#He will come to find you even when you think you are too far gone | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

yazmarina · 24 hours

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dime, ¿esto es lo que tú quería'?

charles leclerc and oscar piastri x fem!reader

how about a reward for monaco's p1 and p2?

warnings/notes: smut, threesome, a blowjob, slight degradation, dirty talk, unprotected sex (wrap it up, people!!!), cumshot, creampie, gagging, light choking

a/n: very ambitious and would not set me free until i wrote it...so please enjoy <3

You really had no idea how you ended up here.

Arthur is a good friend of yours, having met him when you first came to work for Ferrari under the communication department, mostly being assigned to handle the Academy and development drivers' communication needs. You and Arthur got on well, and eventually, you were hanging out with him and his other friends on the weekends.

The two of you were strictly friendly, something you've had to clear out multiple times to work superiors, nosy colleagues, insistent reporters, you name it.

Arthur isn't your type, point blank, period.

His older brother was a different topic altogether.

Charles was sensitive, artistic, a prince charming in all aspects. Being in close proximity to Arthur meant you spent some time with Charles, too, but those were few and far between and every time you were within five feet of Charles, you were reduced to a tongue-tied mess.

Regardless, Arthur insisted you come along to the celebrations after Charles' most recent win in Monaco.

"Charles knows who you are and you're my friend. He won't mind," Arthur pleaded earlier that day as you were packing up after the podium celebrations.

"What if you go running off and I'm left alone?" You asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I won't go running off," Arthur promised. "I'll be with you the whole night. I'll even help you look for a guy you can go home with!"

And yet you're here in the present, sitting on a couch in the VIP section, alone.

Well, not really. You're surrounded by people but none of them are talking to you. Arthur had gone to get more drinks half an hour ago and you know by now that he probably was sidetracked by other friends or something to that effect.

You have half a mind to call it a night, your hand already reaching for your purse, when you hear a voice call out.

"________! You're here!"

You look up and your heart seems to jump right into your throat.

Charles is beaming down at you, a flag of Monaco draped around his shoulders, his previously styled hair now sticking up in all directions.

You caught a glimpse of Charles earlier when you arrived with Arthur, but the race winner was too busy doing shots for you to have properly said hi.

But he's here now. And he's sliding into the space beside you.

"Where's Arthur?" Charles asks, reaching for an unopened Heineken on the table in front of you.

"I have no idea," you half-yell, leaning closer so Charles could hear. You feel goosebumps erupt on your skin when Charles lays a tentative hand on your back.

"You can spend time with me, then," Charles grins, moving his arm further so it fully wraps around your shoulders.

A nervous laugh escapes you but your instinct is to lean even further into Charles' touch. He's still smiling at you, though clearly inebriated with the way his eyes seem out of focus.

"Ah, Oscar!"

You turn your head to see the other third of the podium finishers, Osar Piastri himself.

"Hey!" he calls over the din of the music. "I can't find anyone! I think they just abandoned me," Oscar adds, laughing.

He takes the seat on your left, effectively sandwiching you between him and Charles. You smile politely at Oscar, reaching your hand out.

"Hi, I'm ______," you say, smiling wider as Oscar takes your hand in his and squeezes.

"I'm Oscar," he says then pauses, realizing that you probably already knew who he was if you were any friend of Charles'. He laughs, practically giggles, hiding his face in his hand.

"Sorry, I see you around the paddock sometimes, so I probably didn't need to do that," Oscar explains, cheeks turning pink, or at least you think they do, given that the lighting in this club is atrocious.

Oscar is still holding your hand and you can tell that he's tipsy too by the way he's smiling, eyes hooded and sleepy-looking.

"________ is part of communications in Ferrari," Charles explains, rubbing his thumb over the exposed skin of your shoulder. You turn to look at Charles, and the way he gazes back at you, a half smile on his lips, breath hot on your cheek, has your heart pounding incessantly against your chest.

"She's very efficient," Charles praises with a chuckle. "I like seeing her around when she works."

You make a move to swat at Charles' thigh as if to tell him off. "Stop it, I'm not at enough races for you to see me that often."

You're laughing, mostly in disbelief at the words that just came out of Charles' mouth. He likes seeing you around?

Charles shrugs. "But when you are, I notice."

You feel your neck heat up and even more so when Charles maneuvers you closer, seemingly protective. If you moved any more, you'd be on Charles' lap.

Oscar eyes the two of you and you'd give anything to read the thoughts in his head right now. The younger man locks eyes with you and smiles, sweetly at first, but then his pupils glance down briefly at your chest, barely covered by the tube top you decided to don for the evening.

The sweetness quickly melts away as Oscar bites his lip.

"You're close, then?" Oscar asks casually, scooting closer to you and Charles.

"Arthur and her are good friends," Charles points out.

"So I guess by default, _______ and I are good friends, too."

You laugh and Oscar is grinning once more at you, and god does he look handsome under these lights. You can tell that he wants to come even closer, his fingers tapping nervously on his knee. Some slow song is playing over the speakers, bass loaded and making the entire place vibrate.

You reach out, laying a hand on Oscar's thigh, squeezing just enough to get the point across.

Oscar looks over at Charles and you follow his line of sight, seeing some sort of unspoken agreement cross the two drivers.

Charles dips his head, moving even closer to you. He breathes out right next to your ear and you shiver.

"Ma chèrie," he begins. "I think we need to take this somewhere else."

You turn to look at Charles, blood roaring in your ears. "What?"

Charles looks straight into your eyes as if searching for something. He rubs a soothing hand down your back, letting it settle on your waist.

"You want to, no?" Charles asks, momentarily glancing up at Oscar. "With me and him?"

You feel a rush of excitement course through you. Surely, this isn't happening. The idea of Charles bringing you home crossed your mind briefly the moment he touched you earlier, but that's as far as you allowed yourself to imagine. But the remnants of alcohol in your system and the intoxicating atmosphere of the club must have gotten to you with the way you so brazenly made a move on Oscar.

And now you reap what you sow.

"We can hang out at my place," Oscar throws out nonchalantly as if he was simply inviting you and Charles to more drinks at his apartment.

"I just moved in and it could use a little...housewarming," Oscar adds with a pointed look.

Charles bursts out laughing, leaning down to press a kiss to your shoulder before nuzzling into the side of your neck. You glance around, hyperaware that all eyes have been on Charles the whole night, and for sure it isn't any different now.

"Andiamo," Charles whispers. "We'll make it good."

Let's go. Your months of Italian as a prerequisite to working in Ferrari barely register with you now.

Oscar slips his own hand over your thigh, his large palm covering an expanse of your skin.

"You'll love the view from my balcony," Oscar offers, tilting his head towards you. He smiles, innocent and sweet once more, simultaneously squeezing at the flesh of your thigh.

You bite your lip, suppressing whatever sounds that threatened to come out.

You thought you'd never make it out of the car ride to Oscar's place.

Oscar had brought his own ride and being much, much more sober than both you and Charles, he took the initiative to drive. You and Charles piled into the backseat, giggling.

"Not fair, you guys," Oscar teased from the front, eyeing you through the rearview mirror. Charles merely snickers, hands sneaking up over your chest as you settle on his lap.

"Eyes on the road, Oscar," Charles ordered, yanking your top down, exposing yourself fully to Oscar. You gasped, the cold air of the air-conditioning lending to the stiffening of your nipples. Charles began to toy with them, pinching and rolling them between his fingers, reducing you to a speechless mess. You noticed just how hard Oscar was gripping the steering wheel, tight enough that his knuckles were drained of color.

You barely had time to cover yourself back up once you got to Oscar's place, with Charles tugging you out of the car as soon as Oscar killed the ignition. The younger of the two comes around to your side of the car as you and Charles stumble out. Oscar takes your hand in his and leans down briefly to kiss you, tongue darting out to lick at the seam of your lips.

Oscar pulls away, sending Charles a look. "I was on the podium, too, mate."

"Ah, sorry Oscar," Charles says lightheartedly. "Sharing isn't really my strong suit. But for her, I will try."

Charles lands a smack on your ass, the sound loud enough to make you flinch. You involuntarily whine at the sting, tripping over your feet a bit. Oscar steadies you, laughing along with Charles.

"We're gonna have so much fun with you, chèrie," Charles teases, kissing your cheek.

The elevator ride is even worse. Or better. You can't decide.

It's just the three of you, and you're backed up into the corner, Charles being the handsier of the two, creeping both hands up your sides, his knee pushing between your legs.

"Ch-Charles, not here," you manage to warn. He increases the pressure against your core, grinning as he watches you shiver.

Oscar watches from the side, arms crossed, leaning casually against the elevator wall. You meet his gaze and he winks, smiling languidly just as Charles kisses down the side of your neck.

Soon enough, the elevator doors open and you push Charles away, startled to see a pair of middle-aged women waiting on the other side. You hurry past them out into the hallway, following Oscar who saunters down towards the end with an easy step.

"Right here," Oscar declares, unlocking a door at the very end. Charles guides you inside just as Oscar turns the light on.

The living room is spacious, with a single couch and coffee table occupying it. A deep blue rug breaks the cream flooring. Past the receiving area is the dining and kitchen, set against floor-to-ceiling windows, a staple of Monegasque apartments, as you've come to figure out. A hallway veers to the right.

"You weren't kidding about the view," you comment, taking in the night sky and the sprawling harbor.

Oscar turns back to you, and only now do you get a good look at him. The first three buttons of his shirt undone, his hair the right kind of messy, and his eyes, darker than what you're used to.

"The view in here is just as good," Oscar replies, eyes raking over your body. He reaches out, a hand resting on your waist.

"May I?" Charles whispers from behind you, tugging down the zip of your skirt. He gets it open and you let it fall to your feet, kicking it off to the side.

"So pretty," Charles adds, kissing along your upper back. Oscar hikes your top up and you let him pull it over your head, leaving you bare, save for your panties.

"I could see your tits through your shirt the whole night," Oscar comments, pointer fingers ghosting over your nipples. "Imagined what they might look like."

You gasp, leaning further back into Charles. You had no idea Oscar had that kind of mouth on him.

It turned you on to no end.

"Better than what you imagined?" You breathe out, Charles' fingers making their way over your mound, pressing over the wet spot on your underwear.

"Chèrie, you're so wet," Charles curses, rubbing you through the thin fabric. "Will you let me get a taste of you, hm?"

You nod frantically, already buckling under the lightest of touch from both men. You can only imagine how pathetic you look right now, stripped bare, with them still fully clothed.

"We should move this to the room," Oscar offers, delivering a final pinch to both of your nipples. You yelp as Oscar chuckles darkly, taking your hand in his.

It hasn't even fully started and you're already made to do the walk of shame.

Oscar's walls are still mostly bare but you feel exposed somehow, shivering despite the fairly warm temperature. He leads you and Charles to the door at the end of the hall, stepping inside while undoing the rest of the buttons on his shirt.

You're met with large double doors on one side of the room, leading to, what you can only assume, is a large balcony.

"We can do it with a view, amour," Charles says, wrapping both arms around your waist.

Oscar shrugs his shirt off and you watch as his muscles flex beneath his skin, taut and defined.

"We sure can," Oscar agrees, flinging the doors to his balcony open. The cool night breeze blows past your face and you sigh, heart rate picking up even more.

Charles gently maneuvers you closer to the open doors and your hands start to clam up. Shit, are you really doing this?

"W-Wait," you mutter. "Won't anyone see?"

Oscar approaches you, pointer finger hooking into your underwear. He tugs at it harshly, yanking it halfway off.

"We don't have to do it outside if you don't want to," Oscar says, voice low. He looks at Charles. "Don't wanna get kicked out after I've just moved in."

Charles snickers. "The bed is right there. We'll leave the doors open and let them hear you, instead."

And it's true. The bed is directly in front of the balcony doors, moonlight spilling onto Oscar's navy blue sheets. Oscar grabs fully at your soiled panties now, ripping them clean off.

You gasp, but any shock is melted away when you see Oscar ball up the torn fabric in his hand, bringing it closer to your face. He raises his eyebrows as if questioning you.

"Yes? No?" He asks, tapping beneath your chin. It clicks a little late what Oscar is asking of you but you nod, parting your lips.

Oscar grins, pushing your panties into your mouth.

Fuck.

You hear the metal clang of a belt being unbuckled behind you, followed by the crinkle of fabric as Charles lets his pants and underwear pool around his ankles.

"You and I are going to have so much fun with her, no, Oscar?" Charles asks, a hint of mischief in his voice.

Oscar undoes the button of his pants as well. "Yes, we are."

"How do you want to do this, baby?" Charles addresses you, taking hold of your hips. "Tell us."

"And maybe if you're good, we'll give you what you want," Oscar adds, a hand sliding up your chest before resting around your neck. Your breath hitches as you feel Oscar test the waters, squeezing lightly.

"Oh, wait," Charles laughs condescendingly. "She can't talk."

There's a glint in Oscar's eyes as he adds pressure around your neck. "Guess we have to decide for her then."

You whimper, arms reaching out to wrap around Oscar's own neck. He smiles at you, almost warmly, but you can still see the bubbling desire in his irises.

"You can take the gag out any time you want," Oscar instructs softly, releasing your neck. You take in a big breath through your nose.

"And if you don't like anything we're doing, say 'Monte Carlo'," Oscar adds. He nods at Charles and you feel yourself being pulled backward.

"Get on the bed," Charles commands and you scramble to do so, crawling over the mattress before turning around and laying back on your elbows.

Charles and Oscar eye you intently and you're tempted to cover yourself, but with how they've been acting the whole night, you're not sure how that would be received.

"You wanna go first?" Oscar nudges Charles lightly. The Monegasque grins widely like a kid on Christmas.

"Oh, yes," Charles concedes, getting on the bed with you. He scoots down so his face is level with your cunt.

"Hold tight, my love," Charles says before licking a thick stripe up your core. Your whole body jerks and you cry around the gag in your mouth.

Charles continues to work on your dripping pussy, alternating between flicking against your clit and circling your hole. You moan and whine and whimper, eyes tearing up as you look pleadingly at Oscar.

"Look at you," Oscar laughs. "We've barely done anything."

Charles spreads your legs even wider, licking even deeper. You're fully crying now, the buildup proving too much as you feel your body shake at your approaching orgasm.

Oscar reaches over and toys with your boobs, brushing over your nipples just the way you like it. Without warning, Oscar dips his head down and takes one in his mouth, circling the nub with his own tongue.

The added sensation nearly drives you crazy. The pressure builds rapidly inside you and you're left incoherent as you beg without words.

Not yet, fuck, I can't cum that fast–

You twitch and involuntarily press your pussy harshly against Charles' mouth as you come undone, toes curling and body seizing up. Oscar pulls away and watches as you throw your head back, fingers twisting into the sheets.

"Already?" You hear Charles' voice through the ringing in your ears. "You must really want it."

You blink through your tears, momentarily confused as you see Oscar reach for your face. You cough as you feel the dry fabric being pulled out from your mouth. Oscar tosses your ruined underwear to the side.

"I think she deserves a reward for getting there so fast," Oscar suggests, turning to Charles.

"Which one do you want a taste of first? You get to pick, sweetheart," Oscar says, wiping a stray line of drool dripping down the side of your mouth.

"Ch-Charles," you croak, throat still dry.

Charles and Oscar share a curt nod and the former moves to the head of the bed.

"Hands and knees, my love," Charles orders and you follow, getting on all fours. He settles against the headboard, leaning back as you take his cock in your hand.

"Guess you want me here, then?" Oscar says from behind you. You turn to peek over your shoulder to see Oscar stroking languidly at his cock, one of his hands coming down to spread your ass apart.

"Fuck, this view," Oscar hisses, smacking your ass once.

"I reckon, you don't need me to prep you? I can just–"

You shriek as you feel Oscar push in without warning, and though it was a surprise, the obscene amount of arousal coming from your cunt aids in the stretch that Oscar's cock brings.

He fully sheathes himself inside and he groans, grabbing your hips with both hands.

"Chèrie." Charles' voice forces your attention back to him.

"Don't forget about me, hm?"

You try to compose yourself as best as you can as Oscar starts to fuck you at a relentless pace. You lower your mouth down to Charles' cock, wrapping your lips around the tip.

You take half of him in, coating him in your spit, going lower each time you come down. Charles is nearly as incoherent as you were earlier, curse words in three different languages falling from his lips.

You feel the tip of his cock reach the back of your throat and you stop, gagging around it. Charles threads his fingers through your hair, yanking you back up.

"Open your mouth," Charles says, tightening the grip on your hair.

You do as you're told and Charles angles himself better. He holds you in place as he fucks up into your mouth, hitting the back of your throat each time. You will your breathing to slow, but the constant assault on your pussy muddles your brain and destroys your focus.

"She's so fucking tight," Oscar says through gritted teeth. You can feel his nails dig into your sides.

"Here as well," Charles agrees. "So warm and so wet."

All you can do is sob as you let the two of them use you, filled up on both sides, reduced to nothing but two holes.

"Fuck, I wanna cum on her face," Oscar says hurriedly, hips slowing down, probably in an attempt to keep his orgasm at bay.

Charles pulls you back off of him and he surveys you for a second.

"And I'll do it inside," Charles says. "Will you let me cum inside, chèrie?"

You nod, unconsciously clenching around Oscar. He curses, speeding up his movements again.

"Mate, I can't take it anymore," Oscar rushes, pulling out. You whine at the loss but Charles is quick to get off the bed, replacing Oscar's place behind you.

You feel the Charles' tip press against your hole and you plead, rocking back, desperate to be filled up.

"Charles, please, n-need your cum in me," you stutter. "Wanna be filled up, I need it, need you, please–"

Charles slides in one swift motion and your eyes roll all the way back in your head. He's thicker than Oscar and the stretch is almost painful but in the best way possible.

The older of the two wastes no time and starts pounding into you, rendering you speechless at how brutal his pace is. You're dizzy with arousal, spit and tears mixing on your chin and cheeks.

"Look here, sweetheart," comes Oscar's voice, rough around the edges, his hand cupping your chin.

He's stroking his cock at an impossible pace, bottom lip caught between his teeth. You look straight into his eyes as you stick your tongue out, waiting for him to release all over you.

"Fuck, you really are desperate for it," Oscar sneers, gripping harder at your face. "Open wide."

A warm spurt of liquid shoots straight onto your tongue, landing on your cheeks as well. You squint as it hits nearer to your eyes but you obediently lick up everything you can from your lips, swallowing Oscar's thick cum down.

"Oh god, baby," Charles warns. "Je vais bientôt jouir–"

Charles presses you closer to him, caging your hips against his own. He groans and you feel him twitch within you. You clench down as hard as you can around him, earning your hair a harsh tug from behind. Charles yanks you back against him as he gives a few more thrusts to ride his orgasm out.

"We are not done with you yet, amour," Charles warns.

Oscar's face comes into view and he's eyeing you up and down, his thumb swiping at a stain of himself on your cheek. He brings it to your lips and you lick his digit clean.

"Good girl," Oscar praises. "But he's right. You can give us a few more, right?"

You swallow.

You nod.

