every decadent thing under its rafters.

“Feeling better already, I see,” says Hannibal, through one of his charitable smiles. “Please stand by the mirror and allow me to dress you.”

Unbidden there comes the thought of his hand under your skirts, pressing inwards like a starfish sucking at a stone.

“Oh, come on, Dad,” you say, in flustered haste. "Really?”

“There’s a certain picture I’d like to create for Alana’s benefit,” he insists. “One of wellness and serenity. Your selections tend to imply something far more brooding and morose.”

With a testy little sigh you slip out of bed, rubbing your arms free of rising gooseflesh.

“You bought me those ‘brooding and morose’ outfits, remember, Dad? What does that say about you?”

“That I seek to please you,” says Hannibal, touching your mouth with playful thumb. “Today I hope that you’ll return the gesture.”

He holds aloft a pastel blue dress in transparent lace, a beaded line of detailing pointing downwards at the hips in a suggestive v.

“I don’t know,” you say, far more sharply than intended. “It’s short. And I don’t like the colour.”

“The shade will suit you,” Hannibal replies. “And you’ll wear a shift underneath for modesty, if that’s your concern.”

You don’t bother with reproof; he’s guiding you out of your nap-rumpled clothes and into the dress before you can think of an excuse he’ll entertain.

Unresisting, you only glance aside, breathing shallowly so as not to brush your chest against him as he adjusts your collar.

That Hannibal hasn’t made love to you since you shared a bed makes you think that he’s waiting for something, a moment fermented to sweeten the sex. He is, you warrant, as driven by pleasure as any man, being only of a tighter and more methodical restraint.

You can’t decide whether you’re glad of the wait or if you’d prefer he throw you down on your bed and ravish you now to have done with it.

Doubtless Hannibal considers an identical dilemma, turning you before him like a ballerina in a mirrored jewellery box.

“Even the greats couldn’t hope to replicate this image of you,” he says, as he inspects his work. “To attempt it would have them rending the canvas to pieces rather take credit for their failure.”

The compliment is long forgotten when, later, Alana breaches the house, her pretty face above her mulberry blouse like a lily in a violet bouquet.

Her casual manner in kissing Hannibal’s cheek at the door suggests a social visit, as does the gift of white wine under one thin arm. Still, she remembers her duty, taking you aside with a subtle professionalism within two minutes of having greeted her host.

Her kindness is a shingle in a cyclone, dashed away by the futility of its own existence.

“Dr Lecter told me you’re doing a lot better than when I last saw you,” says Alana, placing one of her graceful hands atop your own without comment as to its frigidity. “Are you feeling more positive now, or would you disagree with that?”

Slipping your fingers out from under hers, you say, “Well, I have a TV now. I’m allowed to do a lot more things I’m actually interested in. That helps. Thanks for that, by the way. I know you talked Dr Lecter into it.”

Smiling, Alana says, “I can’t take credit for that. He was already making preparations when I brought it up. He's racked up quite the shopping bill.”

The notion of Hannibal navigating the catalogues of online stores is ridiculous, somehow anachronistic, but then again you’ve witnessed him tapping at a sleek iPad, a jarring sight, on every occasion.

“How about mealtimes?” asks Alana. “I understand you’re working towards a plan that’s easier for you.”

“It’s still hard,” you mumble. “Tough. You know.”

Your eyes are on Alana’s patent court shoes, picturing a blandly organised rack of identical heels in alternate shades. Perhaps ankle boots for the colder days. Simple. Nothing flash.

Alana pauses, quickly assessing your disinterest in the exchange.

“Hannibal says he’d like you to agree to more therapy sessions,” she says. “He feels you’re opening up. I think we both know that’s probably wishful thinking on his side, but don’t shoot him down just yet.”

“I won’t,” you say. “Couldn’t anyway, right?”

Alana rearranges her discomfort into another closed-lipped smile. You can’t envision that lipstick ever moving, striped across her face as yours has been by both of the friends that she holds dear.

“So how are things between you and Will now?” enquires Alana, quite on cue. “Rumour has it you’re getting along like a house on fire.”

Truthfully Will has rather cooled since the night of the seizure, his envy retreating to the black of some inner primordial cave. He seems both caustically amused by your recent performance and cynical of its longevity, yet neither judgement is as severe as before.

The thought of your kindness sits with him, has been taken up with the cagy hunger of an orphan to a heel of bread. Piece by piece you’ve given him more of it in flirting words, but these he’s yet to take, turning each away with a smirk.