#f1 x reader #f1 smut #f1 fanfic #cl16 #op81 #charles leclerc x reader #oscar piastri x reader

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tacticalprincess · 8 hours

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ok ok but imagine being simon’s gf and könig just being so infatuated with u :( he likes you so so much, believes you deserve better than simon and just pines after you ^_^

very im on fire of him

könig’s never been one to be discreet about his feelings, especially toward you. he doesn’t owe simon anything, much less loyalty. his crush has become an inside joke amongst the crew, has gotten dirty looks thrown at him by simon too many times to count for being just slightly too touchy to be friendly, too intense in his yearning. tuning in intently whenever you talk, doing small favors for you whenever he gets the chance, asks after you when you’re gone. too close for comfort, oughta get himself in trouble, simon says.

its hard to ignore a stare that burns a hole in the side of your head, weighted like a caress on all the exposed parts of your body. könig gets some sort of satisfaction out of watching you squirm under his intense gaze, eyes trained on you most of the time he’s around, because at least he makes you feel something. he wishes to sliver underneath your skin and infiltrate your thoughts just as you’ve done to him, sending his emotions into haywire just by way of existing. smiling at him so brightly, extending a fraction of the warmth and kindness that comes naturally to you, craves it when he’s alone at night. your boyfriend can’t blame him.

simon’s weird, quiet coworker, helplessly infatuated with you, his too cute, too sweet, too soft girlfriend. could only dream of experiencing the parts of you that are exclusively for simon — wonders how someone like you even ended up with a man like him. looking far too out of place under his tattooed arm, bottom lip tucked between pearly teeth bashfully while he chats to the group of guys in typical boyish manner. the occasional ducks of his head to kiss your forehead when he remembers you’re there is not enough attention showed to such a pretty, doting thing like you, in könig’s humble opinion. it’s not even that he believes he’s better than him, but a selfish part of him would rather you end up in his calloused hands than anyone elses. his mind strays the longer he observes you, imagines all the ways he’d treat you better, take care of you like you deserve. would’ve probably already proposed to you by now given the chance. you might seem happy enough, but that doesn’t stop him from searching for cracks in the polished porcelain. always waiting for a spot to slip in.

he finally gets you alone one night, finds you where you wandered off into price’s basement to fetch more beer. coming behind you to grab the case from your delicate hands like lifting a feather off the ground.

“boyfriend not here to do this for you?”

after you regain your composure from the startle, you scoff, peering up at könig through your lashes. “just thought i’d do something nice for him.”

“sweet. does he always allow you to do a man’s job?” sarcasm bites at his words.

“allow me—?”

“do you think he even noticed your absence, maus?” he presses a bit harder, his face holding the same indifference it always does under his mask, tone flat around his accent. “as i did?”

his eyes search yours for a second, looking for any sign of reciprocation for his feelings, and somehow you can tell he knows you don’t know how to respond. as a show of mercy, he steps to the side to let you squeeze past his frame and up the stairs leading back inside the house, heavy footsteps following slowly behind. he watches as you so easily slip back into simon’s side, how his arm finds its home around your shoulders without effort. concern knits your boyfriend’s eyebrows together as he leans down to peck your lips, never breaking eye contact with könig over your shoulder, a petty display of ownership. he watches.

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coloursflyaway · 3 days

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Cry With Joy At The Depth Of My Love

Pairing: Edwin Payne/Charles Rowland

Rating: T

Word Count: 18.000

Read on AO3

“Edwin?”, Crystal asks, and Edwin would say something snarky, maybe even something mean, but Charles is wrapped around him like he’ll never let go again, and there are more important matters at hand.

“Crystal, what has happened here?”, he asks, and a few seconds later, their new psychic is standing in front of him, trousers splashed with the coffee she dropped, disbelief written across her face. “I was gone for a few hours and now Charles… and the whole building…”

He’s not quite sure how to put it, most likely because he still doesn’t understand, and Crystal looks at him like he come back from the Cat King’s lair with an additional head.

“Edwin”, she says, slowly, like she is still searching for the words, “what are you talking about? You’ve been gone for six weeks.” ____________ Edwin takes the Cat King up on his initial offer, so instead of a few hours, he is gone for six weeks. Charles isn't good at coping with it.

Tags for everyone who wanted one ♥: @that-ineffable-devil @mentally-unstable-fangirl @tipsyscone @butternutsquashthesenutz @makemeimmortalwithahug @mylu @imineffible @fabledshadow @asherxme @twopercentboy

„Now, I think this concludes our business“, Edwin says and fixes his bow-tie, the collar of his shirt. His lips feel strange, now that they have tasted their first kiss (and their second, and third, and fourth, and…, his treacherous mind corrects him), but this was a small price to pay for safe passage out of this godforsaken town. “So, could you please transport me back to my friend?”

The creature in question unfurls his body from the sofa they were lounging on for the transaction, and even if Edwin cannot find much that is good about this situation, the Cat King at least has been rather civil about it all, no matter his unconventional request for payment.

Even now, he walks closer and there is a smirk on his lips.

Lips, Edwin does not want to look at, because he knows how they feel and knows that they felt right in one, and terrifyingly wrong in all other ways.

“If you insist”, the Cat King drawls, and brushes two fingers across Edwin’s shoulders. “I can take you back to your little friend. But you’re also more than welcome to stay a little longer…”

“No, thank you”, Edwin cuts him off before he can continue, because he needs to get back to Charles, and as soon as possible, too. “As far as I can tell, you have been made quite happy, so I consider my debt repaid and would very much like to return where I belong.”

And the Cat King looks at him like he knows something he won’t tell Edwin yet, and snaps his fingers, and the world changes.

Edwin disappears in front of their eyes, and Charles forces down the spark of panic that comes with that.

The Cat King wanted to talk and Edwin can handle it, of course he can. Even if Charles would have liked it much better if he could have done it within his sight.

The warehouse looks different when it reappears.

Edwin needs a moment to make sense of it, but then his gaze gets stuck on the scratches on the walls, the splintered wood and bent metal, the wrecked throne and the hole in the floor that looks like someone dug it with their bare hands, blood streaked across the grey concrete.

It looks like a crime scene, like a war had been waged inside of it, and then Edwin’s eyes find Charles’ form in the middle of the broken up ground.

He’s sunken on the floor, like a marionette whose strings had been cut, his coat torn to shreds, his white socks stained, and his hair a matted mess of curls. Bits of concrete are stuck in there, but Charles doesn’t seem to notice, like he doesn’t seem to notice anything else around him, and it scares Edwin more than anything ever has before.

Before he knows it, he is moving, gasping out Charles’ name, and for a terrible, terrifying second, Charles does not react. He just sits there, motionless, like he is stuck in limbo; then he looks up, slowly, like he is moving through molasses, and somehow, it’s worse.

There is no life left in his eyes.

Usually, they shine brighter than the sun itself, sparkling with every emotion Charles is feeling, but now their light is dimmed until it has all but gone out, their brown not warm and inviting anymore, but flat.

A sound tumbles from Edwin’s lips, although he cannot quite make out what kind, something between a sob and a plea and a prayer, and Edwin is about to drop to his knees in front of him, when Charles propels himself upwards and flings himself into Edwin with a force that knocks them both to the ground.

If he was still breathing, the impact would force the air out of Edwin’s lungs, but he is certain that even then, he wouldn’t realise it, because Charles is holding him so tightly it compresses his non-existent ribs, like he has been hurt, like he had thought Edwin was.

And he’s crying.

It’s the kind of crying Edwin hasn’t experienced before, but something which he understands anyway; it’s the kind of crying he would hear in hell, seeping through the cracks of his doll house, the kind he would see much later when he was escaping.

It’s crying without any kind of restraint because there is no strength left to fight it, the kind of crying that comes from desperation so deep it captures your entire soul, and forces anything else into meaninglessness.

Edwin has never cried like this before, and he swears right then and there that he will find and butcher whoever did this to Charles.

Three hours have passed and Edwin isn’t yet back.

Charles is doing his very best to keep calm, but it is so, so difficult when the only thing those damned cats are willing to say is, sometimes the King likes to keep them for a while.

What is a while?, Charles had asked, but there had been nothing but a self-satisfied meow, which most likely just means that the cats know about as much as Charles does.

Which is not reassuring, but in the end, it will be fine.

Edwin might not know how to fight, but he’s clever and he’s brave and he would never leave Charles alone.

“Shh, it’s alright”, he is whispering into Charles’ curls, trying to soothe him even though it doesn’t seem to be working at all.

Charles is crying like the world has ended, his sobs so violent they make Edwin’s chest seize up, his fingers grabbing and pulling at Edwin’s clothes like he wants to sink into him and fuse their bodies together.

And Edwin might not know how to fix this, but he’ll damn himself to Hell if he lets go.

He’s about to try and change their position in hopes of making Charles more comfortable, when there is a thud and the sound of splashing liquid behind them.

“Edwin?”, Crystal asks, and Edwin would say something snarky, maybe even something mean, but Charles is wrapped around him like he’ll never let go again, and there’s more important matters at hand.

He’s not quite sure how to put it, most likely because he still doesn’t understand, and Crystal looks at him like he come back from the Cat King’s lair with an additional head.

“Edwin”, she says, slowly, like she is still searching for the words, “what are you talking about? You’ve been gone for six weeks.”

Edwin has been gone for a day and a half and Charles is going insane.

He knows he’s going insane, but that doesn’t change anything, because Edwin has been gone for a day and a half, and they have never been apart for this long since they met.

“I swear to God, if you don’t bring him back, like, this instant, I’m going to start breaking things”, he tells one of the cats that have come to watch them; it’s not an effective threat because Charles has been saying this for at least six hours, but he cannot stop himself, because he feels like breaking things.

He feels like he needs to break things, and that scares him, but what scares him much, much more is that Edwin isn’t here, and he has been gone for a day and a half, and Charles doesn’t know how to get him back.

“Sure thing, lover boy”, one of the cats replies, and Charles shouldn’t, but he screams.

Silence stretches between them, only interrupted by Charles’ sobs, his heaving breaths.

“What do you mean, I have been gone for six weeks?”, Edwin finally asks, dread of a previously unknown type and magnitude filling him with every tear Charles is crying into his suit.

“What do you think I mean? I mean, six weeks, you have been gone for six weeks, and we have been looking all over for you and this one”, she gestures to Charles, “has taken the entire town apart because he was so convinced that he would have to dig you out of Hell with his own bare hands. That’s what I mean with you have been gone for six weeks.”

And she looks down at Charles who is shaking in Edwin’s arms, and there is tenderness and true affection in her eyes, which vanishes as soon as her gaze returns to Edwin.

“So, like. Good to have you back, but also, what the fuck, how could you do this to him?”

It’s been two days since Edwin was whisked away by that absolute prick of a Cat King and Charles is losing his mind. Whatever he thought before about going insane was nothing, nothing at all, because this is so much worse.

Crystal, bless her, has been trying to calm him down, but there is only so much she can do, which is nothing at all, because Edwin is gone and no one will fucking talk to Charles and tell him what is going on.

So, he is pacing, because he cannot start smashing things up, even if he wants to.

Not because of any consideration Charles has for the Cat King or his kingdom or his subjects, but because Edwin will come back and he will have solved everything, and he will be so cross with him if Charles starts smashing things up.

So, instead, he paces, and thinks about how he’ll hug Edwin once he’s back, no matter if Edwin wants him to or not, and how he won’t let him out of his sight for the rest of eternity.

Six weeks.

The words shatter something within Edwin that he didn’t know existed, tear him down until he’s not sure if he’s still the same person as he was before.

Because Charles is crying in his arms like he watched the world end, and suddenly Edwin doesn’t just understand the emotion there, but feels it deeply, viscerally.

If Charles had been gone for six weeks, he would be tearing the world apart with his bare hands to get him back.

And suddenly, every one of Charles’ sobs is an open wound, every trembling grasping of his fingers a broken bone, every time he breathes in, wet and desperate and painful, is a death he dies, because Edwin is the one who caused this.

Edwin, who was gone for six weeks without knowing, who has left the most important person in his life to suffer without him; Edwin, who can’t do anything but hug Charles tighter, and pray to whatever god will hear him that Charles will be able to forgive him.

It’s been three days and Charles doesn’t care anymore.

He has told Crystal as much, after she had dragged him out on a coffee run, insisting that he cannot spend his entire time in that godforsaken warehouse. Which she is wrong about, he realises as soon as he has stepped outside, because Edwin could come back any second and Charles would not be there to take care of him after whatever this Cat King has been putting him through.

At first, the Cat King hadn’t seemed too bad, not dangerous, more annoying, but apparently Charles had been wrong because Edwin isn’t here, and there is no way Edwin would leave Charles alone for this long, especially because he must know how worried Charles is by now.

So, the only explanation is that the Cat King must be keeping Edwin from leaving somehow and Charles will not allow it.

He should have gone with him right away, shouldn’t have let Edwin out of his sight, will never do so again.

So, he lets Crystal get the coffee she wants, but ignores her looks when he brandishes his cricket bat even before they walk into the warehouse. Maybe he is overreacting, because it has only been three days, but at the same moment, Charles knows he isn’t, because maybe for other people, spending three days away from their best friend is just part of everyday life, but it isn’t for them.

Charles is used to looking up at any given time and finding Edwin within his sight and the fact that he isn’t terrifies Charles to the point where it is hard to think.

That’s why it doesn’t matter that Crystal is obviously uncomfortable when Charles twirls the bat around as he enters the warehouse, just like it doesn’t matter that the cats scatter, not even that Edwin would tut and tell Charles to use his head to solve this, not his muscles.

Because Edwin isn’t here, is he?

“Oi!”, he calls into the vast room and sends more cats running. “One of you little fuckers is going to tell me where your King has taken my friend or I’ll start smashing shit up around here, alright?”

Just to make sure they know he means business, Charles brings down his bat on the closest barrel and feels the metal dent under the impact.

It’s satisfying in a way that scares him, but everything scares him right now, so this doesn’t matter, either.

“Do you hear me?”, he shouts and knows that he doesn’t sound commanding, just desperate, because that’s what he is, desperate and scared and not even good enough to keep the most important person in the world safe. But maybe desperate is enough for this, because desperate people do desperate things and Charles is about to rip this place into bits and pieces until he finds Edwin again.

There is no answer, and Crystal reaches out to tug on his jacket, like she thinks he doesn’t mean it, but oh, that’s where she is wrong.

They have only spent a week and a half together so Charles doesn’t hold it against her, but he’ll show her, just like he’ll show the cats, how much he means it.

Edwin isn’t certain how long they stay like this, but it’s not like he cares either. His mind is still reeling from the revelation that he has been gone for six weeks, his heart caught in a cycle of ripping itself apart for leaving Charles alone and patching itself up once more because he cannot let Charles see how much he is hurting, not when Charles needs him to be strong now.

Despite having existed for over a hundred years, Edwin has never become comfortable with another person’s touch – Charles’ being the exception – but he knows that Charles needs it, so his hands have started running over Charles’ back, combing through his lovely curls, anything that will let Charles know that he is here and he is safe and he isn’t leaving ever again.

“For me, it was only a few hours”, Edwin whispers, a response that comes far too late, feels like far too little, because who cares what it was like for him if it has left Charles in such a state? “If I had known that time passed different there, I would have come back immediately. I wouldn’t have spent a second with that blasted man.”

His hand is cupping Charles’ head, trying to support him through sobs that seem to wreck through his body with the intensity of an earthquake, the tears they bring soaking through Edwin’s jacket and shirt. Even if his spectral skin cannot feel them, Edwin knows it anyway, just like he knows the desperate grip Charles has on his back, the shaking of his slender body in Edwin’s arms.

“Time passed differently-”, Crystal starts but then stops herself, almost like a decision Edwin can see her make, before she crouches down and puts a hand on Charles’ back, just below Edwin’s. Part of Edwin wants to push it away, because it should be him who touches Charles, no on else. “You know what, we can talk about that later. We have to get him out of here first, then we can figure the rest out.”

Metal bends and wood breaks and concrete doesn’t do much at all apart from sending shocks up Charles’ arms, especially if he does it again and again and again.

If he was still alive, his muscles would be screaming, he’d be covered in cuts and bruises, splinters embedded in his flesh and being driven deeper with every motion; like this, there is nothing, just Charles and the cricket bat and the violence he is unleashing.

The first hit had felt good, like a release, but by now it feels like nothing at all anymore, but in the end, he does not do it to feel better, but to get these goddamned cats to finally tell him where Edwin is.

It’s the only thing that matters, that has mattered, will matter, and Charles will take the whole fucking warehouse apart if that is what it takes.

His bat slams into the side of a barrel, denting it, and a cat flees; his bat hits a post and another one does.

“Just give him back!”, he screams and he sounds crazed, but that doesn’t matter either. “Tell me where he is!”

There is carnage around him, there’s bits of wood flying where Charles’ swing has toppled a palette over, and it doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter at all.

It’s nearly impossible to get Charles to stand up and it breaks Edwin’s heart, because Charles should be light on his feet, a flurry of motion even if he is trying to stand still, but instead he stumbles when Crystal helps lift him up. His hands are still clutching to Edwin’s clothes, cramped to the point where Crystal can’t dislodge them, although she is whispering soft nothings, coaxing with even softer touches.

In the end, they shift his arms so that they are around Edwin’s neck, clinging to him when Edwin picks him up like one would a child.

Were they still alive, Edwin wouldn’t be able to carry him a step, but Charles’ astral body has no weight to it, so Charles’ head comes to rest somewhere between Edwin’s neck and shoulder, fresh tears spilling down to wet his collar.

His sobs have quieted somehow, but he is still crying, still mute to Crystal’s questions and Edwin’s attempts of encouragement.

In all the three decades Edwin has known him, he has never seen Charles like this, never this closed off or devastated; it hurts in ways Edwin didn’t know he could hurt.

Crystal doesn’t talk much to him, but for once, Edwin doesn’t blame her: if he had been here in her stead, watching Charles spiral from his usual self to this state, he also wouldn’t want to talk to the person responsible for it.

So, he just follows her to the room she is still renting, holding onto Charles’ trembling form and swearing to never let him go again.

Eventually it’s Crystal who stops him.

She screams his name over the sounds of destruction, an expression on her pretty face that Charles has no energy left to decipher.

“Charles, they are not telling you anything”, she says, and yes, that’s the problem. “Maybe they don’t know. Maybe Edwin is somewhere else entirely, maybe the Cat King has taken him somewhere else in town.”

It makes little sense, and Charles wants to go back and smash another barrel into pieces, just in case it’s this one that will make those fucking cats tell him where Edwin is, when Crystal puts a hand on his shoulder and adds, “Maybe he needs our help there.”

Suddenly, a barrage of images: Edwin kept prisoner, forced into iron shackles; Edwin, being tortured; Edwin, waiting for Charles to come free him.

Charles, who has sworn to protect him and failed once already.

Edwin puts Charles down on Crystal’s bed, but even then Charles doesn’t let go of him and Edwin is touched, Edwin is terrified.

He seems so small like this, curled up on Edwin’s lap, and Edwin’s heart aches with love and with devotion and with an unbearable amount of guilt.

Without thinking, he pushes a hand through Charles’ hair again, but this time, Charles shivers against him, either because of the touch or by chance, Edwin isn’t sure.

“What happened?”, he asks Crystal softly, as not to disturb Charles.

“What do you think?”, she asks instead of answering, “He thought you were gone. He thought you might be gone forever, or trapped in Hell, or another thousand things his poor brain came up with. Would have gotten himself wiped out of existence if I hadn’t stopped him. Or dragged down to hell. He was willing to do absolutely anything to find you.”

She looks down at Charles and Edwin watches her eyes soften, like she is watching something precious; she is right, of course, but part of his heart still screams for her to stop.

“I’m not sure you know how much he loves you”, she tells him, her expression still soft, and it’s preposterous, it’s uncalled for, and Edwin desperately wishes it not to be true.

They search the harbour and the lighthouse, the library and the abandoned houses scattered around town, the high school and the cemetery; Edwin is nowhere and Charles curses Port Townsend and its people, curses the two of them for ever setting foot in it and curses Crystal for bringing them here.

In the woods, they find something akin to a shrine, complete with ancient writing that Charles cannot read, but there is no sign of Edwin anywhere. Around it, skeletons are scattered across the grass, and Charles should care about it, should make this a case, but the thought of it feels so far removed he’s almost surprised when Crystal picks it up to bring with them.

That summons the skeletons and they run, and Charles forgets about it almost immediately afterwards because it doesn’t matter, nothing does.

As Crystal outlines the events in the past six weeks in broad strokes, Charles hardly stirs, even if his tears dry at some point.

He’s not asleep, because that is not a luxury granted to them, but Edwin notices this kind of exhaustion anyway; he’s felt it before, after he had crawled out of Hell, covered in soot and bile and blood, and had collapsed right there on the floor, finally safe, but unable to move for what felt like an eternity.

And he understands it, too: he’d rather go to Hell again than lose Charles.

“He just sat there?”, he asks when Crystal is nearing the end of her tale, because it seems impossible, should be that. Charles is movement, is a constant dance, and yet Crystal is telling him that prior to Edwin’s return, he hadn’t moved in a fortnight. And it should be inconceivable, but Edwin thinks of how he found Charles, sunken into himself like he had become part of the ground itself, and suddenly it is difficult to doubt her words.

Crystal nods, and again her gaze softens when it touches Charles; again something within Edwin twists and hisses.

“He said he wasn’t leaving until you came back”, she explains, and her voice is a caress not meant for him, but Charles, who cannot hear it. “And he said he would wait forever if he had to… and I believed him.”

“Oh, Charles.”

It’s a declaration of love, of sorrow, of everything in between, and for a second, Charles stirs in Edwin’s lap, before he settles back down; it’s for the best, even if Edwin craves to see Charles’ eyes with some semblance of life in them like a starving man might crave a meal.

He strokes his knuckles down Charles’ spine, wishing he could feel the bumps of every vertebra, and Charles presses closer, almost imperceptibly so.

“Thank you for taking care of him”, he tells Crystal and means it, even if the words feel like pulling barbed wire through his airways, because taking care of Charles isn’t Crystal’s duty, it’s Edwin’s. But she was there when Edwin wasn’t, and it comforts him at least a little to know that Charles hadn’t been alone.

“Of course”, Crystal says, and her eyes stay soft, stay on Charles, “but don’t you fucking do that again.”

The vase helps nothing at all, because Charles cannot read the words that were transcribed on it or the table, because he’s useless without Edwin at his side.

Edwin would be able to solve this, there is a reason why he��s the brains of the operation after all, but Charles? The best he can do is put the vase down on Crystal’s table and all but forget about it.

Until he comes back that night from another trip to the harbour, the magic shop, the warehouse, without Edwin, whose absence feels more like a gaping, oozing wound with every passing second, and there is a stranger in Crystal’s bed.

She’s petite and looks peaceful, but Charles doesn’t even get to ask what she is doing there before Crystal starts talking.

“I put some flowers into the weird vase we found”, she says, and it doesn’t explain anything at all, “Dandelions that I found when I went back to check if we had missed anything in the woods, you know, because of the skeletons. And I heard a thud from the hallway and Niko here had passed out right in the middle of it. Which, in itself, would have been concerning, but then...God, there is no way to say this without sounding insane, but there were little people? Crawling out of her mouth? Which are now asleep in the dandelions I put into the vase.”

She looks at Charles like she expects a response, but it’s really difficult to give one, when it’s… well. When it’s not about Edwin.

“That’s good?”, he tries and Crystal rolls her eyes, looking annoyed for a second.

“Charles, I know this isn’t-”, she starts, but then stops herself, her expression softening. “I know you are worried about Edwin, but I need your help with this, okay? It won’t take long, we just have to take those little creatures back to their little altar thing so they won’t crawl back into Niko once they wake up. Can you do that for me?”

It seems reasonable and Charles still wants to say no, because nothing matters as long as Edwin isn’t back where he should be, but then he remembers, dimly, through the pain and the confusion and the gaping hole that is Edwin’s absence, that this is what they set out to do.

Help people.

So, he nods, and Crystal smiles, and that might matter at least a little bit.

“I’ll take him back to London tomorrow”, Edwin says into the silence that has settled around them. “Through the mirror. Not because I don’t want you to come, just…”

He doesn’t quite know how to say it, but Crystal seems to understand it anyway.

“That’s a good idea”, she agrees easily, and reaches out to touch a hand to Charles’ back, just below Edwin’s hand once more. “I think he should be back home and you two… I think it might be good if you had some time to sort through things. I’ll join you later.”

In any other situation, Edwin would ask what she means by that, but right now, it really doesn’t seem to matter, so he just nods, settles back against the headboard, and lets his eyes slip shut.

Charles takes the vase back where they found it, and there should be some kind of satisfaction in it, something about the job being jobbed and the day being saved and the stranger, Niko, being out of danger, but there is nothing but the gaping hole in his chest where his heart is supposed to be, because Edwin isn’t there with him.

When the sun is rising, the first rays of light coming through the windows, Edwin tries to rouse Charles once more.

“Charles?”, he asks as softly as he possibly can, not yet pulling away. “I was thinking, we should go back to London.”

For a few moments, there is no answer, but then Charles slowly, ever so slowly, sits up, his arms still around Edwin’s neck, as if he couldn’t bear to lose their closeness.

And Edwin expects a reaction, but none as violent as he gets when he finally sees Charles’ face again.

It’s not like he has forgotten it; for him, not even a day has passed, and yet it feels like seeing him for the first time.

His eyes are the same brown Edwin has become so familiar with, but they are dull still, even if a hint of life has returned to them; they are rimmed with red, eyelashes clumped together as if Charles had just been crying. And he might have been, even if the thought that he didn’t notice hurts Edwin in completely new, unexpected ways.

“You’re really back”, Charles whispers and the words are a sob and a prayer and an exaltation, and Edwin’s heart breaks because he should never have been back, he should have just been there. “You’re really here.”

There are tears spilling down his face, making his gaze a little brighter and yet not worth it; Edwin reaches out to wipe them away without thinking and Charles trembles under his touch like he never has before.

“I never meant to be away that long”, he tells Charles, although he’s not sure it matters, because he was, and there is nothing he can say or do to make it better. “I never wanted to worry you.”

I never want to be away from you for more than a few seconds, he thinks, but doesn’t say, doesn’t recognise the thought but knows it to be true nonetheless.

“I know”, Charles says, and it’s still half a sob, more tears spilling down his cheeks for Edwin to wipe away. “I always knew that. And you came back and you’re safe and that’s all that matters and I just. I missed you so much.”

And it’s not all that matters, not by a long shot, but for now, Edwin just nods and wipes another tear from Charles’ skin.

Niko wakes up again and she’s lovely in a way Charles knows Edwin would have enjoyed, but if anything, that just makes the need to get Edwin back worse.

It’s been a week and Charles desperately wishes he could sleep, just so he wouldn’t have to feel this all the time.

At least Niko seems to be willing to help, which would be a relief if Charles had any hope left that looking through town would bring Edwin back. But they have been everywhere thrice, have looked at every single thing Tragic Mick has on sale, and Edwin is just gone, like the Cat King has made him vanish from existence.

The thought cuts into Charles’ flesh like iron would, burning hot and torturous and it’s been a week and maybe there’s no other way. Edwin must be hurt or captured or a thousand other things Charles won’t allow himself to think of, and Charles will bring him back, no matter what it takes.

“Could you girls go and check the lighthouse again? Maybe the beach?”, he asks and maybe Crystal is getting suspicious, but he cannot find it in himself to care. “I just, I don’t want him to get back and there not being anyone there to take care of him. Please?”

It’s enough to convince them; they won’t find anything, he knows it deep in his bones, but it gives him the time and the space to go back to the warehouse and do what is necessary.

It takes some convincing to get Charles to let go of Edwin enough to stand up, his hands sliding down Edwin’s arms like he doesn’t want to lose contact, and it’s then when Edwin’s gaze gets caught by something that should be impossible.

There’s red on Charles’ fingers.

Not the red Edwin associates with him, but the red of dried blood and fresh wounds and overwhelming pain; Charles’ fingers are stained with blood, his nails torn to the flesh, some missing ,his knuckles scraped and bruised.

A gasp escapes him, because they cannot get hurt, they are already dead. Wounds, even those from iron, are fleeting, fade within minutes. And yet, Charles’ hands are battered, bloodied, like he had just been punching a wall.

Without thinking, Edwin takes them in his, fingers delicately gripping Charles’ wrists as not to hurt his poor, wounded hands any further, as he raises them up for inspection.

“What happened?”, he asks and hears his voice breaking, feels his heart do the same.

Charles’ eyes flicker downwards and there’s a fleeting look of recognition there, but nothing more. No surprise, no confusion, not even pain.

“Oh, yeah”, he says distractedly, turning his hands within Edwin’s grasp. “It happened a few weeks ago, when I was trying to dig through the concrete. Started out with just a scrapes that healed again, no problem, but then at some point they just stayed. Don’t really know what they’re about.”

“Do they hurt?”

“Yeah”, Charles says easily, like it’s nothing, like it doesn’t send Edwin’s mind spiralling. “But you get used to it, don’t you?”

It’s the warehouse again because it’s always the warehouse because Edwin has gotten lost there, and Charles has to get him back, no matter what.

So he marches into there, cricket bat brandished, and sends the cats scattering. Their King has not yet returned, his throne empty and Charles’s non-existent, aching heart seizes in his chest, like it does every time he looks at that horrible pile of palettes.

For a moment, he wants to beat it into splinters even more than he already has, wants to reduce it to dust, but then he stops himself.

It’s not what he is there to do.

One of the cats is too slow; Charles catches it easily, even if it is scratching and screaming and twisting its little body in a futile attempt to break free.

Charles doesn’t want to hurt it, but if that is what is necessary, he will.

“Tell me where he took my friend”, he hisses at the creature, ignoring that the scratches sting like fire, ignoring that the cat is most likely terrified of him. “If you don’t I’m going to crush every bone in your body and I won’t even regret it.”

There is a moment of silence, and Charles sees his hands covered in blood, feels thin bones splinter in his grip, imagines a life going out because of him, and he doesn’t want to do it, but he will if he has to.

Its little legs kick out again, before they go still and then, with the most contempt Charles has ever heard in another being’s voice, it says, “There is a cave south of here where the King sometimes goes when he doesn’t want to be disturbed.”

“Is Edwin there?”, Charles asks, a hint of hope blooming in his chest, because it’s a direction at least, a possibility. Yet, he tightens his fingers just so, just enough to let the cat know he means it.

“If you will find him, it will be there”, the cat replies and Charles breathes a sigh of relief, and lets go.

Edwin tries not to watch Charles say goodbye to Crystal, but it’s impossible not to, because Charles won’t let go of his hand. And Edwin cannot feel it, but he knows that Charles’ knuckles are still raw and his nails torn down to the flesh, and it is impossible to think of anything else.

“You’ll take care of yourself, okay?”, Crystal says, and reaches out to hug Charles, who goes willingly, their joined hands dragging Edwin closer, too. Their joined hands, Charles’ bruised and bleeding because of Edwin.

“’Course I will”, Charles answers and buries his face in Crystal’s hair; Edwin wants to tear him away from her and keep him to himself for the rest of forever. “You, too, though. And take care of Niko.”

“I will. Maybe she wants to come with me to London. See the sights. The agency. The haunted vending machine.”

The words give Edwin a start; that case, the vending machine that used to be haunted until Charles and he convinced the ghost stuck in there to move on in 2002, is nothing Crystal should know about. It’s one of the cases Charles and he still refer to sometimes when they pass that particular machine, a little inside joke.

That Crystal knows about it, that this Niko does as well, is an almost physical blow to Edwin’s chest, and for a moment, he does not know why.

But then Charles pulls back, his bloodied hand in Edwin’s still, and says, “That’d be brills. And we can make a few new memories, too. Good ones, this time.”

And suddenly, it is so clear: in the last three decades and some, there have been almost no memories they haven’t shared, and suddenly, there are six weeks of Charles’ existence that Edwin hasn’t been part of and the realisation of it feels like it’s ripping him to shreds.

“We should go”, he says, before he thinks of it, and it is unkind and cruel and selfish to ask Charles to cut his goodbyes short; yet Edwin cannot help but feel relief when Charles looks at him for a second and nods. “I’ll see you in two days, okay, Crys?”

And Crystal, who has a nickname too, nods, and Edwin breathes a quiet sigh of relief.

Charles drags the girls with him to the woods to the south, unsure where to find the cave and yet determined to do so.

Chances are that Crystal is just humouring him, but Charles doesn’t care. And it doesn’t matter, does it, because it’s her who finds it in the end.

“This doesn’t look very nice for a kitty”, Niko comments as they come closer; Charles still isn’t certain if she knows what and who they are looking for, but he doesn’t have the time stop and explain it, not if Edwin might be here, might be hurt, might be being tortured.

“I’m not sure if the Cat King would describe himself as a kitty”, Crystal replies as they get close enough to see into the cave, “But in general, I agree. I don’t think this looks nice for anyone in particular.”

She’s right; it looks damp and overgrown with weed, not a place fit for a king, but maybe for a prisoner.

“You wait outside”, Charles tells them, because he can’t die anymore, and because he isn’t sure if he wants his new friends to see what he’ll become if faced with the Cat King now. “If I need help, I’ll shout for you.”

Maybe Crystal answers, maybe she doesn’t; Charles doesn’t wait to hear it, just pulls out his bat and barges into the cave, ready to knock the whiskers off the damned creature that has taken his best friend, the best person in the world.

Inside, the cave is cosy, carpeted, a large bed and a bar crammed into a corner; it’s magic, quite obviously.

And it’s empty.

Being back in London feels right, even if the hand in Edwin’s still feels wrong.

Not because Edwin doesn’t want to hold Charles hand – he finds, although he never would have considered it before, that the weight of Charles’ hand in his is comforting, the pressure of his fingers grounding, that the occasional tug makes his heart skip a metaphorical beat – but because even without feeling, he is constantly reminded of the state of them, the blood caked under Charles’ fingernails.

Almost, he raises their joined hands again to see if maybe, some of the bruises have healed, but when Edwin turns around, Charles is looking at him with such wonder, such care, such lingering pain, that it takes his breath away.

That look alone is like a stab, a full-body blow, and Edwin hates himself for having caused it, for thinking about his petty jealousies when Charles has been through six weeks of what must have been Hell.

“Charles”, he says softly, because he doesn’t know what else to say, but he doesn’t even get to finish saying his name; before he does, Charles pulls him closer, into another hug, that feels almost as desperate as the one they shared back at the warehouse, kneeling on the ruined concrete floor.

“I thought I lost you”, Charles sobs into his shoulder, and the only thing Edwin can do is hold him. “I didn’t want to believe it for a second, but you were gone for so long and I thought- I didn’t think I’d ever be here again, I didn’t think I’d be here again with you, I didn’t-”

It makes Edwin think of what Crystal said an ocean away, that Charles didn’t want to leave the warehouse, not without Edwin, and there are tears in his eyes now, spilling over and impossible to stop, because Charles there on the warehouse floor, unmoving as the world changes around him, is the worst thing he has ever imagined.

He hugs him closer, and Charles buries his face in the crook of Edwin’s neck, hot tears spilling against Edwin’s skin and soaking into his blazer, changing the fabric in the most fundamental of fashions.

The girls find him eventually.

Charles isn’t certain how long he has been sitting there, but he isn’t sure he cares anymore, because Edwin isn’t here and Charles doesn’t know where he is, so he can’t save him, which means Edwin is somewhere out there, alone and lost and most likely hurt. And he must be waiting for Charles to come, because Charles has always come, Charles has promised him, again and again, that he would always come.

And now, Charles doesn’t know where to go.

He doesn’t know he’s crying until Crystal is crouching before him, dabbing at his cheeks with a crumpled tissue, and it’s like everything falls apart around him, beneath him, inside him, because Edwin isn’t here and Charles doesn’t know how to get him back.

They eventually part, although Edwin isn’t sure he likes it; he’s not used to this kind of closeness, and yet it feels good to hold Charles, to comfort him.

It’s not like Charles goes far either, he keeps one of his poor, battered hands on Edwin’s wrist and drags him to their sofa, pulls him down until Charles can rest his feet on Edwin’s lap, their fingers still intertwined.

At first, it’s difficult to find somewhere to put his other hand, the one that is so used to holding books when he sits here, but Charles looks at him hopefully as he fidgets, until Edwin puts it down on top of Charles’ thin ankle, fingers snaking around to hold it.

“Do you want to tell me about what happened?”, Edwin asks after a few moments of silence – not uncomfortable, but heavy still – but Charles shakes his head almost immediately, dark curls bouncing.

“I’d rather not”, he says, and it sounds prim, almost rehearsed; it hurts in a new, novel way to think that Charles feels like he has to prepare answers when talking to him. “It wasn’t… pleasant. Do you wanna tell me how the Cat King kept you there for so long?”

His immediate response is no, he doesn’t want to tell Charles just what he had to do to appease the Cat King. There is an explanation ready on his lips, one he has rehearsed, back when there were lips on his throat, leaving imperceptible marks, but then he thinks of Charles’ hands, of his eyelashes clumped together with tears, and Charles deserves the truth, especially because there is so little else Edwin can give him.

“He asked for a kiss. Or rather, several”, he explains, then, because he isn’t certain how much Charles understood back then, on the warehouse floor, “For me, it was only a few hours, but wherever he took me, time must have been stretched there. It is the only explanation I can come up with.”

And he expects a chuckle, a smile, anything at all, but Charles’ eyes go dim again, go dull, and Edwin hates himself with renewed passion for causing it.

Charles isn’t sure how they end up in Niko’s room; he cannot remember walking, cannot remember teleporting either. But they do, and he is still crying, surrounded by pink and purple and bright yellow, and there are two sets of arms around him and they still don’t make him feel better.

He can’t remember the last time he cried, and he doesn’t think he ever cried like this before, not even with his father’s belt raining pain down on him. This is worse, because this is Edwin, and this is forever, and this is all his fault.

“Maybe the cat just didn’t know”, Crystal says softly, rubbing a hand along his back; for a brief moment, Charles wishes he could at least feel this. “Maybe their King doesn’t tell them much, I don’t think kings usually do. We’ll just keep looking. We’ll find someone who does.”

It’s meant to soothe, but it doesn’t; if anything it makes Charles cry harder, because who is left? He could go through the cats, one by one, and he will if necessary,, but if this one didn’t know, why should the next one be any better?

He doesn’t know how to answer, because any sound that comes from his lips is coated and drowned and swallowed by sobs, but he doesn’t have to, because Niko kisses the top of his head, and says, “You did mention a witch, maybe she knows? Maybe she has one of those crystal balls to look inside and find your friend!”

And she’s wrong, because Esther would never help them; and she’s right, because Charles has questions for her anyway.

A bit of light returns to Charles’ eyes quickly, thank God. Edwin isn’t sure what snuffed it out in the first place, but he swears not to make the same mistake a second time; his soul would not be able to take it.