“Don’t try so hard,” he’d said, only a day ago, but when you’d thrown an idle foot across his lap as you read a book beside him he hadn’t removed it, only pretended to ignore the intrusion.

“Me and Will are okay,” you say to Alana. “That’s all.”

You must give away something of your successes in your expression, for Alana’s mouth twitches into a coy grin.

“Just okay?”

At that moment Hannibal knocks on the open door, a merciful trespass, setting you free of her.

As promised, you’re offered a modest salad while Hannibal and Alana make their way through numberless courses over the gifted wine.

At first you’re too absorbed in the mortification of eating in front of the other woman to pay attention to their mounting chemistry, dragging the same tattered leaf through streams of congealing oil.

It’s only as you’re making a fortress of cutlery across a lump of uneaten meat that you take full stock of the flirting at work before you.

Though attempts are made by both parties to fold you into the conversation they are mild at best, almost neglectful.

Alana glances up into Hannibal’s eyes in frequent, laughing enjoyment, touching his shoulder or forearm lightly; he, for his part, looks upon her lips and the curves of her form and speaks fondly to her, his voice hushed with a want of sex.

You’ve heard it often enough to know it, and should be glad to have his attentions otherwise distracted.

Yet your hands creep under the table, squeezing your thighs and stomach as though to claw out the matter you've ingested through your meat.

"I'm done," you blurt out, cutting across Hannibal's opinion of a recent classical performance he’s attended. "Can I go upstairs?"

It's with difficulty that you bite off the habitual 'Dad' that has replaced 'doctor' in your vocabulary.

Hannibal offers you a near invisible look of disgruntlement at the interruption, quickly mollified by Alana's fingers at his elbow.

"I'm sure we're boring you," she says. "Go on up and relax. You don't have to stick around just to be polite."

You glance at Hannibal, seeking his approval before you stand. His eyes, within so static a face, are black glass in their suspicion.

"I'll come up to speak to you later on," he says, at last. "If there's anything you need, don't hesitate to ask for it."

Rather than go immediately to your den above you linger to watch as the couple drink in the parlour, so close as to almost be in one another’s arms.

You see from Hannibal's relaxed posture that he is not ablaze with a fascinated love for Alana as he is for Will; he holds her merely with the affection of an old friend, and, too, with an uncomplicated desire.

He would never rape Alana Bloom; such violence, to Hannibal, is an entry into a cabal of which she has no part. Her value to him is as representation of his treasured comforts, and all that which Hannibal would not willingly change.

Alana is as used for her parts as you are, in her way, and oblivious to it, like some grinning scarecrow blind to the birds that snicker and creep at its back.

Yet as you watch her lean, murmuring, into Hannibal’s neck you feel a tooth of ice grind through your heart and turn away, feeling numbly for the bannisters behind you.

Almost on hands and knees you climb the steps to your bed, brought low by that astonishing cold.

Pausing at the bathroom you prostrate yourself at the toilet’s mercy, still unable to empty yourself of the pain and bile you'd evict to be naked of your jealousy.

In surrender you rest your head on the cool floor and remain there even after the compulsion to vomit subsides.

If you cannot flog yourself for your sins as the saints did then this will do, sprawled before the porcelain God of another degredation.

Presently the bathroom door creaks open, striking an unwanted rod of light across your face.

“Go away,” you mutter, wiping your face with an angry scrub of your knuckles. “I don’t want to talk to you.”

Hannibal looks at you with a minister’s pious severity.

"I see. So I was correct. You object to Alana and I having a sexual relationship. Any other father would sternly inform you that it’s none of your business, and as your therapist it’s even less so.”

Raising your head, you snap at him as fiercely as you dare.

“What about me?”

“My friendship with Alana is very different to what you and I share,” says Hannibal, and you snort, wiping a stream of clear mucus across your lips.

“I’ll bet.”

Hannibal turns his head at a quizzical angle, and you perceive the very second of his understanding like the unveiling of some trick.

“You must explain yourself, darling,” he says. “What is it about this that has upset you?”

The logical answer should be that you wish to save Alana from him, that you cannot watch her beaming, black-haired head roll out from under the axe.

Instead, you blurt out, “Don’t you get it, Dad? How it makes me feel? You’re supposed to understand me, and I’m pretty sure you do. You knew that it would hurt me. You did this on purpose the way you wave me around in front of Will.”