He tries to keep the conversation light, only that so much of it seems to be caught up in everything that has happened.

It’s unusual, having to tread lightly around Charles, and Edwin hates it with a passion that surprises even himself. But it just feels so wrong, even more so than watching Crystal’s hand on Charles’ back, hearing her mention anecdotes from a life she wasn’t part of.

So, when he again almost asks Charles just how Crystal could have known about the cursed vending machine, he instead picks up the book lying on their side table and holds it up without even looking at the title.

“Do you want me to read you something?”, he asks, because back when they first met they occasionally did this, especially on winter nights whose cold they couldn’t feel, when Charles still remembered dying.

For a second, there is silence, Charles’ thumb brushing warm across the back of Edwin’s hand, and Edwin could live in this moment for the rest of his existence.

“The Complete Encyclopedia of Uncommon and Rare Arachnids?”, Charles asks, and there is a hint of his usual smile curling around his lips, a ghost of his normal teasing.

“I could get another book”, Edwin counters, and gives Charles a smile in hopes of getting a real one in return, “but I would have to get up to get it.”

And Charles is shaking his head immediately, and the smile on his lips grows into something Edwin almost recognises.

He reads the Complete Encyclopedia of Uncommon and Rare Arachnids to Charles for hours.

They get to E.

“Don’t do this”, Crystal repeats for the dozenth time, but Charles doesn’t slow down his steps, doesn’t even think about it. “Charles! Don’t do this. You remember the last time, she’s dangerous.”

“I know”, he answers, and he does. It’s just that it doesn’t matter. “That’s why she might have Edwin. Because she’s dangerous. Or she might at least know where he is. I can’t, Crystal.”

And he does stop, just for a second, turns around to see her and Niko trailing after him, Crystal obviously distressed, Niko most likely just confused. And he wants to care so much, but he just can’t.

Not when it’s Edwin.

“You stay out of this, Crys, please. But I can’t, not when it’s him. If there is any chance that Esther knows what that goddamned Cat King has done to Edwin, then I have to try. I have to.” He doesn’t expect Crystal to understand; they don’t know each other for long, it’s a miracle she’s even here still. “He’s my best friend. He would do the same for me.”

For a moment, nothing.

Then Crystal’s expression softens, like she might understand after all, and she nods.

“Alright”, she says, “Niko and I will stay around the corner and I’ll try to read her mind. But be careful, Charles. You won’t be much help to Edwin if you join him wherever he is.”

Night falls and they are still wrapped up into their cocoon of warmth on the couch, Charles’ hand by now a familiar weight in Edwin’s.

“I know you want to ask”, Charles says into the comfortable silence, and Edwin rejoices just for the pleasure of hearing his voice. “And I’ll tell you everything you wanna know, just… not now, okay? I want to enjoy having you back before I have to think about all that again.”

“Of course”, Edwin answers and he means it, understands it, too. He looks down at Charles’ hand in his and that is enough for now. “Whenever you are ready. There is no rush, we have the rest of forever to figure it out.”

Charles’ fingers twitch in his and it must be the light, but the knuckles look slightly less raw, less torn. Without thinking, Edwin lifts their hands to his lips and presses a kiss on the wounds, hoping that it won’t cause more pain.

It gets a response, at least, a sharp intake of breath, Charles’ fingers clenching around his, but when Edwin looks up at Charles, allowing their hands to drop once more, his eyes are wide and warm and a little alive.

“Doesn’t hurt”, Charles answers the question Edwin has yet to ask, but his voice sounds a little strangled still. “It’s just that you don’t usually do… any of this. I thought the hand holding would be almost too much, I just couldn’t let go.”

Because I need to make sure you’re really back, he doesn’t say, but Edwin hears it anyway. And the sentiment hurts, the thought that Charles thinks physical touch is a burden to him to the point of trying to let go of Edwin’s hand for his sake.

“I do not mind it in the slightest”, he declares, making sure to tighten the grip he has on Charles’ hand. “Not if it’s you.”

And Charles’ eyes widen once more, a spark in them igniting, and Edwin kisses his knuckles, one by one, vowing that he won’t let go until Charles can look at him without fear in his eyes.

“Esther!”, he yells before he has even reached the door, ready to barge in without knocking, even if Crystal has implored him to at least stay outside of Esther’s house. “If you don’t come out, I swear to God, I will come and find you and-”

“What?”, the door swings open and Esther is standing there, pipe at her lips as she regards Charles with a put upon kind of disinterest. “I heard you boys were still in town, but oh my God, can’t you let a woman cook up her revenge in peace? You boys are so annoying.”

If he was still alive, his teeth would splinter from how hard Charles is clenching them; his fingers are itching to grab the bat and just try and mash her face in.

“Do you know where Edwin is?”, he asks instead, because that’s more important than feeling her skull split apart again.

“Who’s Edwin?”, she drawls, taking a drag from her pipe and blowing the smoke into Charles’ face. “Is that the other one? I can’t keep up with you kids and your stupid little names.”

“That’s him, yeah”, Charles answers and God, he wants to smash her kneecaps in, he wants to beg her to help, he wants to storm past her and tear her house apart until he finds Edwin. “Do you know where he is?”

“You seem desperate”, Esther says, smirking, taking another drag from her pipe. “I like it. What’s it worth to ya?”

“Everything”, he replies, although he shouldn’t, because in the end, it’s the only answer he can give.

“Love that. Not for you, but for me.” Esther is sizing him up, obviously considering something Charles won’t like the least, and yet he knows that he will do it, no matter what it is she asks, if she can only tell him where to find Edwin. “It’s gonna cost you, and I mean, like, a lot.”

“I’ll pay it”, Charles answers without a second of hesitation, and Esther smirks in a way that should make him regret his words; it doesn’t. “Whatever it is, I’ll pay it.”

Sometimes, Edwin forgets how different they get to experience time; sometimes he's forcibly reminded of the fact. Because Crystal and Niko find them like this, wrapped up in each other.

Part of Edwin wants to tear himself away from Charles, although there is nothing untoward they are doing, but another, one he understands even less, wants to press closer, wants to kiss Charles' knuckles again and let the girls see.

"You made it!", Charles exclaims when he sees Crystal, voice sounding at least a fraction alive, and Edwin loves it, despises it at the same time. "How was the trip?"

They are dripping rain water on the floor, Edwin belatedly realises, but he decides against mentioning it anyway, less for their sake and more for Charles’.

“It was alright. Long, mostly”, Crystal answers, pushing a hand through her thick curls and sending a spray of water down onto their wooden floor. Edwin does his best not to notice it. “How are you? Is everything alright?”

The concern is palpable in her voice, almost a physical entity in the room, and Charles seems touched by it, his eyes softening and another sliver of a smile playing across his lips.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. Edwin’s here”, he replies, like it explains everything, and Crystal nods, as if she agrees that it does.

Her gaze flickers over to Edwin for a second, then back to Charles, whose fingers clench around Edwin’s almost imperceptibly before he shakes his head, the motion so small Edwin almost misses it.

He’s about to ask what he is going on, but then Niko steps forward, spreading even more water on their floors, and Edwin is distracted by the bright teal of her coat, the white of her hair that wasn’t there before he was taken.

“You must be Edwin”, she says and holds out a hand that Edwin cannot take without letting go of Charles’. “Charles has told us so much about you.”

“That would be me, yes. I apologise, my hand is currently quite occupied”, Edwin answers, then raises their joined hands to help explain why he cannot shake Niko’s; an expression flits across Crystal’s face, too quick for Edwin to make sense of it, yet Charles seems to understand it easily.

It shouldn’t bother Edwin as much as it does.

“Ooh, that’s okay”, Niko says, and she sounds like she means it. Her eyes are wide and happy and suddenly, even without knowing much about her, Edwin is glad that she was with Charles when he was gone. “You should be holding Charles’ hand, that’s much more important. I completely understand.”

And silently, Edwin agrees.

Esther is grinning at him in a way that reminds Charles of the snake Edwin had found in her house, cold and dangerous and like he should be running from that smile.

Instead, he takes a step forward, and he would take another if Crystal wasn’t suddenly next to him, yanking him back.

“She doesn’t know a thing”, she half hisses, half shouts, her voice as deadly as Esther’s smile. “I read her thoughts and there is nothing in there. She just wants you to promise her that you’ll do what she asks, and then use you.”

Her grip is so strong Charles feels it through his clothes, through the barrier to physical touch that is death, and as she yanks him back, Charles feels the heart he doesn’t have break in his chest once more, because for a moment, he had had hope.

Esther cackles and Charles knows there are tears spilling down his cheeks, even if he cannot feel them.

“Well, it was worth a try”, she says, sounding like it’s nothing, like it doesn’t matter at all, and something in Charles just snaps.

Crystal’s hand on his shoulder still feels solid, but the cricket bat in his hand does even more so, especially when it connects with Esther’s still-smirking face.

While the girls go and dry off, Charles sinks back into the cushions, his eyes fluttering close. Almost, he could look relaxed, but Edwin can still see the tension in his body, like a spring curled tight and waiting for the lightest touch to set it off.

Edwin wants to soothe him, but he doesn’t know how to, especially not when there is still so much he doesn’t know about those six weeks.

He is trying to figure out a way how to ask, or at least hint at it, but then Charles opens his eyes again, and they are softer than they should be when Charles has been through so much.

“I think you’ll really like Niko”, he says, and he sounds wistful somehow; Edwin desperately wishes he knew why. “She’s pretty brills. Might have saved me once or twice.”

“Saved you? What from?”

Edwin imagines Esther and her giant snake and Hell and everything in between, but Charles’ eyes don’t change, neither does his voice.

“Myself, really.”

In the end, it takes both of the girls to pull him off Esther.

His whole body is aching from her iron cane in ways he had forgotten he could hurt, but the pain is distant, far away; the only thing that matters is that she had said she knew how to get Edwin back and she had given him a sliver of hope and then she had snuffed it out again.

Another thing that is far away: he is screaming, or crying, or both; two sets of hands drag him down the steps, and Charles knows he’s fighting them, because… because he doesn’t know what else to do.

And then he’s just crying.

Arms pull him close against a solid chest, fingers card through his hair, and there is nothing stopping the sobs wrecking through his body, so violently Charles feels them almost like he had felt the hits from Esther’s cane.

He doesn’t know how long they stay there, crouched on the ground, but it is a long, long time.

When they come back, Niko hops onto the sofa’s backrest and Charles looks up at her with obvious affection.

“Do you need some band-aids for your hands?”, she asks, placing a little box on her knee. “I brought the Hello Kitty ones.”

The words make no sense to Edwin, but Charles nods, and Edwin hates how much he doesn’t know, hates that they ever had to spend time apart.

Charles twists and turns until he can put one of his bruised hands into Niko’s lap, who inspects it, before a bright, bright smile spreads across her face, like a sunflower opening to greet the morning.

“It looks better!”, Niko tells him, and she’s right; the knuckles are still red, but have scabbed over, the cuts are a little less prominent against Charles’ warm skin.

“Does it?”, Charles asks, and sits up straighter to see for himself. “I guess your dad was right, then.”

“I told you.” Niko is pulling a pastel pink band-aid from her box, unwrapping it before placing it gently across one of the deeper scratches on the back of Charles’ hand. It covers only half of it, if even.

“Charles”, Edwin starts before he can stop himself, “what is the purpose of this? Those patches won’t make your wounds heal any faster.”

It takes a moment, but then Charles turns to look at him; it’s a silly thought, but it almost feels like Edwin has missed his eyes on him.

“They won’t”, Charles agrees, and his lips are curved into an almost-smile. “But it will make them heal better.”

Charles cannot remember how they get back to the butcher shop, but they do, because Charles ends up sitting on Niko’s bed, while she rummages through her night stand.

He isn’t certain what she is looking for, but she finds it with a little ah!, and returns to the bed with a box in her hand. It’s metal, dented and scratched in a way that shows it has been loved; she opens it and there are dozens of colourful band-aids inside, waiting to patch someone up again.

“Now, I don’t know Edwin”, she says in a strange cadence, like she is trying to figure out what to say while speaking.”But if you love him so much, then I don’t think he would like you to be hurt. And since he isn’t here to make it better, I will try.”

The words make Charles’ eyes sting with tears once more, because Niko is right, Edwin wouldn’t want him to hurt; because she is right, Edwin isn’t here.

“Ghosts don’t-”, he starts, because if he doesn’t talk, he’ll start crying again, “Our wounds heal differently. Those band-aids won’t make them heal faster.”

Niko stills for a moment, then takes one of his hands in hers, which is scratched from Esther’s cane. The wounds won’t last more than a day, Charles knows it, but Niko still touches his hand with so much care, as if she thinks she could hurt him.

“My dad used to put band-aids on my knees when I fell from my bike”, she tells him as if it’s an answer to a question Charles hasn’t asked; maybe it is. “And he always said that even if that wouldn’t make the scrapes heal faster, it would make them heal better.”

And Niko looks up at him, her fingers cradling his hand like she thinks he can still feel it.

“Do you want a pink or a green one?”

“Pink”, Charles says, and doesn’t bother to blink the tears away this time.

Niko covers Charles’ hands in band-aids until she runs out of them, Charles’ wounds too numerous for what her little chest holds. They feel strange against Edwin’s palm when Charles switches the hand he is holding Edwin’s with halfway through, the plastic so different to Charles’ skin.

He watches the exchange and it tugs at his heart in ways he doesn’t understand; it hurts and it heals, because at least Charles had someone to put little plastic patches over his wounds, even if how familiar both of them are with the process means that there must have been far more wounds than Edwin was aware of.

At the very end of it, Niko places a kiss on Charles’ knuckles and Edwin’s lips ache in jealousy.

“Thank you”, Charles tells her, and she nods, bright and happy, before she starts sliding off the backrest.

She stops, though, and cocks her head as she looks at Edwin.

“The kiss makes the wounds heal even better”, she says, like imparting a secret, and then, she’s gone.

“You can’t keep doing this”, Crystal tells him the second they are alone, in a voice that allows no objections; Charles knows he will object anyway. “Charles, I know you cannot die a second time, but you cannot keep doing this. Esther hurt you and we had to watch and I just. I can’t do that again. I know he’s your best friend, but you’re running yourself into the ground with this and I don’t know if I can watch it happen.”

She looks like she means it and Charles wants to help, but if there is one thing he cannot give her, it’s this.

“I can’t”, he answers, and looks down onto his hands, peppered with brightly-coloured band-aids someone who cares about him put there, up at Crystal who saved him from being bound to a witch’s whim, and yet it all pales in comparison to the gaping hole in his chest where Edwin’s presence usually lingers. “I’m so sorry, but I just can’t stop, not as long as he’s still gone.”

He wants to tell her about how Edwin would do the same for him, about how he has saved Edwin from a hundred monsters and will save him from a thousand more, about how he isn’t sure if he can continue existing without Edwin at his side.

But he doesn’t get to, because Crystal takes a deep breath, and asks, “What if he’s not trying to come back?”

The question shocks Charles into silence, but Crystal continues talking anyway, words blurring into each other with how fast she is speaking.

“I didn’t want to say anything, because I know how much you care for him, but maybe he just left. Maybe that is why we can’t find him anywhere, why the cats couldn’t tell you anything either. Because he doesn’t want to be found.”

And it’s-

It’s the most ludicrous thing Charles has ever heard in the fifty-odd years he has spent on this Earth.

“No”, he tells Crystal, “No, you’re wrong. And not because I couldn’t bear it although I really, really couldn’t, but… that’s not how we are, Crystal. He wouldn’t leave. Never. If there is anything in the world I know for certain, it’s that Edwin wouldn’t leave. And that means he’s out there somewhere and he is hurt or captured, and he is waiting for me to come and get him. And I will, Crystal, no matter what happens, I will.”

There’s nowhere in the agency for the girls to sleep, so they set out to find a hotel, and Edwin breathes a sigh of relief, even if he hates himself for it only moments later.

He shouldn’t be so jealous of Charles’ attention, his affection, especially not when Crystal and Niko have stuck with him for six horrifying weeks, and Edwin should be nothing but grateful to them for taking care of the best, the most important person in existence instead of him.

But the door closes behind them, and it’s just Charles and him once more, and Edwin is weak, is possessive and greedy and looks down at Charles’s hand in his, and thinks that at least one thing is right in the world.

“Alright”, Charles says and turns to look at Edwin. “You can ask me. Not about everything all at once, maybe, but you can ask me.”

It should take him at least a second to understand what Charles is talking about, but it doesn’t; Charles says you can ask me, and there’s a thousand questions swarming through his head immediately, begging to be spoken aloud.

He nods, but before he can decide on any one thing to ask, he takes Charles back to the sofa and makes him sit down, their hands still loosely joined between them.

Touch is something Charles has always needed, but now, with Charles so hurt, so vulnerable, Edwin realises that he needs it almost as much.

There are so many things he wants to know that it feels impossible to settle on one thing, at least to start with, until suddenly, there’s a question that blazes through his mind so painfully that Edwin speaks it out-loud before he has a moment to reconsider.

“Did you ever doubt I would come back?”, he asks, then corrects himself, “No, did you ever doubt that I wanted to come back?”

He tells himself that he’ll accept any answer Charles will give him and it’s the truth; another truth: if Charles ever doubted that the only place Edwin wants to be is at his side, it will shatter his heart to pieces.

“Of course not”, Charles says, not missing a beat, and Edwin gets to keep his heart after all. His voice is soft and his eyes are, too, even if their light is still dimmed. “I’d never doubt that. It’s you and me against the world, isn’t it?”

Edwin nods, and there are tears in his eyes he does not deserve to cry.

“Thank you”, he says, unsure what he is thanking Charles for: for still being here, for believing in Edwin, in the strength of their friendship, for enduring all of it. “I know it must have been Hell, because that’s what it would have been had the roles been reversed, but something must have happened, because your hands…”

Without wanting to, he looks down at Charles’ fingers, wrapped in bright plastic, his own woven between them, pristine because he allowed the most important person in existence to go through this alone.

“I’m not really sure”, Charles replies, and when Edwin looks up again, it’s Charles who is staring at their joined hands. “To be honest, I didn’t really stop to think about it. We found out about this other dimension the Cat King uses to escape, and I just went mental, didn’t I? Started trashing the warehouse completely, and when my bat broke, well. I just used my hands. I guess they’re not as sturdy.”

He tries for a smile, and it rips Edwin’s heart to pieces.

“You-”, he starts, but doesn’t get the words out, because the thought is too much to bear, the images of Charles ripping his fingers to shreds to find him too vivid.

“Had to get you back somehow, didn’t I?”, Charles asks, answers, still smiling, and Edwin cannot take a second more, so instead, he pulls Charles against his chest and hugs him so tightly he knows that, if he had any bones left, he’d feel them creak.

Maybe he should be discouraged, maybe it should be difficult to go back out and start looking for Edwin all over again, but it isn’t.

What would be difficult is sitting down and waiting; what would be impossible is to let Edwin stay wherever he is being kept.

So, he walks.

Past meadows and across streams, up hillsides and then looks down into the valleys and still finds nothing, nothing at all. It’s maddening, it’s the worst thing he has ever felt, because the scenery is beautiful, the days long and the sun bright, and Charles feels like he is dragging himself through barbed wire and broken glass.