Using the sink to right yourself you get to your feet, standing on pathetic, defiant tiptoe so that you might gaze into the devil’s face directly.

“If you have to do this, then please, just me. Just me. I can’t stand it. It makes me feel sick to think about you and her together. Knowing you’ll touch me afterwards. Don’t do this to me. Please."

“I see,” says Hannibal.

He speaks with such calm that you deflate from your anger at once.

“Very well,” he says. “I can make an excuse for Alana to leave. Would that please you, little one?”

This time you don’t answer, only stare at him with huge and terrible eyes until he retreats to the stairway.

“Oh, god,” you say, under your breath. “Amy, you’d really hate me right now, wouldn’t you?”

You hear Hannibal and Alana talking in low undertones, the female voice a coo of thoughtful sympathy. In time Alana collects herself to leave, but only when her car propels itself quietly from the driveway does Hannibal come to you again.

By now you’re sitting at your dresser, making a humiliated attempt to recollect your dignity with cosmetics. You know that Hannibal will not like what you’d made of your face—the eyes painted black, your lips the colour of your heart, a sinking, well-bound stone.

Yet all he says as he stands behind you is, “Look at me, little one.”

Your hand shakes, blotting your eyelid with an errant apostrophe of mascara.

“Don’t want to.”

“I know. I’d like you to, even so.”

The gentleness of Hannibal’s voice is an agony to you. You’ve never hated nor been more drawn to him than you are now, this impossible spirit in the vessel of a man.

Stiffly you turn on your chair, meeting his gaze to find it truly repentant.

“I won’t make love to Alana again,” says Hannibal, and you know as you do the reality of elements that he does not lie. “I see that this triggers your fear of abandonment too greatly. But it might not be possible for me to avoid all romantic advances.

“There are rumours abound as to our arrangement already, and it will seem suspicious if I don’t take a lover. But I’ll do my best to be faithful to our family.”

He pauses, watching you battle to suppress your disgust for him, for yourself, for all things in the bracken of his design.

“For now, I’d like you to relax,” says Hannibal. “This level of distress will make you ill. I’m concerned that it already has.”

Taking you by a hand as clammy as mermaid skin he leads you down to the living room to serve you from a pot of fragrant tea.

Though its calorific value is likely near to air you catastrophize with immediacy, unable to touch the cup, let alone drink.

“I’m not doing it on purpose this time,” you babble. “I’m not, Dad, please, you’ve got to believe me.”

Hannibal raises a hand to caress you— that, and only that, and yet you shrink against the couch in expectancy of a blow.

An appalled look tightens Hannibal’s expression, a hypocrisy of which he seems endlessly capable.

“There, now,” he says. “I can tell the difference between unruliness and genuine struggle. You and I both know that tea is only leaves and water— why do you believe against logic that it will affect your weight?”

“I don’t know,” you say, with a helpless shake of the head. “I feel like if I drink it I won’t be able to stop myself. I’ll eat and eat until I’m... big, and then I won’t be able to go back to the way I was. Everyone will see me differently. Treat me like they used to. People can be cruel.”

“And none crueller than you are to yourself,” says Hannibal, and he eases the cup between your hands so that you must take it or scald yourself raw. “There is nothing shameful in having a body of any kind, and any who judge you for that would wear their foolishness like a flag for all to see. Nevertheless, I’ve balanced your weight here, and will continue to do so if that is what’s needed for you to believe in my intentions.”

He aids you to drink, lifting the cup to your mouth over and over until the last drop. From the bitter taste you know it altered by some drug.

For once you do not care.

The night has left you so ashamed of your bearing that you’re half joyful to be done with it, sinking back as euphoria transforms all things that touch you into nirvana.

Your fingers drape across your body in aimless exploration, stopping only as Will enters the room with Hannibal at his side.

The younger man’s eyebrows jump as you giggle and hide your hands behind your back.

“You’re smiling,” says Will. “And I’m not sure how I feel about the circumstances.”

“Our girl is relieved to see you, Will,” says Hannibal. “A familiar face is a balm for even the most taxing day.”

Will looks from you to Hannibal ponderously.

“Alana was here earlier,” he states.

“She was, much to our little one’s chagrin.”

“Do you have to talk about her?” you interrupt, in loose-tongued irritation.

Hannibal chuckles.

“We do not. There are other topics I’d find far more engaging.”