When he gets Edwin back, he’ll never let him out of his sight again, he swears when he walks up to the lighthouse once more, for the fifteenth or five hundredth time, sparing a look at the ghosts sitting there, watching the water. He’ll keep him close, keep him in his sight, keep one hand in Edwin’s, no matter if he likes it or not, for the rest of eternity, just to make sure he won’t stray too far.

It becomes a thing between them when they are alone.

Charles will look at him and say, one question, or three questions, and Edwin will go through his mental catalogue of them, realising how much he hates that there is anything about Charles he does not know all over again, every single time.

How long did you wait in the warehouse at first?, he asks, and Charles says, days. Crystal had to force me to leave it for the first time.

Why is Niko’s hair white now?, he asks another time when they sitting on the roof, the sounds of the city dulled down to a gentle buzz. Oh, that was mental, actually, Charles answers, and launches into a story about gnomes crawling from her mouth, and Edwin sits there and watches him, and wishes Charles would tell the story like he would have two months ago, animated and excited about it, instead of matter-of-factly.

How long would you have stayed on that floor?, he asks, and doesn’t know if he wants to hear the answer this time, only knows he has to. And Charles looks at him strangely, fondly, sadly, and says, forever, mate.

Crystal catches up with him at the warehouse again, where he is pacing on the horrible, hated concrete floor, thinking about battering it open and seeing if he can find Edwin between the pieces. She’s been looking at him more often now, so openly worried Charles sometimes finds it difficult to hold her gaze, but there is nothing to be done about it, is there?

It’s the same way she is looking at him now, forehead furrowed and her dark eyes on him feeling like they are taking Charles apart, piece for piece, thought for thought.

“What are you looking for?”, she asks like she doesn’t know it, like the answer has ever changed.

He doesn’t answer, because he doesn’t know how to say Edwin’s name without breaking into tears, because if he says his name, he might not stop anytime soon.

“Charles”, she tries again and it stops his feet mid-step, “Charles, what if you don’t find him? What if he never comes back?”

It’s words that never should be spoken, because they cannot be allowed to be true, and Charles closes his eyes, just to save himself from the look in Crystal’s eyes.

“I’ve been to Tragic Mick’s shop and I asked him about ghosts and their wandering, because you are scaring me”, she continues, “and he told me that the only ghosts who wander are those that killed themselves. And that scared me even more.”

And Charles wants to shake his head and tell her she’s wrong, but it feels like that somehow; like half of him died and he is doing everything he can to follow.

Niko comes to change Charles’ band-aids and Edwin doesn’t think about it much, just watches her take out the box and tell Charles about the characters depicted on them. The wounds themselves have healed slightly, and even if no one knows why, Edwin breathes a sigh of relief at the discovery.

He expects Niko to let Charles choose a colour again, like she has done before, but instead she turns to him, who is just there because Charles is still holding his hand like it’s a lifeline.

“I think you should choose the colour this time”, Niko tells him, holding out a hand with three different band-aids in it, three different colours, three different patterns.

“It’s not my hands, though”, Edwin protests, but Niko just shoves her hand closer.

“No”, she agrees, “but they’re your wounds, too.”

And Edwin glances at Charles, who, for once, isn’t looking back, takes in the sharp cut of his jaw and the dullness of his eyes, thinks of his bleeding knuckles and broken nails, and knows she is right.

“This one, then”, he says, and leaves the green one, covered with leaves, the yellow one, covered with stars, and picks up the red one, covered in hearts.

The thought doesn’t appear gradually, it rips through him one day when he is walking through the library, forgetting to avoid the bookcases and just phasing through them instead.

Two days before, Niko, in a futile hope to console him, had put a hand on his shoulder and given it a squeeze.

“If he has come back from Hell, then I’m sure he’ll come back from where he is now. Especially if he knows you are waiting for him”, she had said, and back then, Charles had just tried giving her a smile, not thinking anything of the comment.

But now, it’s like a bolt from the heavens, a thought so devastating it leaves him gasping in the middle of the room, clutching at his chest like he still had a heart to calm.

He knows little to nothing about the Cat King, because in the end, Edwin had always been the brains of their operation, the one with the encyclopedic knowledge of anything supernatural, but something he knows intimately are Edwin’s stories about Hell.

Most of them, he has heard at least a dozen times, and even if that is not enough to imagine the horrors there, it’s enough to know that the entities there use souls like bargaining chips.

Edwin had told him before that he had been traded from demon to demon, and back then, in the comfort of their agency, Charles had shivered and put a hand on Edwin’s shoulder in lieu of pulling him against his chest, tucking Edwin’s head under his chin and never letting him go again.

Now, a picture forms in his mind that is so terrifying Charles feels like screaming, and Edwin is not here, so Charles will claw him from the mouth of Hell itself this time.

“Charles, could I borrow Edwin for a second?”, Crystal asks one evening, and Charles’ fingers tense around his own.

It’s a strange phenomenon that has only increased with time; occasionally, Edwin thinks he can almost feel Charles’ touch, not as just resistance, but like he used to when he was still alive.

“It won’t be long and I’ll bring him back, I promise”, she adds, not even bothering to ask Edwin, just assuming he will follow her.

“Yeah, sure”, Charles eventually answers, even if a second too late, and slowly, ever so slowly, untangles their fingers from where their hands had been resting between them. It’s the first time since Edwin has come back that they are not touching, and Edwin feels the loss of it immediately, his fingers itching to find Charles’ once more.

For now, though, he only gives Charles a smile before he follows Crystal outside, where she stops immediately.

Her expression is one Edwin cannot decipher, anger lingering behind her eyes, but almost concealed by something much greater, much more important.

“Do you have any idea how much Charles loves you?”, she asks, and the anger is there in her voice, the other thing is, too. “I know I asked you before and you said yes, but I don’t think you do. And I think you need to.”

“I am perfectly aware-”, Edwin starts, but he doesn’t get far.

“You are not”, Crystal interrupts him and she sounds so certain that Edwin feels helpless hearing it, because even if he doesn’t believe her, there are things now that she knows about Charles and he doesn’t. “I watched that boy beat up a witch that almost took out all three of us, because she had lied about knowing where you were, and the only reason he didn’t bash her immortal head in was because Niko and I pulled him off of her. He was willing to sell his soul to her just to get you back. To a demon, too. He nearly ripped off his own fingers trying to reach you, because he couldn’t imagine a world without you in it.”

She pauses for a moment and Edwin can’t speak, can hardly think, his brain trying to sort through the information and failing, because it hurts too much.

“I thought he was going to die, Edwin. Cease existing. Whatever”, she continues, crossing her arms in front of her chest, and the anger is still there, and Edwin understands it now, deserves it. “I went to see him every day at that warehouse after he had just sat down and accepted his fate and every day I expected him to just not be there anymore. That’s how much he loves you, I thought he was going to disappear just because you had, too. He loves you more than I can even imagine loving anyone.”

“Crystal…”

“If you hurt him, I’m going to make you regret you were ever born”, she finishes, and Edwin believes her without reservations, “and the only reason I won’t kill you a second time is because I know it would kill Charles, too.”

It’s not easy to get Crystal to tell him where David is, but Charles manages anyway.

The roller-skating rink is dark and dirty, the concrete floor too close to the one in the warehouse for Charles not to shiver when seeing it for the first time. But it doesn’t matter, isn’t allowed to matter, because crouched in the corner is a human figure with shaggy hair and a too-large fur coat, and Charles wants to rip him apart for Crystal, wants to beg him to help for Edwin.

“Oi!”, he yells out and David scatters in a way that reminds Charles of a bug of some kind. “You remember me, yeah?”

“What do you want?”, David spits back, pressed against the wall and trying to look like he wouldn’t flee if Charles gave him an opportunity to do so. “Haven’t you ruined enough?”

“Didn’t ruin a thing”, Charles replies, but there’s no fire to it, because in the end, as much as he hates it, he needs the bastard’s help. “I need you to send me to Hell.”

If he wasn’t so desperate, if there wasn’t a constant loop of torture behind his eyes whenever he blinked, showing him thousands of ways that Edwin could be torn apart this second, he would try to find a better, a more subtle way of putting it, but there is, and Charles has long since stopped caring.

He hasn’t seen Edwin in more than three weeks and if his best friend in the world, the one person who never deserved to go to Hell, spent three weeks there because Charles was too stupid to put the pieces together, he will never forgive himself for it.

“What?”, David asks, and Charles has no time for this, for any of it.

“Hell. I need you to send me to Hell, because my friend might be there and I need to find him”, he repeats, and it takes a moment, but then David laughs, an ugly, rough sound.

“You want to go to Hell”, he repeats, like Charles hasn’t said so twice already. “Voluntarily.”

“Yes.” Charles closes his eyes for a second, wishing that the deep breaths he used to ask Edwin to take would still have the same effects on him as they did when he was still alive. “You don’t need to understand it, you just have to send me there. I’ll sell you my soul or whatever it is you do, I don’t care. I just need to get to Hell as quickly as possible.”

David still looks like he wants to laugh, but this time, he doesn’t. Instead, he takes a step forward, raising his hands as if he was trying to placate Charles, a smile on his lips that Charles wants to knock off.

“Alright, alright”, he says, and Charles hates him and hates the Cat King and hates himself for letting it come to this. But it will be worth it, anything would be worth it if it brought Edwin back. He’ll figure out what to do about his own soul later. “I’ll get you to Hell, absolutely. But it sounds like you’re desperate, so I might need a bit more than just your soul to make it happen.”

“No.” He thinks of Crystal and Niko and Jenny, all safe, all oblivious, hopes they’ll forgive him. “You’ll get my soul, and that’s it.”

David pretends to think about it, but Charles has dealt with enough demons to know he will accept; they are greedy creatures after all, and a soul is a soul is a soul.

“Okay”, he says at last, and still, Charles feels relief wash through him. Just hold on a little bit longer, Edwin. I’m coming. “I’ll take your soul. And I’ll send you to Hell. But I’ll choose the Circle.”

“Sure, whatever”, Charles replies and the smirk that David gives him should scare him, but he’s far past scaring. “I’ll find him no matter what.”

Crystal’s words echo in Edwin’s head when they return to the agency and Edwin slots back into the spot next to Charles, their fingers intertwining naturally.

He knows Charles loves him, of course he does. Has known it for thirty years and has it carved so deeply, so prominently into his heart that he’ll never forget it, yet something about Crystal’s words makes that knowledge scream in his chest when Charles looks at him, a little bit of his usual brightness returning to his eyes as soon as they touch.

It’s not frightening, that knowledge, but it’s not comforting either.

It’s just there, beating in his chest like a heart might, asking if Edwin feels the same.

And without a moment’s hesitation, Edwin answers.

Yes.

“Oh, you fucking won’t”, rings out Crystal’s voice just before Charles’ hand touches David’s, and for a moment, Charles hates her.

Then someone grips his shoulder and flings him backwards, and Crystal is standing there, breathing heavily, a cleaver in her hand, and for another moment, Charles loves her.

“You won’t fucking touch him”, she hisses, and David laughs, the sound just as rough, just as ugly.

“He came here by himself”, he tells her, grinning still. “He asked me to take his soul. He begged me to do it.”

“Well, the offer has been rescinded. And you better go wherever the fuck you came from, before I send you back there myself.”

“Crystal, I need him to-”, Charles starts, desperate, but he never gets to finish the sentence, because Crystal turns her head to look at him, and her eyes are blazing like fire, before they go white.

“No one needs him for anything”, she tells him and her voice is distant and emotionless and powerful, echoing in the empty space like it is made of a hundred women speaking.

And Crystal reaches out and puts a hand on the centre of David’s chest.

For a moment, nothing happens, then he is being flung back against the wall with an invisible force, kept there suspended.

“You won’t touch him again”, Crystal says and the other voices still echo within hers, leaving Charles breathless and awed and despondent. “And you won’t touch me either. Otherwise I’ll bury you so deep you’ll be begging me to send you back to Hell instead.”

And she lets him go; when she turns back to Charles, there’s a small pouch in her hand.

“Crystal said you almost sold your soul to a demon”, Edwin starts the next time Charles allows him a question.

Everything Crystal had told him has stuck with him, but this he had only realised much later, and it had scared him like hardly anything else had before.

Charles just nods, this time doesn’t even try for a smile, and Edwin is glad for it; he’s not sure if he could take it.

“I didn’t really think I had a choice”, he adds after a few moments, like it makes it better. “I thought the Cat King might have sold you to some kind of demon and that was why I couldn’t find you anywhere. And the idea of you, stuck down there… I couldn’t take it.”

“But there was no proof, there can’t even have been any indication that…”

“No, there wasn’t”, Charles replies and this time, he does smile, and the sight is as torturous as Edwin knew it was going to be. “But I had to make sure. No version of you getting dragged to Hell where I don’t come and get you, is there?”

His fingers, adorned with less band-aids than there were before, squeeze Edwin’s and for a moment, they almost feel warm, real.

And Edwin blinks back tears and thinks of Crystal saying, he loves you more than I can even imagine loving anyone, and squeezes back.

“How am I supposed to get Edwin back now, Crystal?”, Charles sobs, the words coming out drowned in tears and desolation. “What if he’s in Hell and I can’t get him back?”

He’s on the floor of the roller-skating rink, David’s collapsed form just metres away, and Charles should move in case he wakes up again, but he can’t. His limbs are not moving, his thoughts spiralling, because the only thing that counts is that Edwin might be trapped in some kind of torture chamber in the one place Charles cannot reach.

Two familiar hands pull him up and into a hug that Charles cannot reciprocate, shaking too violently with the intensity of his sobs.

“Jesus Christ, Charles”, Crystal mutters into his shoulder, and she sounds shaken, sounds almost in tears. “Have you ever stopped for a second and thought what would happen if Edwin came back and you were in Hell?”

“Now that we’re all back, do you guys want to get back into detecting?”, Crystal asks them, and Charles flinches almost imperceptibly, before forcing a smile onto his pretty lips.

This time, at least, looking at it is a little less painful.

“Yeah, of course”, Charles says, “but maybe not right away. Unless Edwin…”

“No, I think a bit of a break would do us some good”, Edwin tells him before Charles can even finish the sentence. “Maybe once Charles’ hands have healed. We have no reason to rush it, do we?”

And watches as a little bit of light returns to Charles’ eyes.

It’s later, although Charles cannot tell exactly how much.

Crystal had to half-carry him out of the roller-skating rink, where they had both collapsed on the ground, unable or unwilling to move.

With time, Charles’ sobs had dried up, even though it feels like he has an ocean of them still stored inside his chest, lapping at his unbeating heart like waves. But Crystal had been right, he doesn’t know if Edwin is in Hell, just fears it more than anything else in this world.

“Charles?”, Crystal asks into the night air, sounding pensive, drained.

“Yeah?”

“I know you and Edwin are best friends, but that can’t be all that there is to it. Not with how you’ve been in the past weeks. What’s going on?”

It’s not the question he expected, it’s not even one he has ever asked himself before, but there is exhaustion so deep in his bones, paired with despair he didn’t know he could even feel, and Charles knows that Crystal deserves an answer.

So, he looks inside, pictures Edwin, his little smug smile when he wins at Clue and the elegance of his gestures and the way his voice softens when he knows Charles needs reassurance.

He thinks of Edwin, bathed in the light of the morning sun, and illuminated by the stars, thinks of Edwin’s wit and his brilliance and how easily he gets annoyed at period dramas on TV when their costumes aren’t historically accurate. Thinks of Edwin reading him to sleep when he was dying and reading him poetry afterwards when he found out that Charles had never truly liked a poem, and how Edwin’s voice had almost made him cry when he had recited Keats’ Ode to a Nightingale.

Thinks about how when he’s sad, it’s Edwin he wants to talk to, and when he’s happy, it’s the same thing, the same intensity.

Thinks about how no one has ever known him like this, inside and out, with all his flaws and imperfections and silly little quirks, and how Edwin does and still wants to keep him; how Charles knows just as much about him and feels the same.

Thinks about how it’s impossible to imagine a world without him in it, and how Charles never even wants to try doing so.

Thinks of Edwin and how he is the best, the brightest, the most important part of his existence.

“I love him”, he finally answers, and he’s choking on the words because they are true and yet he hasn’t known until a second ago. “Crystal, I love him. I love him so much and I never even got to tell him.”

And he’s crying again, just as hard as before, and Crystal reaches out and holds him until it’s morning again.

“Crystal and I found the vending machine”, Niko tells them the next day when the girls arrive around noon. She’s skipping, obviously excited as she sits down between them, completely ignoring that it means they have to rearrange their intertwined hands. “The one that was haunted. It was so cool, I got an orange soda out of it.”

She’s unpacking her band-aids, although nowadays, Charles doesn’t need many of them anymore, setting them out as a surgeon would their instruments, and no matter how charming Edwin finds her, the reminder that the girls know of the vending machine still makes something in Edwin’s chest clench uncomfortably.

“That’s great”, Charles says and maybe there is a little bit more light in his eyes than there was yesterday. He plucks a band-aid from Niko’s lap and hands it to her. “This one today, please.”

And it really isn’t great at all, but Edwin doesn’t know how to formulate the fact into a sentence that doesn’t sound like complete lunacy.

“And this one”, he says instead, and grabs a random band-aid too, just so he won’t make a fool of himself.

It’s the first time he has participated in the little ritual by his own volition and Niko smiles at him, almost a reward, before taking a look at the plaster he picked.

“That’s nice”, she tells him, and puts it down next to Charles’ choice for later use. “And really fitting. They’re in love in the anime.”

Charles’ hand twitches, but he doesn’t say anything else until Niko is finished.

“There is one more thing”, Crystal tells him as they are walking back to the butcher shop, after she has explained the power of her ancestors she has just discovered to him, or at least tried to. “When I was in David’s mind, I could see… something in the warehouse. Somewhere he thought about escaping to. I think it’s something like a little pocket dimension, if that makes sense. Maybe Edwin is in there.”

That night, Charles gives him another question, and Edwin knows he shouldn’t, but he can’t help himself.

“When did you tell Crystal and Niko about the Case of the Haunted Vending Machine of 2002?”

Charles looks surprised, and Edwin cannot blame him; it is such an inconsequential thing to ask when is so much else Edwin doesn’t know yet, but then his eyes soften a little, and there is a spark in his eyes that Edwin has missed dearly.

“I’m not entirely sure”, he says, and it makes Edwin feel a little better to know that: at least to Charles, it wasn’t an occasion that mattered. “But they asked about you sometime, especially Niko, after she could see me. About why I wanted to find you so badly, about how our life was like before we came to Port Townsend. And I thought the easiest thing was to just tell them about cases. And you were brilliant in the vending machine one.”

He smiles and for the first time since he got back, Edwin doesn’t have to suppress a flinch; it almost looks like the smile he is used to.

“So were you”, Edwin replies without thinking, and means it, too. His fingers tighten a little around Charles’ and he could swear he can feel skin against skin, flesh against flesh.

“We were pretty brilliant together.”

“We were”, Edwin replies and wants to pull Charles closer, wants to never let him go again, “And we still are.”

This time, Crystal doesn’t even try to stop him.

Charles walks into the warehouse, cricket bat in hand, vowing then and there that he won’t leave until he has found this pocket dimension, no matter what or where it is.

He starts with whatever is left of the furniture, smashing it to pieces and ripping those apart until they’re nothing more than splinters. The palettes strewn about are next, nails flying as Charles pulls the boards apart and leaves them scattered on the ground.