You watch from under heavy lids as the men discuss the Lover’s case in low, library murmurs.

“Tanya Marrow was found washed up by the Patapsco River this morning,” says Will, with a grim regret. “Her wounds were fresh, meaning the Lover only mutilated Tanya and placed her into the doll when he was ready to throw her away. He was content with how closely she resembled the woman he’s desperate to make, for a while.

“But she wasn’t close enough. In the end he had to remind her that she was just a toy to him, and punish her for her lacking.”

The contrast of these dreary horrors with the rainbow light of feeling through your needy cunt should sicken you, but your mind is in disorder, barely one thought akin to the next.

“We’ve made a breakthrough in regards to the dolls,” Will continues. “The well-made ones are expensive; for one person to have so many implies that the Lover is either a wealthy collector, or that he’s able to access them at a considerable discount. Possibly for free.”

“I’m assuming the factory producing these dolls has been identified,” says Hannibal.

Will swallows a mouthful of whiskey.

“There are only four vendors known to produce the style of doll the Lover uses. Jack’s got someone looking into their customers, narrowing down the suspects to buyers in Virginia. Considering how specialised these clients are that shouldn't take long.”

The older man listens with a solemn intensity, scarcely drinking from his own glass.

“I see the Lover almost exactly now,” says Will. “He knows he has to take his bride eventually; he’s circling her, choosing women that are closer and closer to her physical proximity. The next target will be someone she knows.

“It’s a dangerous move, but by now the Lover wants someone that’s stood so close to this woman that he can taste her. Imagine her beneath him when he defiles the inferior victim.”

Fear swims, crocodilian, within you, disturbing your narcotic stupor.

Seeming to sense it, Hannibal says, “Let’s continue this line of conversation later on. I wouldn’t want to give our surrogate daughter bad dreams.”

Will glances at you, watching you fumble idly with the hem of your dress.

“You don’t plan to cast her as our daughter in tonight’s play, do you?” he asks, plainly.

“That would unnecessarily chasten the evening,” says Hannibal. “She’s the woman for whom we are legally responsible, and what we deem fit for her continued health is ours to determine.”

You recline across the couch like an empress, watching the firelight glance shadows across your skin like a garment in a dream. Hannibal slips a hand from your shoulder to your breast, teasing the tiffany lace across your nipple, and the warmth and delicacy of the touch breathes through you a shiver of ermine delight.

Only vaguely do you acknowledge your revulsion, a whisper at a keyhole on the other side of the house.

“What did you give her for her to let you touch her like that?” asks Will, curiously.

His hands play upon the sides of his whiskey glass, and the thought of them upon your thighs or between them drives your lower lip between your teeth with unbeckoned desire.

“I’ve offered her release from her spirited rebellion,” says Hannibal. “Even having promised us fealty, this act she wouldn’t easily endure. I wish for her to experience intimacy unhindered by her mental bounds.”

His fingers glance beneath the neckline of your dress and cross your bare skin as a swan's wing meets the sky, rushing a moan from you more akin to a sob in its juddering resonance.

“Besides,” Hannibal continues, “she’s had a trying afternoon. Her body welcomes this.”

Will’s face, washed honey bronze by firelight, is so neutral that even if you were not high you’d fail to extract the mechanisms of thought behind it.

“We’ve both succeeded in bringing her to climax,” says Hannibal, as his other hand folds your skirt against your pelvis. “But never her consent. Tonight, perhaps we will.”

“In this state she has no real autonomy,” Will argues. “We’re witnessing an illusion.”

Hannibal pauses, his face like that of an antiques dealer slyly unveiling some stolen wares.

“Not exactly,” he says. “Little one: you’ve described me as handsome. Do think that Will is good-looking?”

Your concentration wavers as two digits inscribe an ouroboros in your arousal. The wrongness of it all only enhances the sensation, the thought of being a lovely toy for older men to play with.

Your name on Dr Lecter’s lips recalls his question.

“Yes,” you say. “I— I do.”

You don’t know why you’re honest. Even a child, embarrassed, could lie.

Will smiles, and for a moment there is something almost sweet in his expression.

Then the dark of him slithers behind it again with predatory ease, and he leans forward, knees apart, possessed of a revelation of self-assurance.

This is the self he becomes when challenging Dr Lecter, the arrogant observer of all living things.

“I already knew that,” says Will. “I don’t mind hearing it clarified, though.”