Then, the walls, tearing down the panelling, until the metal is bare and covered in dents and scratches and holes where his bat bust through the rust. He rips out the light fixtures and grinds them to dust under his loafers, shreds the nets hanging between the beams and leaves their tattered remains wherever he happens to be standing.

Finally, the floor itself, because if he has to dig down to Hell with his nails and teeth, he will.

The concrete cracks under the barrage of hits he rains down onto it, magic putting more force into the blows than his spectral muscles could, until the ground looks like a meteor hit.

It turns out to be too much for his bat, which splinters just like the palettes, the pillars, the concrete did, so Charles throws it away and uses his hands instead, shovelling away gravel and debris and chipped wood, digging deep into the ground until it, and Edwin, are the only things he can still think about.

Somewhere in between, his hands start bleeding, his nails cracking and ripping down to the flesh, but Charles pays them no mind, even as pain radiates up his arms with every punch, every blow, every cut.

It feels like the scratch of a cat’s claw, just a hundredfold, and it hurts, but it doesn’t matter.

Nothing does.

“Why is this so important to you? All the questions, I mean. I know Crystal told you the gist of what happened during that time”, Charles asks after he has answered another one of Edwin’s queries. He looks relaxed, his head pillowed on Edwin’s lap, and when he looks up at him, Edwin knows he could count the lashes around his deep, dark eyes.

They’re less dull nowadays, but still don’t hold that one spark that Edwin misses the most of all.

“It’s silly”, he confesses, not because he wants to, but because Charles has shared so much with him that he deserves to have at least one question of his own answered truthfully. “It’s just that for decades, all of your memories were mine as well. And those six weeks… I wish I could change them, I wish you didn’t have to endure them, I wish I could take all of it away, so please, don’t think that this matters more to me than that.”

He takes a deep breath, something that he had forgotten about in Hell, something that Charles had showed him once more after they had met, something that now will always be Charles to him.

“Suddenly, there are six weeks in the middle of your existence, and I wasn’t part of a second of them. And I hate that, much more than I should.”

For a few, long moments, there is no answer, just Charles’ eyes on him, just his fingers brushing across Edwin’s knuckles.

“Edwin, you were there for every second of it”, Charles finally answers, and his eyes are still not as bright as they used to be, but they’re bright anyway. “You were at the heart of everything. I missed you in every single moment.”

His hands are bruised and bloody, some of his nails missing, the others torn down until they are little more than gaping wounds, as Charles tears another piece of concrete from the floor.

He has looked everywhere and Edwin isn’t here and it is a constant refrain in his head; he’s not here he’s not here he’s not here.

Occasionally, there’s tears mixing with the blood, but Charles doesn’t pay them any mind either.

On the third day, Crystal finds him, covered in dust and grime and blood and splinter of what might be wood or bone or whatever is left of his ruined heart.

She breathes out his name and it’s a sob; when he looks up at her, it takes a second until he recognises her.

“You can’t continue like this”, she says, and there are tears in his eyes, on her cheeks, dripping down her chin. “Edwin wouldn’t want you to torture yourself like this and I can’t watch it any longer. It’s been almost a month, Charles, you won’t find him like this.”

It takes a moment or two until he finds the words, remembers how to speak, and when he does, he knows he’s crying, too.

“But what else is there left I can do?”, he asks, and Crystal chokes on her tears, before she reaches out and pulls him into a hug.

“I don’t know, Charles. I wish I did.”

“Your hands are almost fine again”, Edwin remarks and lifts the one he is holding up to inspect it. There are just two band-aids left, one around his ring finger, one on the back of Charles’ hand, green and yellow respectively.

“I know”, Charles answers, lifting the other one, a single frog-themed plaster around his thumb. “It’s a miracle, innit?”

And Edwin looks at him, his almost-perfect smile, the slope of his nose and the dark brown of his eyes; he loves you more than I can even imagine loving anyone, Crystal says in his mind.

“Yes”, he replies, “it really is.”

“Come with me”, Crystal pleads, trying to pull him up from where he is sitting on the ground, between broken pieces of concrete and wood.

“I can’t”, Charles says, and knows it is true. His limbs won’t move, his body refusing Crystal’s attempt to lift him up; he won’t leave without Edwin at his side.

“You have to”, Crystal replies, and Charles wishes he could reach up and brush the tears from her cheeks. “You can’t stay here. Not like this.”

“You don’t understand, Crystal”, he says, and maybe he is crying, maybe he has forgotten how to do even that. “I can’t leave. If he isn’t here, then nothing matters. I cannot pass on, because there’s no Heaven if Edwin’s not in it. And I could stop existing, maybe, but if I do and he comes back, then he’ll be alone. So, if I can’t find him, if I can’t bring him back, then I’ll just… stay. And I’ll wait. Forever if I have to.”

Even though Charles, who used to flit between places like breathing, seems most content inside the agency these days, Edwin drags him up to the roof, because the weather is lovely and Edwin wants to see the sun on Charles’ skin, reflected in his eyes.

He seems different today, distracted, but he gives Edwin a small, almost-right smile when they sit down on the ledge, looking down over the city.

“I’m sorry you didn’t get to ask a question today”, Charles says after a few seconds, but he sounds far away, almost distracted. “I know you like them. It’s just. There is one thing that I don’t think you how to ask about and that you should know. So I was trying to figure out how to tell you.”

Something about his words makes Edwin’s metaphorical heart beat faster, makes him look at Charles and notice everything at once: the way he clenches his jaw, the slight furrow of his brows, how his tongue darts out to wet lips that don’t get dry any longer.

He looks nervous, and Edwin hates it, because there is nothing Charles could say that would make Edwin care for him any less.

“You can tell me anything, Charles.”

“I know”, Charles replies and gives Edwin the smallest of smiles. “That’s what makes this so hard.”

For a long time, there is nothing, then Charles shakes his head slightly, a tick Edwin knows so intimately it almost pains him.

“You see”, he starts, “when you were gone, I found something out about myself. About you, too. I’m not sure if I would have otherwise, at least not now. And I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t, and now that you’re back it’s suddenly so difficult, because you’re here and I know it won’t change anything, not between us, but it will change something for me, anyway.”

He lifts their joined hands, the single band-aid stark against his skin, and smiles; for a moment, Edwin forgets that he doesn’t understand what Charles is talking about, because there is something so fond, so sweet, so devastating about the look in his eyes.

“I love you”, he says, and Edwin’s metaphorical heart stops, speeds up, swells until it is straining against his ribs, “No, that’s not what I meant. I’m in love with you, Edwin. And I thought I might never be able to tell you, so I’m doing it now.”

And he looks over at Edwin and for the first time since he had launched himself into his side in that godforsaken warehouse, Charles smiles at him and it’s the smile Edwin missed the entire time, every bit of sunlight in the universe bundled into his eyes, into the curve of his lips.

“You don’t have to feel the same. I don’t expect you to”, Charles says, and his voice is trembling, but he sounds happy nonetheless, sounds content. “I just needed you to know that you’re loved in every way there is.”

A beat, a second, another one, and Edwin looks at Charles and it’s like he is seeing him for the very first time, at the same time like he has never seen anything else in his entire existence.

He loves you more than I can even imagine loving anyone, Crystal’s words echo in his mind, and she was right all along, and Edwin…

“I love you, too”, he says without thinking about it, because he doesn’t have to, he has known this for years, decades, maybe forever.

“I know”, Charles replies and he’s still smiling; he’s so beautiful Edwin wants to break down and thank the fates that he was sacrificed, that he was dragged to Hell and escaped it, that he is allowed to be here, holding hands with the best, the most important, the most beautiful boy in the world.

“No, Charles. I’m in love with you.”

And another beat, another second, and Charles’ eyes go wide, the sun behind them goes supernova, and Edwin can’t believe he ever looked at him and didn’t know he wanted to kiss those lips.

“Oh”, Charles breathes out and he sounds overwhelmed, sounds almost bashful. “That’s… that’s brills, innit?”

“Yes. It is.”

There is a pause, because something shifts between them; it doesn’t change, because it was always there, even without them knowing, so instead, it blossoms and blooms and grows into something so delicate, so resilient, so beautiful that Edwin finds himself smiling, almost laughing, almost crying.

“Can you just kiss me, please?”, he asks, love and happiness and devotion woven into every syllable.

And Charles nods, eyes brighter than Edwin has ever seen them before, and there is a second of hesitation, but then he leans in and kisses Edwin, and this time, there’s no mistaking it; there’s lips pressed against his, warm and soft and sweet, and Edwin can feel them just as if he was alive.

“I love you”, he whispers against Charles lips, and Charles laughs, before pressing closer still, kissing him again and again until Edwin’s head is swimming with it, his lips wet and swollen and his cheeks wet with the happiest tears he has ever cried.

“I love you”, Charles whispers back, and he’s smiling.

And he kisses him again.

#dead boy detectives #dead boy detective agency #edwin payne #edwin paine #charles rowland #painland #payneland #paynland #chedwin #charles x edwin #edwin x charles #i am sooo glad i got this finished before the holiday #because i would have hated to explain to my friends that no unfortunately i wouldn't be able to go to a bar i needed to write gay boy angst #anyway i hope you guys like it!!!!!!

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brabblesblog · 3 days

Text

𝕽𝖊𝖒𝖊𝖒𝖇𝖊𝖗 𝖞𝖊 𝖓𝖔𝖙 𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖋𝖔𝖗𝖒𝖊𝖗 𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖓𝖌𝖘.

Chapter 17: Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.

A sequel to Whither is thy beloved gone? (AO3)

After the events of ‘Whither is thy beloved gone?’ Lord Astarion Ancuńin and his consort wife navigate their relationship anew. The ghosts of the past - his, hers, and theirs - threaten to unravel everything they’ve worked for.

Astarion begins to unravel the mystery of Ban's family.

Professionally edited and collaborated on by my dearest friend <3 @editing-by-night

Masterlist

Art by @nyx-knox <3

Astarion sat with his legs crossed. The stool was as filthy as when he’d last seen it, but he’d accepted it this time, if only to accentuate the desired effect. In front of him Roderich dithered, trying to explain away his actions - not that Astarion cared. He forced his attention back onto the man, as unpleasant as it was, and leaned forward.

“It was a desperate time. There wasn’t enough money to fund our… our way of living, and the guild is rich. Far richer than it had any right to be,” Roderich stammered. “Meiros must have taken some too! I’m sure he skimmed some off the top as well, considering there was no one to look into his activities. He’s just as guilty, his hands just as bloody. I don’t see why you would even begrudge me this!”

None of this stayed in Astarion’s mind. He had considered the information irrelevant. “Repeat the last thing you said,” he drawled. “Your bleating proved too much for me.”

Roderich clenched his jaw, looking out the store windows. The moment Astarion had walked in and demanded an audience he had sent his customers away, telling them to come back in half an hour. They were outside, waiting, and the minutes were ticking by. “I just think… this conversation should be held somewhere else, if at all.”

If at all. If nothing else, he could admire Roderich’s nerve. He lazily looked over to the small group of people waiting outside. Behind them his carriage loomed, black and gold and waiting to whisk him away from this drivel.

“Oh, but I haven’t yet touched on why we’re having this conversation.” He crossed his arms. “Did you really think I would care about you stealing guild funds?”

“I suspected you wanted to punish me for… for whatever imagined slights you think we committed against our daughter.” He took a deep breath. “We’ve done nothing of the sort. She may have been unhappy, but everything we did was for her wellbeing - her success.”

“Your success,” Astarion corrected. “I daresay I’ll be the judge of whether wrongdoings were committed or not - and they have,” he glared, “but that isn’t why I’m here. Nor is it why I’m bringing up your financial indiscretions.”

Astarion looked at Roderich, relishing the way the older man looked at him - equal parts fear and indignation. He could feel Roderich’s anger bubbling, his wariness keeping him from allowing it to boil over. Any other man would have assumed Astarion couldn’t do much in public, with the crowd peering at them as it was. But Roderich knew that if he pushed him too far, he’d find himself waking up to fangs sinking into his neck.

So Astarion waited for Roderich to master his temper, idly looking past him to the display of mirrors. He was reflected in all of them, from various angles, and he couldn’t resist admiring himself a little. From the corner of his eye he saw two of the patrons outside fanning themselves and rolled his eyes.

Finally Roderich found his voice. “Then what was this visit for?”

Astarion smiled and returned his attention to Roderich. “A matter near and dear to Ban’s heart, and therefore mine. Your son.”

Roderich spluttered. “Adrien? We already told you-”

“And we are painfully aware you’re lying.” He gazed at Roderich’s reflection, eyes boring into him. “Don’t make it difficult, Roderich. We can have a nice, civil conversation,” he thought about it, “or I’ll have to resort to less… pleasant measures.”

Roderich sighed. “I… of course. I would at least prefer to talk in private. Perhaps in my home.”

“Fine. I can’t keep the good citizens desperately wanting mirrors waiting, can I?” There was also the fact he figured having Arlette around for this conversation might be better - if only so that he could have all possible information at hand. That, and watching the people peering at him through the glass was starting to grate.

“Thank you,” Roderich breathed. “After the day is done, head there. I can have Arlette prepare supper, and you could bring Ban.”

Astarion stood. Roderich tracked every move he made, but didn’t speak. Astarion stepped closer, enough so that he could look down at him. “Just me, unfortunately. My wife has far more important business to attend to. That won’t be a problem, will it?”

The raised eyebrow made Roderich shrink back, to Astarion’s satisfaction. The man rubbed at his bald head. “Why of course. We’d be more than happy to host you.”

A wide smile graced Astarion’s face, the tips of fangs peeking out. “I’m glad to know that. Provide my chauffeur with your address, and I shall be there tonight.”

The house was large, situated against the walls of the upper city, although just like the shop it showed signs of neglect. As he approached, the door opened before he could even rap his knuckles against it. Arlette’s pale face greeted him and this time her eyes did not rake over his features. As he stepped into the house she looked at his feet and cleared her throat.

“Erm. Your shoes, if you would be so kind.”

He fixed her with a pointed look and stepped forward anyway. The request reminded him of Ban, but he brushed the thought aside. She had stayed home, knowing he was handling the issue with her family. Seeing them again would not do her any favors.

Arlette hurried alongside him, walking fast to keep up with his longer strides. As he walked he took in the house. Ban had lived here most of her life. He allowed his mind to wander a little, musing. Where would she have sat? Had her room been neat? Had she owned dolls? Read books? Had she dreamed of adventures, or being swept off her feet by a dashing prince?

His thoughts were interrupted by Arlette. “I hope you don’t mind. We weren’t sure what you’d prefer to… eat, but we assumed some soup and roast would be-”

Astarion held up a hand. “I prefer we skip the niceties and get to the matter at hand. Where - or rather,” he scanned the house - what he could see of it anyway - finding no sign of a third person, “when am I ever to see this son of yours?”

He had surmised that he wouldn’t see Adrien in his brief conversation with Roderich earlier today. The man had said that he would explain everything, whatever that meant, as he’d hurried Astarion out the door.

As he turned the corner and entered the dining room he saw Roderich sitting at the head of the table, waiting. Roderich stood as Astarion walked in, obviously tense. “There was no need for all that unpleasantness earlier today. We would have told you, had we known what you wanted.”

Astarion sat on the opposite end of the table, steepling his fingers and settling in. He could almost taste their discomfort, and it was gratifying. “We provided you the chance to disclose everything civilly, remember? You chose to lie and be difficult.”

Roderich bristled, but Arlette put a hand on his shoulder. “You could have us removed from the guild, but the coin… it doesn’t exist anymore. It’s gone.” Her eyes locked onto his steepled fingers. “You’ve gotten married.”

“Hm?” He raised his hand for them to see. “Indeed we have. I won’t apologize for the lack of invitation. We wanted only those important to us in attendance.”

He savored the affronted looks from the couple, daring them to voice their complaints. When none came, his thoughts drifted back to the misappropriated guild funds.

He wasn’t surprised. Meiros had mentioned that the Glasscrafts were used to a life of relative luxury; the loss of customers and their retreat from active networking would have put a dent in that. Their theft from the Guild coffers had been discovered a few years ago but Meiros had deemed it unnecessary to take action at the time. Apparently, the amount of coin had not been significant, and he’d felt some pity for Roderich after the disappearance of his daughter was made known. In any case, Astarion was glad; it provided him ample ammunition to leverage the Glasscrafts with, if needed.

Astarion reached for the carafe, pouring himself a glassful of what looked like wine. He sniffed it, ascertaining it to be so, and took a small sip. It felt safe, at least.

“Whether the money is gone or not, all I have to do is to ask. Meiros will act at my behest.” He locked gazes with Roderich, allowing the silence to stretch. He lounged back, waiting.

Roderich broke, clasping his hands together. His eyes were downcast, fixed on his own hands. “After Ban left us, the… arrangement we had with her betrothed’s family fell apart. We needed to find another suitable arrangement, and so we quickly found an associate with a daughter around Adrien’s age.”

“He was displeased, just like she had been, and one night-” Arlette began, but Astarion held up a hand.

He laughed. “You drove both children off the same way? How very ironic. You’d think you’d have learned your lesson the first time, but no - you had to push the other away too!” The savage glee he felt definitely raised Arlette’s hackles - he saw her eye the fireplace poker.

“Oh. I wouldn’t even attempt that, Arlette.” He waved a hand at her. “Or you could try your luck, I suppose. I wouldn’t mind livelier fare tonight.” He gave her a quick grin, baring his fangs, and was satisfied when she backed down.

“A wise choice.” He curled his lip. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? ‘My son left, same as my daughter did, because I was an abusive ass’,” He copied Arlette’s cadence, the smile only widening as she seethed. His eyes then returned to Roderich. “Now. I’m assuming you know where your son went?”

He knew the answer was likely not. Ban had, after all, stayed in the lower city for several years, within the same city, and her parents had never bothered to seek her out. He surmised they were the type who would not deign to head into the lower city unless absolutely necessary.

Roderich sighed. “We asked everyone we could ask. All we know is that the night he left…” he glanced over at his wife; Arlette finally sat down beside him, glaring at Astarion.

“Contrary to your assumptions, my lord, Adrien’s departure was not like Ban’s.” She sneered, or her best approximation of one, anyway; her fear of him prevented her from managing true disdain. “He did not take anything with him. No clothes, no extra coin. No materials other than what he’d usually bring on a night out.”

“We had an argument,” Roderich interjected. “The usual one, about him wanting his… freedom,” he scoffed, “to choose his spouse, and how the girl we’d betrothed him to was a spoiled, overgrown child.”

“And ugly, to boot.” Arlette shrugged. “He wasn’t wrong, but really.”

“So he left to cool off. Not an unusual occurrence, except he didn’t return. We assumed he’d found someone to keep him company for the night, and would return on the morrow, but… he never did.”

The hardness in Arlette’s features disappeared for once. “We waited. Days, weeks, months. We asked folks that we knew. No one knew where he’d gone, nor had they seen him. It was as if he’d disappeared into thin air. There were whispers we heard then, rumors.”

To Astarion’s surprise, Roderich pointed an accusing finger at him. “You’re Szarr’s heir, are you not? You would know better than most. The stories of folk disappearing, of debauched parties in the night. You would know.”

His pique rose. “And you know someone who’s disappeared, beside your own children? Both of whom ran away of their own free will?” Astarion challenged. They’d been specifically forbidden from hunting in the upper city. Cazador had preferred victims from the lower classes, and rightfully so. Nobody ever went looking for them, not for long anyway.

Roderich looked away. “Well… no.”

“What does it matter? Whatever those rumors were alluding to - they’re obviously true!” Arlette stood and rounded on him, hands on the table. “Look at you. Look at what you made our child into.”

Astarion refused to allow their words to slip under his skin. Her anger was meaningless. All the same, he couldn’t resist baring his fangs at her. “I’d be careful pointing fingers, Arlette. Your daughter left too, and she didn’t end up as food for… monsters, did she?”

“Well, she became one herself!”

He laughed, the sound theatrical and dangerous. He stood as well. “Considering that she was raised by a pair of them, I doubt she found it much of a leap.”

Arlette screamed in frustration, scrabbling for the knife on the table. Astarion watched, amused, as Roderich slammed his hand down on her wrist, preventing her from aiming it at him.

“Let her go. Let her try, if she chooses to.” Astarion crossed his arms.

Roderich shot his wife a warning glare, then slowly lifted his hand away. She stood there for a second, chest heaving, hand clenched around the knife. Astarion merely stared indifferently.

Finally she cursed, letting go of the knife. “I would say I hope the gods curse you, but… I think you’re already there,” she spat.

He took it in stride. “Rude of you, really, when I’m here to find your son. Not to return him to you, of course, but I would have at least informed you when I found out if he was safe, something you two have obviously failed to determine.”

Roderich’s eyes bulged. “You dare-”

“Yes. I dare.” He picked up his glass and refilled it with painful, deliberate slowness, dragging the moment out. “I assume you asked people you knew, not people Adrien knew.”

“He didn’t have a lot of friends. He kept to himself.”

“Perhaps he did not prefer the company you made him keep?”

The two did not respond. Astarion swirled the wine lazily. “Tch. Your investigation was incomplete. If you employed the same methods you did when Ban first left, then you certainly haven’t even scoured this city, let alone further.”

Roderich gulped. “We… did not look for her.”

Astarion blinked. He balled his fists, and the urge to snap their necks was almost irresistible. “You… did not look for Ban, but looked for Adrien.” He said it slowly, enunciating each word, voice dripping with venom.

“She left with most of her belongings. And, well… Adrien was still there…” Arlette stammered, shrinking back as Astarion began to stalk towards them.

“Of course. Your beloved son was there, so what did her departure cost? Nothing.” He drew closer, eyes narrowed into slits. “Why would one failed arrangement matter, when you had the more valuable piece still in play, hm?”

He raised his eyebrow as Arlette finally grabbed the knife and lunged for him. Too slow, of course, but he admired her verve. Roderich reached for her, but Astarion was faster, catching her wrist effortlessly. He pulled her close, hissing against her ear.

“I would relish the opportunity to rip you apart, and then tear your husband into pieces,” he whispered. “But I doubt Ban would be pleased to find out that I’ve eviscerated her parents without asking her first. Consider this, however, your final warning. One more false move,” he pried the knife from her hands and set it down on the table, “and I will accept her ire and act in… well, let’s say self-defense.” He let her go, and she sank back onto her chair, her husband standing protectively behind her. He eyed Roderich.

“Any complaints?” He didn’t respond, and Astarion smirked. “I thought so.”

He leaned against the table, making a show of looking at his nails. “So. You did not bother to search for Ban, but did so for Adrien. Despicable, but unsurprising from you lot.” He raked his eyes over the pair. As much as he wanted to rip into them, there was the far more urgent need of actually finding out where Ban’s brother was. “When you say you searched for Adrien… who exactly did you talk to?”

“Like you said,” Arlette said, her voice small. “We asked the people we knew. The rumors about Cazador Szarr became the only lead we had. And it was just… that. Whispers. Someone knew someone who knew someone, who’d heard stories.”

Astarion shrugged. “No doubt it was easier to believe a monster had taken your son than to think the ones in his own home had pushed him away.” He glanced at them, daring them to try contesting his words. When no dissent came, he returned his attention to his fingernails.

“I shall be conducting my own investigation. If I find Adrien…” he considered this for a moment, “and he does not want to be found, I shall tell you of his survival at the very least, if you two cooperate with my search and never come close to either of them, ever again.”

“But-”

“It’s that, or I seek out Adrien on my own and you never learn what I discover. I’ll also request Meiros to very kindly look into the missing funds from the guild treasury. And were you to breathe a single word of what Ban and I are, well. I never refuse a free meal.”

The two exchanged a long glance, and then finally nodded. Satisfied, Astarion straightened up. “Are we agreed, then?” Slowly, they nodded again.

Astarion sat back down. “If you could provide more details - how Adrien looked, what he was wearing, the date of his disappearance, any other details you would deem pertinent - that would be delightful.”

“We last saw him four years ago, a year after Ban left. He was twenty-one then,” Roderich provided.

Four years younger than Ban, Astarion noted. “And the day?”

“Thirteenth, of Alturiak. It was a chilly, rainy night.”

This, he also noted. “Was he dressed appropriately?” If not, Adrien could not have gone far without purchasing a cloak.

“He was, to a point,” Arelette offered. “He was wearing the jacket I’d made him. It did not have a hood.”

Astarion sighed. That widened his circle somewhat, and reduced his chances. He had hoped to encounter a vendor who might have sold him clothes. He took a long look at the couple.

Arlette walked away, quickly leaving the dining room. He could hear her rummaging around and she came back with a locket. To his surprise she pressed it onto his palms.

“This is a portrait of Adrien. We stowed all the family portraits away when he disappeared. It was… too painful… to look at the mantelpiece and see his face. But this should help.”

He opened it to reveal a young man. There was a small tug of familiarity, and little wonder. He had strikingly dark eyes - Ban’s eyes. Raven-black hair, the same golden skin, the same half-smile. He could be her twin, he thought as he closed the locket.

Along with the locket was a cufflink. It looked expensive, jewel-encrusted, and he held it to the light.

“His favorite cufflinks. We never found the other.” Roderich nodded at it. “We assume he had it that night.”

Astarion pocketed both items and stood. “I shall write to you if there are any developments. If anything comes up, I shall expect the same courtesy. You do remember where to write, yes?”

“The Crimson Palace,” Roderich said, and Astarion smirked. He’d never forgiven the man for not knowing that the first time they’d met.

“Perfect.” He reached over and downed his glass. “Thank you for the dinner. It was most… enlightening.”

He gave them a small, sardonic bow, and headed for the door.

Astarion fingered the clasp of the locket as the carriage made for the palace, flicking it open with one hand. He stared at the face looking back at him, frowning. The other half of the locket had a piece of paper in it instead of a portrait, one seemingly folded in half. He reached in, pulling it out. The paper was thick; he unfolded it carefully.

The content of the paper was not what he expected, and not anything useful, but he was glad he’d opened it all the same. Ban, from years ago, her face less lined, a little fuller and far softer than she looked now. She was illuminated in what looked like a sunset; the golden light highlighting the side of her face that it hit. Her hair wasn’t tied back in her usual ponytail, or even the bun she occasionally preferred - it fell in loose, long waves, framing her face. He’d seen her with her hair down of course, but almost never in public.

He ran his finger down the side of her face, then traced those lips he’d come to know so intimately. His thoughts drifted back to her, of her youth spent in that house and in that shop. He couldn’t recall his own past - two centuries of torment had ensured it was all but gone - but he did not envy Ban hers. Astarion closed the locket, but kept her portrait for himself, pocketing it.

As the carriage drew to a stop and he stepped out, he spied her in the foyer, waiting. The sight never failed to make his heart swell, and he made a beeline for her.

“Home at last,” she said, as he drew close for a quick kiss. “I trust everything went well?”

“Mm… well enough.” He had no intention of informing her of anything until everything was laid bare, as they had agreed upon. “Some progress has been made, I would say, but nothing concrete as yet. You’ll have to wait a little longer.” He’d told her where he’d been headed, but had not informed her of any pertinent details.

She led him to the dining room, not bothering to turn towards him as she spoke. “It’s not a huge pain. I’ve… not even thought of them in so long. I can stand to wait a little longer to see how Adrien’s doing.”

He helped her into her seat before seating himself. Taking a bite from her fork, she eyed him. “Were your dealings with Meiros at least helpful?” Whatever their arrangement was, she hoped it had been useful.

“Yes… and no,” Astarion admitted. “I would have achieved the same effect without it, but it would probably have taken more… convincing. I would not have minded doing that, but you might have.”

Ban scoffed. “As prideful as they are, they’re cowards. They’re frightened of you - of… of us now, I suppose. I have little doubt they’d immediately cave.”

He laughed, remembering today’s encounter. “You’d be surprised. Your mother may or may not have attempted to kill me.”

“She wouldn’t.” Her eyes widened at the look on Astarion’s face. “You… you’re serious. Really?”

“With a knife, which I’m sure would have done the job, given enough time.” He began to eat. “I can see where you inherited your… spirit.”

“You mean to say my temper.”

He bit back a mirthful bark. “Your words, darling, not mine.”

There was silence for a while as they both ate. Astarion’s eyes flicked over to her, unconsciously comparing her face with the portrait that was now in his pocket. He burned with a desire to ask her for more, but wasn’t quite sure how to broach it.

Her eyes drifted away from Halsin’s wedding gift on the mantelpiece - a dragon sitting on its haunches - and noticed his staring. She tilted her head. “Something on my face?”

He shook his head. “Is there a reason why you wear your hair the way you do now?” He fingered the paper inside his pocket, then took it out, handing it to her.

She unfolded it, silent as she took in the portrait. “Mother preferred my hair down. Said it would hide the… features of my face. One of the few things she and I did not disagree on.”

Astarion considered this. He ran his eyes down her current - and now permanent - physique, mulling over the potential implications. She handed the portrait back to him and returned to her meal; he quickly stored it. He was sure he’d ask about it some other time, but for now, he was content with what she had revealed.

They were walking in the garden after dinner when he broached the topic. “Darling… was your mother the first person to tell you you aren’t… attractive?”

She paused and turned to look at him, half bent over to look at a particularly large rose. “What makes you think that?”

“Your comment about your hair. The way you always glance at the prettiest woman in any room, then down at yourself. The clothing choices - cloaks, capes.” He ticked these off with his fingers. “Even your hair. Held up now, yes, no longer quite hiding - but still plain. As if you feel like any adornment other than your braids would be a waste.”

“Well.” She took a deep breath, then plucked the flower. “Having my hair up became a habit after I ran away. Came with the job, really. Fighting with it loose would be unwise.” She straightened up, smelling the rose.

“And everything else?”

She chuckled. “Everything else you got spot-on.” She fell into stride beside him, tucking the flower by her ear.

“You are perfect, and your mother is a wretched woman whose opinions have no real merit, other than in her own miserable mind. You’d do well to realize none of her comments had any worth.”

Ban raised both arms, flexing them at him. “This isn’t what you’d normally see on a beautiful woman, Astarion. Not what most men would want, even.”

“Yet you chose that,” he noted. “Perhaps you wanted to be strong, truly strong, unlike what your mother wanted you to be.”

“She wanted me strong, but not in this way, that’s true. This I chose for myself.” She put her hands down, then ran her hand down the swell of a tricep. “I wanted it, yes, but I’m also aware this isn’t-”

“And why should we bother with the opinions of fools and miscreants who would not know how to tell a gem from a rock?”

“Because… I mean, Astarion. Let’s face it.” She took both of his hands, and he fixed his gaze on her. “Look at me. Then look at yourself. Tell me you don’t see what they see. You even said it yourself - they see me as a trivial matter in their path to you, right? Because I look the way I do.”

“Then they can shove their frankly insipid, dull ideas of attractiveness,” he snarled, “far, far up their own asses. And if they dared to breathe a word of it to you, or me… well.” A smile broke through her dismay, exactly as he’d hoped, and he led her to the fountain. He slipped behind her as they both admired it.

“You are beautiful to me,” he murmured, “and considering I am looked upon as world-endingly beautiful myself, that ought to mean something, shouldn’t it?” He leaned in, the humor slipping away. “Trust me.”

Those familiar words sent a shiver down her spine. Trust. Something she had given so freely before, and something she had been giving again recently, even though there were times that it still felt hard. It would be work, she knew - she’d need time to do better, just as he had - but she hoped she was at least making some headway. Her mind wandered, away from thoughts of her appearance to hoping this conversation was at least a sign of progress in his eyes.

“Ban?” Astarion paused from the path his lips had been making down her shoulder. “Is everything alright?”

Ban turned to focus on his face. She could see the fear beginning to creep in his eyes, and she quickly kissed him. He visibly eased, exhaling.

“I- I thought for a moment…”

“No. You did nothing wrong.” She kissed his jaw, then his cheek, running a comforting hand through his hair. He leaned into the touch, eyes shuttering. She fought the instinct to just leave it at that, and pushed on. “Can you tell me, love, if all this… everything I’ve been trying to do... Has it been working?”

“Your hair could stand to be decorated sometimes.” One look at her withering glare and he shifted gears. “Er - the wedding arrangements were more than sufficient,” he said automatically, “and I think everyone went home satisfied. Well, perhaps not Minsc, but-”

“Astarion,” she said, a note of urgency in her tone. “Quit deflecting. You know what I mean. Fixing… this. Us. Being better for you.” Somehow these words felt harder to say than even her wedding vows, and she tamped down the voice inside her that told her that this was unnecessary talk.

“Yes.” He met her gaze, uncertain, but unafraid. The irony was not lost on her. “I suppose the wedding and the whole…” he waved a hand, “...game, occupied most of our time recently, but, yes.” His eyes darted across her face, and he bit his lip. “I see more of you. Feel more of you.” As soon as he said it his eyes flicked away, and she caught it.

“Please?” she asked, and he exhaled.

“I would be lying if I said everything is perfect.” He braced himself, then met her gaze head-on. “It’s far too soon to tell for certain, and we’re both aware that wedding planning wasn’t the most… normal of times.”

“I understand.” She leaned forward and rested her head against his collarbone. “But I promise you. I will be who you want me to be… maybe not the hair, though.”

He chuckled softly, wrapping his arms around her. “I will adore you regardless of who you are and what you choose to look like, Ban. But I appreciate the sentiment.”

Astarion awoke from his trance just as the sun began to shine, its rays slipping in through a gap in the drapes. He stood up to close them, not wanting Ban to stir. Before he pulled them shut he stood, watching the light touch the wrought-iron fence that enclosed the palace grounds.

He’d have to begin his search somewhere, and it was likely that he would get no answers in the upper city, but he planned on sending some of his staff to ask around just in case. He would handle the lower city himself, figuring that would yield more results, considering Roderich hadn’t explored that option. It likely hadn’t even occurred to him until last night, the idiot.

The question, however, remained. What would happen once they found Adrien? The relationship between the siblings didn’t seem exactly… warm. His eyes wandered over to Ban’s sleeping form, worry creasing his brow.

What if her brother rejected her for what she’d become? For what they had done? There was no need for him to know, but he wasn’t sure if Ban would tell him everything - including the circumstances of the rite. Save for their companions, no one else knew of the price that had been paid. To everyone else, he was a regular noble. To the people he had met on their journey who knew what he was, he had merely found some means of being able to withstand the sun.

Well, other than the Society. They had quickly inferred that it had been a contract of sorts, no thanks to Omeluum. They had kindly kept the information confidential, but he was still irked at the thought that they knew at all. Ban had suggested keeping them close, to foster goodwill, which they had done.

He brushed away the unpleasant path his thoughts had taken. He needed to focus on the matter at hand. Sending out feelers in the upper city, and venturing into the lower city. Ban may know the names of some of Adrien’s associates, the ones their parents hadn’t approved of.

He merely hoped all this would lead to her finding some closure.

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yenonnoff · 19 hours

Text

ೃ⁀➷ the wanderer's love | (night)

synopsis: grieving comes differently to the wanderer—especially after the painful death of his significant other.

content: established relationship, angst, gn!reader dies haha; kazuha's part is a parallel version to this <3

note: this is 100% solely dedicated to @kqbukimono (may aka the best person ever aka loml) !!! i wrote this completely knowing that scara's ur fav and that u hate angst ᵔᴗᵔ this is for all the times that you annoyed me by being better at games

the wanderer's love | from beginning to end (kazuha)

your death had left him in despair. in devastation—in crushing anguish.

there you were: cold and motionless, your life cruelly taken away far too soon. the gaping wound on your chest; the dried up blood coating your figure; and your spiritless eyes had left you unrecognizable.

there he was: looming over your deceased body with a soul-crushing expression. he didn’t want to believe that it was you. he didn’t want to admit that you were gone and that he was too late. in that moment, uncontrollable emotions swallowed him and he sought to avenge your death. it barely took a minute before he was by your side again.

he stayed to wipe any dirt or blood off of your beautiful face. he stayed until he had the faintest will to stand—until he could no longer weep by your lifeless body. why did you leave him? why wasn’t he able to protect you?

first, he cursed at the world and the men that took your life. then, he cursed at himself for failing you.

for months after your burial the wanderer continued to mourn. he continued to grieve because he loved you. he couldn’t move on because a part of him was forever missing.

no matter where he went, no matter what time of day it was, you were on his mind. even the simplest activity—strolling around sumeru’s enchanting forests—was agonizing. he couldn’t take another step without the smell of fresh dew and rain reminding him of you.

it was worse at night when he couldn’t sleep. he would stargaze on top of canopies and wish desperately that you were still alive—still cheerful and warm with your head resting on his shoulder. he missed you. he missed your glory and tranquility; he missed the smiles that he would gladly go into battle for.

nahida and the traveler had taught him the importance of realization and forgiveness. you had taught him the art of love and care.

it was a slow process, however. the wanderer was accustomed to surrounding himself with walls and barriers. he was used to following his own rules, not charmed one bit by your strange way of thinking. (“strange,” because the wanderer never cared enough to see other people’s point of views).

when he fell in love with you, it was like a chain reaction. everything became better: the wanderer—cynical and rude and previously wounded—grew to like himself whenever he was with you. “strange” turned into tolerable and then comforting. for the first time in a while, he was glad to exist. he was grateful to have met you, and now he was alone.

you had taught him how to love, but not how to love again. so while you slumbered for eternity, your lover was awake with nothing but the memories of your warm hands in his. how peaceful it would be, he thought, to sleep with you by his side.

his soul and his restless nights will continue to yearn for you. he’ll continue to reminisce about your time together until the memories wither away and lose themselves. the wanderer’s love will continue to roam aimlessly until it finds you again.

49 notes · View notes

imtryingbuck · 2 days

Text

Painting

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x OFC!Theo

Summary: Bucky has to marry a woman who surprises him more and more as their story goes along.

Word count: 1,514

Warnings: buckys a dickhead in this. Wanda and Theo's friendship starts to blossom, swearing, mentions of being made to have sex with someone.

Translations: дорогой - sweetheart

Masterlist Series Masterlist

The next day Wanda strolls into the kitchen where Bucky was sitting at the kitchen counter, she smiles softy at him.

"Morning Buck"

"Morning. Hey how was yesterday with Theo?"

"Jumping straight into it?" She chuckles whilst shaking the strawberry milkshake "I'm going to go to the craft store today to get some paints and things so me and Theo can learn how to paint"

"Paint?"

"Yeah it's going to be fun! Also Buck, um I'm going to be teaching her how to read"

"She doesn't know how to?"

"No, but like I said I'm going to teach her" she smiles.

"Did you find anything else out?"

"She's really good with numbers, she likes the colour yellow, the only film she's ever seen was The Great Escape, nothing much else and oh her laugh is so cute".