You can’t imagine him ever admitting that you’re beautiful in return. Hannibal would, has done so already in such a succulence of language that your mouth could water with it, but not Will, not in so many words.

All that he will allow thus far is that you are not ugly. Blearily you vow to unwind from him his obsession.

“Puppy love,” says Hannibal, looking into your face with a gentle irony. “You’d like him to touch you, wouldn’t you, little one?”

This you don’t answer, and rather than press you again Hannibal makes you come with three fingers inside you, patient as you cry out and roll your head aside in conflict and delirium.

You cannot decide if he means to reward you for your participation with Will or to humiliate you for that same eagerness. It is bewildering and erotic, this envy they have for one another; to quell it you must kneel to the hierarchy, submissive always to your covetous masters.

“Join us, Will,” says Hannibal, at last.

Briefly you think that he won’t, a scoffing lord, above it all.

Then he crosses the room, sets down his whiskey and kisses you, first your mouth, then your neck, leaving the taste of smoke and almonds wherever his lips meet.

Whimpering, you kick your feet on the couch as each petal of ecstasy comes loose from a branch within you.

Sometimes Will’s teeth push against your flesh, not quite biting; Hannibal, on the other side of your neck, gently does, as though inheriting the expected assault from his would-be lover.

His fingers form a cylinder of delight in you, the pad of his thumb undoing another orgasm in a trio of strokes.

“How gifted we are to receive such delights,” says Hannibal, and as you groan he docks his arousal in your own, filling you so entirely with his cock that you think and feel only the fucking and nothing more, a witless hole.

Will brings your hand to his erection, and there is no uncertainty in that motion, nor in his lips about your breast. His rough tongue, the saliva like a paste jewel on your nipple—

Writhing, panting, you stir through pleasure upon pleasure like the layers of the earth, soft, dark, deep.

Your palm tightens on Will’s cock like a night sea about the lighthouse it yearns to bring down, working him with a knowing purpose. As Hannibal continues his pelvic rolls against you Will draws back, avoiding the early release that your cunning fist would bring.

Not once do the men make contact in a sexual manner with each other, and you don’t understand it, this avoidance of the ultimate lust. Yet perhaps it is that they fuck through you, for when Hannibal achieves his orgasm and moves away Will pushes into you without caution of the other man’s seed still warm in that same place.

He looks up into Hannibal’s eyes as he does it, watching his response as he weaves pleasure from a loom of servile flesh.

But then you make some shapeless sound of need, one hand extended, not quite touching him, and Will's eyes return to you with such intensity that you forget that brief, lost woe.

He mimics Hannibal’s command of your body, hands moving, unrushed, from breast to hip as he opens you further to him. His violence is a mage’s dance, something once done around fire, and charged now through the vessel of a young and studious man.

No wonder, then, that you have neither strength nor will to repel him. You roil, loose-limbed as the dead, only your noise and perspiring response to sensation to evidence your ongoing life.

Hannibal’s arms go loosely around you, holding your head in his lap as Will makes love to you with a brooding fervour. Every touch is like the discovery of a new and indescribable existence, having traversed to some frontier of feeling only sects of pleasure have previously founded.

You know yourself wanted by both men, now, feel it through their mutterings of ecstasy, the unending pressure of mouths and hands upon your skin. They crave your wanting of them in return, lap up your slightest sign of it, tainted as it is by Hannibal’s poison.

Will pours in you his ending, his breath a kiss against your eardrum.

You come again with both men gazing upon you, their faces as close and beautiful together as stringed pearls.

Dimly you fear that they will succeed in their work with you, no matter how fiercely you defy their twofold will.

“Hey,” says the younger man, nudging your shoulder lightly. “Snap out of it. You’re bleeding. Did we hurt you?”

Your first thought is, “yes, of course you did.”

The next, having looked down at the red dart through the milk of semen on your thigh, is the same nip of terror you know from an unexpectedly high number on the scale.

The final cognition—and one almost certainly true—is that this carnival of sex has brought that crimson forth like the incitation of bacchanalian madness.

The shock of it wrings you near dry of the doctor’s drug, a bald winter sobriety.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “It’s my period. I haven’t had one in years.”

#manna fic #hannibal fic #hannibal lecter #hannibal lecter x reader x will graham #hannibal lecter x reader #will graham x reader #tw noncon #tw eating disorders #tw bulimia #tw anorexia #tw dubious consent #tw nonconsensual drug use #tw fatphobia

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