Bucky's heart sank.

"Yo-she laughed?"

"Yeah, but she looked terrified after though"

"I-oh. I'm going to take the day off tomorrow to spend the day with her"

"That would be great Buck, hey listen just remember to go slow with her".

"I know, I know. Will you be taking Theo with you to the store?"

"I wasn't planning on doing that but if you want me too I can”

Bucky thought about it and decided that it might be good for Theo to get some fresh air "yeah take her with you but Wanda I want you to double up security alright"

"Yes boss"

Telling Theo that she was allowed to go to the store with Wanda made the redhead smile at how excited Theo's eyes were.

At the store Wanda let Theo push the cart, said cart was getting fuller and fuller as the pair made their way down the aisles; a rainbow of paints, brushes in all sizes, paper, canvases big and small, everything really that Wanda could get her hands on went inside the cart.

"I think that's everything don't you?" She says watching as Theo nods.

After paying they work as a team loading everything into the boot of the car and Wanda drove them back home.

Not even an hour later they were covered in paint.

Wanda loved the look of pure happiness on Theo's face, the look of freedom as she painted.

"I-I don't think I'm very good at it"

"Neither am I but it's okay we're just having fun it doesn't matter if it's good or not" Wanda smiles to her.

"I really like yours"

"I really like yours too, the colours-" Wanda's interrupted by a knock on the door. "Come in"

The door opens revealing Bucky, he smiles at both of the women. "Hey, you two look like you're having fun"

"We are look at all of our masterpieces we've done so far" Wanda beams up at him. He moves over to where they've placed their artwork "the ones on the left are Theo's and the ones on the right are mine" he hears from behind him, his eyes more focused on the left side now.

"These are wonderful"

"Why thank you"

Bucky turns to face them again catching a quick glimpse of Theo's smile before it faded but not before he noticed the dimple on her right cheek, he smiles softly at the sight.

"Um Theo did Wanda tell you that I'm taking the day off tomorrow so I can spent the day with you?"

Instantly regretting the words ever coming out of his mouth as he sees her shoulders tensing and how her head drops lower.

"No I didn't, I forgot all about it I was to focused on shopping you know me Buck my mind goes blank when I'm shopping" Wanda laughs as to ease the conversation.

"That's fine, is that okay with you Theo?" His heart sinking once again when he receives a short nod.

"Okay well I'll let you ladies carry on, I'll see you later for dinner". Leaving quickly as he could.

Wanda hated that Theo had gone rigid. "Theo? Are you okay?" Getting a nod from her, she shut her eyes and breathed deeply. "You can talk, you don't have to keep nodding or shaking your head Theo. You're free to talk whenever you want"

"I'm okay Wanda"

"Bucky's not that scary you know?"

"I-it's not that."

"What is it then?" Wanda leans over to take Theo's hands in hers, squeezing slightly.

"I have to perform my wifely duties tomorrow"

"What do you mean?"

"Have sex with him"

Taken back by this "you don't have to if you don't want to Theo"

"I have to it's my job as his wife"

"Who told you that?"

"My mother"

"What did she say to exactly? It's okay Theo you can tell me"

"That my job was to have sex with James and that it was one of my sisters that would birth him an heir"

“Listen to me, if you don't want to have sex with Bucky you don't have to. You say no. Bucky would never pressure you into doing anything you didn't want to do, I promise. Buck would never cheat on you I promise you that too"

"Bu-but I hav-"

"No. No Theo you don't." Wanda struggles to keep her anger at bay. Hating that the woman who she deems as her friend thinks that she has to do things that she clearly doesn't want to do in order to "perform her wifely duties". Hating Theo's mum for making her think that this is what a marriage should be like.

Unbeknownst to the pair, Bucky was standing outside of the doors both fists balled tightly, the anger coming off him in waves.

Later on in the day Sam knocks on the doors to tell them that dinner was ready as they made their way into the dining room everyone smiles at state they arrived in - paint covering most of their hands, paint on their eyebrows and cheeks.

"Did you two have fun?" Nat asks.

"Yeah, we kind of got carried away" Wanda laughs before sitting down next to the other redhead, conversation picking up between the pair.

Theo moves quickly and quietly to the corner of the room where she sits facing the wall.

As dinner is brought out Bucky walks in, and goes straight to his seat, digging in to his food as soon as it's placed in front of him. Stopping when he feels eyes on him.

"What?" He asks with annoyance lacing his words. Steve's eyes flick over to where Theo was sat before going back to Bucky. "Leave her and eat" receiving questionable looks, he sighs "or don't I don't care" then he carries on eating.

Ignoring the guilt burning their insides, they all follow suit.

After he was done Bucky stands, watching how Theo's body flinched from the loud scraping of his chair.

"Where you going Buck?" Steve asks.

"I'm going to Dots"

"Why?"

"To fuck her. Not like I'll be getting any sex in my marriage" Then he strolls out.

Wanda jumps up and storms out after him reaching just in time. "What the fuck was that all about?" She seethes.

"Which part?"

"The whole dinner James"

"Wanda I don't have ti-"

"What was that all about" she now demands.

"Fine. My so called wife doesn't even look at me, let alone fucking talk to me"

"Right so that makes you think it's acceptable to say that you're going to Dots for a fuck?"

"Yeah like I said I'm not going to be getting any from the frigid bitch-"

Wanda does the one thing that she has never done or thought about doing. She smacks him. "Don't you ever call her that! You want to go and fuck a whore instead of getting to know your wife then so be it. You James make me feel physically sick."

She turns on her heels stopping when she sees everyone standing there, barging past them she goes back into the dining room where Theo was still sat.

"Oh дорогой" She says at the sight of tears wetting her friends cheeks. "Come on, you can come and sleep in my bed with me tonight"

Hand in hand they both stand and head up the stairs, ignoring the words coming from the friend group standing there.

Neither of them realise that Bucky was no longer standing there.

Bucky stumbled back into the house in the early hours of the morning going straight into Wanda's library he walks over to Theo's paintings and picked the one that caught his eye from hours ago.

He takes it gently into his hands, leaving the room he climbs the stairs. Once he was in his bedroom he places the canvas on the bed before taking his shoes off and climbing on the bed, he removes the very expensive painting he had hung up on the wall. Slowly picking up Theo's he places it on the hook.

Jumping off the bed with a slight tumble due the alcohol swirling around in his veins, he moves to the bottom of his bed and smiles. Climbing back into bed he passes out.

Tags: @sapphirebarnes @bellabarnes1378 @unaxv @skulliecadaver-blog @mrsnikstan

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faithfullyfound · 23 days

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Don't Put God On Hold

Recently I've felt far from God. I feel like my testimony is a series of highs and lows. Moments when I'm full of the Holy Spirit and moments when I'm full of my flesh. Recently I've been very worried about what college life will entail. I'm worried that I will fall victim to sin or that I'll miss out on "college milestones" as a result of my being a Christian. I'm worried I'll be labeled as weird prudish or even judgemental. However, it is silly to be worried about things that have not even happened. As I began to be worried I stopped reading my Bible, began listening to sinful music again, and giving in to my other common sins.

Despite all of this God was still close by. He hadn't left. I kept seeing reels about Jesus. I kept hearing those around me at Church spread the Gospel. And I kept wishing to feel the love and peace I felt when my heart was on fire.

Today it was through reading Colossians 1:13-20 that I saw the centrality of Christ not only in my life but in the universe and existence itself.

13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 15 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. 16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. 17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Christ has never left me ever since I committed myself to Him. I know that I am overburdened by my worries and that I often am lazy when it comes to my faith. I tend to not read my Bible for weeks and then go crazy reading scripture and repeat. This cycle occurs because I continue to give in to the same sins. The same fears. The same sadness. By pushing Him to the back I've pushed myself over the edge. God is my strength. For HE IS THE BEGINNING. HE IS MY BEGINNING AND ENDING AND EVERYTHING. I cannot live without Him. My time away from Him (evident in my absence in positing) has shown me that even when I'm far from God I'm still thirsting after him because he is the only one who satisfies.

Colossians 1:9-12 is a prayer for spiritual strength, knowledge, and wisdom of God. I pray this over myself and over every one of you who reads this. Know that God loves you and once you commit to Him even in your worst times He is just waiting for the moment for you to reach out to Him.

9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, 10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, 12 and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.

#my brother or sister in christ God loves you always #everlasting love #jesus #christian faith #christianity #christian girl #bible study #faith in jesus #christian blog #jesus saves #bible #christian art #He will come to find you even when you think you are too far gone

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my-thoughts-and-junk · 6 days

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reading dungeon meshi

#random thoughts #it has the kind of plot i hate where you retread the same plot point repeatedly while making progress elsewhere #like hi falin bye falin #like i cared about them finding falin. then they found her. and now she's gone again.#i don't like marcille but in like. a compelling way. she's my favorite archetype of character who is specifically female for some reason?#lady who thinks her way is the right way and she's morally right and therefore everyone else is wrong #high conscientiousness with low openness to experience. see themselves as agreeable dutiful and restrained while not being any of that #they tend to take on moralistic causes but they usually don't have a defined reason for WHY they're doing it so it just comes off as preachy #and the narrative tends to take their side with no basis in why #like when marcille tried to prove herself with the mandrakes and put everyone in danger and senshi conceded he was ALSO in the wrong???#and even marcille was like 'that wasn't my point at all'#that entire chapter made me mad it was so good #it's also doing that thing i hate when a piece of media introduces too many characters at once #like who's who what's what who is important who should i remember #i love the detail put into the cooking sessions!!!#i love how all the characters are so fucked up and not even in plot-important ways #like chilchuck's cowardice is very important to the plot but senshi was straight-up willing to let a man die for his flavorful cooking lmao #laios is. my man. i need him carnally.#i get that the whole 'got eaten by dragon' thing was not meant to be the Whole Plot but i feel like the background plot is just not my thing #either that or it wasn't set up in a compelling enough way?#idk. im still reading #all in all i think dungeon meshi might just not be my thing? plot-wise i mean. i love the characters and the general premise #of monster biology and environmentalism and cooking and augh #i don't like how everytime senshi corrects marcille on something so far he ends up going 'i guess i also need to learn a thing or two'#like on the mandrakes? the man has FIELD EXPERIENCE he was entirely in the right to prefer his method!!!#and on the environment thing? first of all marcille's whole thing is building artificial dungeons she SHOULD care about the food chain #SECOND OF ALL telling marcille she shouldn't kill so many fishmen isn't playing GOD or whatever #that kraken was a fucking. extenuating circumstance. it was literally there just to make marcille's argument credible #animals killing each other through the food chain is different from marcille using what is essentially a rocket launcher #god i ran out of tags. peace and luv bruvs 🤟 kind of have a hate crush on marcille now. need her

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saetoru · 9 months

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✩ ‧₊˚ ✩ how long does it take to fuck your brother's best friend? (four whole days)

synopsis. suguru comes home to visit from college at the same time you do—except he brings satoru along. this is going to be a long break

word count. 8.5k (i am tired of this tomfoolery)

contents. college! au, brother's best friend! satoru, fem! reader, minors do not interact, three-year age gap (you're both early twenties), slightly mean satoru (when you’re kids), slight enemies to lovers, jealous! satoru, mentions of reader having an ex-bf, male masturbation, satoru is taller + carries reader, cunnilingus, fingering, handjobs, unprotected sex, brief mentions of alcohol (satoru), creampie, pet names (baby + sweetheart), not proofread i could not be bothered i’m sorry

notes. this was not supposed to be this long bye i am embarrassingly down bad for the blue-eyed freak

everyone knows that where there is satoru, there is suguru—and likewise, where there is suguru, there is satoru.

they’re a bit of a packaged deal, really. satoru befriends your brother in what you think must be some twisted stroke of luck—there is no way suguru would lower his standards for some rich bastard who’s had life made for him since the day he was born. but apparently, he does, and you’re stuck with a white-haired nuisance in your house at least once a week. for years.

you’ve known satoru since he was a whiny, snot-faced, and spoiled little brat. back then, he used to call you toothless—you were six, it’s normal for children at the age of six to lose a few teeth. just because satoru is nine and has grown his teeth back doesn’t mean he escaped the toothless phase himself—but satoru is just a jerk like that, pushes your buttons, and calls out your insecurities to get a good laugh.

you don’t smile with your mouth open even once around him that summer, not until suguru assures you that regardless of how many teeth you have, you have a lovely smile.

when you’re twelve, puberty does its thing, and now you’re stuck with acne-prone skin—also a normal occurrence for people your age, but satoru makes sure to point out the giant pimple on your forehead every time he sees you. you make sure to let him know his haircut is as awful as his sense of style, and suguru tries his best not to choke himself with his charger as you both bicker.

satoru is gone that entire summer for a family cruise that you’re sure costs double your house—he comes back frighteningly taller than you remember him within the span of just a few weeks.

it’s been like that since you were kids. he comes over, finds a new thing to pick on through his smug grins and smooth chuckles, and you fume as you bite back with just as snarky rebuttals. he makes sure to never cross the line of going too far—it’s more for suguru’s sake, you’re fairly sure—but stays right on the dot of getting just under your skin.

he’s annoying. a jerk. a rich snob. a privileged dickhead. he’s rude and disrespectful, with no tact, let alone any semblance of respect. you don’t understand what could possibly make suguru want to hang around such a douchebag, but suguru cares about satoru—and satoru has always been there for your brother.

you don’t understand it, but you respect it. as long as he doesn’t wet your entire bathroom sink and mirror in the mornings after he stays over, you suppose you can coexist.

but you haven’t seen him in ages—not outside of suguru’s instagram stories and posts. it’s been a long few years since the two of them have left for college, and by the time you leave too, life has its funny way of working, and, well…you don’t bump into him anymore. it doesn’t occur to you that satoru is not the same guy you used to know until you come back home to visit after your second year of college.

“suguru,” you call, “i borrowed your hoodie. but you can have it back—”

you cut yourself off when you open the door to your brother’s room, and lo and behold, stands a very shirtless gojo satoru, the white-haired and blue-eyed asshole you’ve had to deal with since childhood. except he’s way taller than you remember him—just how much does this guy grow, exactly? his shoulders are broader and….and since when did he have abs? there’s a small tattoo just under his collarbone—when did he even get that? his hair is also longer, just enough to fall over his forehead and curtain those striking blue eyes of his.

he looks…well, handsome. very handsome, in fact. dangerously handsome that it catches you by surprise as you blink.

he’s still shirtless, holding his t-shirt in his hands as he grins.

“hey, toothless,” he greets, voice deeper than the last time you heard it—but it still sounds relatively the same. you think you’d always recognize satoru’s voice, whether you’d like to or not. and, of course, he just has to still use that ridiculous nickname after all these years. “long time no see.”

“i have all my teeth now—i have for a long time, y’know. and put a shirt on, you freak,” you huff, rolling your eyes, “where’s suguru?”

“what, you don’t enjoy the view?” he motions at his bare torso, like the shameless bastard he is, “most girls love this view—”

“and yet, you’re still single,” you cut him off, staring at him pointedly.

he grins impossibly wider, tugging his shirt over his body swiftly—you have to exercise all ounces of control not to gulp as you watch his biceps flex.

“keepin’ track of my love life?” he wiggles his brows, “i know older men can be appealing but have a little class. your poor brother would lose his shit if you went after his best friend—”

“satoru,” you sigh, pinching your nose, “do you age backward or something? how are you still this obnoxious after so long?”

“i practice in the mirror,” he winks, “it’s my charm.”

“that’s hardly charming,” you roll your eyes, “anyway, whenever suguru comes back, let him know i left his hoodie, yeah?”

“sure,” he chuckles.

and then you close the door as you leave—right before you stop, pause, and open it up again as you’re sticking your head back in when you make a shocking realization.

“wait, how long are you here for?” you ask, eyes wide.

he has the audacity to look smug as he taps his chin and pretends to think—“oh, y’know. just the rest of break. my old man took my mom on some trip, so i’m killing time here,” he shrugs.

great. lovely. wonderful. just what you needed.

you wish he’d drop dead—maybe suguru will finally be forced to go outside of his one-man circle and actually befriend some respectable people.

“you can’t just stay at your place?” you hiss, “it’s certainly big enough.”

“well, why be lonely in an empty home when we can have fun here?” he hums, “consider yourself lucky—you get to be housemates with me for a—”

“keep to yourself,” you warn, cutting him off again through narrowed eyes and a dangerous glare—satoru only looks more amused, raising his hands up in surrender.

with that, you turn again and almost shut the door when he calls for you—“hey, toothless,” he says lowly, making you pause before turning to him with a raised brow. he smiles—it’s so unlike that usual smirk of his…somehow this one is a bit gentler as he murmurs, “you look good. grew up well, y’know.”

you blink. you’re not ready for that…didn’t expect a compliment from gojo satoru himself—especially not after all this time of throwing mediocre insults your way.

you decide he must be messing with you, so you purse your lips as you click your teeth in irritation. “yeah, sure,” you say dryly.

you can hear his chuckles as you close the door again—this is going to be a long break.

—————

just as expected, the house is simply not big enough for you and satoru.

the first time you run into him happens to be first thing after waking up—you’re walking up to the door just as he twists the knob and opens it, walking out shirtless. again.

this time, however, he’s got beads of water rolling down his skin from his shower, right between his pecs, as a towel hangs around his shoulders. you can see his tattoo from up close now, a small infinity sign right under his collarbone that contrasts against his pale skin.

how tacky, you think—just as you’d expect, even his choice of tattoos is questionable.

his hair is wet—it’s sticking to his forehead instead of the multiple directions it usually scatters around in that messy way it always does. you’ve only felt satoru’s hair once—when you were fifteen, and you’d hit him in the back of the head as you walked past him at the breakfast table. he’d made a jab at your dark circles. tests were around the corner, and unlike satoru, your grades actually mattered. you didn’t expect his hair to be so soft, but it is, and you almost itch to twirl the strands around your fingers for a quick feel.

instead, you scowl and stomp off to your room as soon as your dishes are washed.

his hair is probably just as soft now—maybe even softer now that he actually probably cares to look after it. you’ve heard suguru grumble about using two-in-one shampoo too many times when he comes back from spending the night at satoru’s. for a second, your fingers twitch to reach up and brush through a few strands on his forehead—just to feel them because they look soft. nothing else.

the urge is quickly killed as soon as he opens his mouth, however.

“oh, hey there, roomie,” he grins, “you’re really doing all you can to catch me half naked, huh?”

“don’t flatter yourself,” you grumble.

“i’m just sayin’,” he chuckles, “that’s twice now. if you ask nicely, i might walk around like this just for you.”

it’s way too early for this.

by early, it’s actually late noon. now that finals aren’t killing your free time, you stay up until ungodly hours to catch up with your social life—and it doesn’t help that you can hear satoru and suguru stay up playing video games the next room over, either. suguru is probably still sleeping.

that’s a bit of a shocker, in fact—usually, it’s satoru that has to be dragged out of your brother’s room to have breakfast (or brunch, really) before the kitchen is cleared up. why satoru is up first is beyond you.

maybe it’s just a cruel way for the universe to enjoy watching more of your veins pop.

“does that apply to asking you to leave? because then i suppose i can ask rather politely.”

he grins, eyes sparkling with amusement as he shoots you that smile with those pearly whites that irritate you to no end. you’re not sure why, but something about his smile looks so much different nowadays—something about it just seems so….mature.

that’s a word you didn’t think you’d ever use to describe satoru.

“mm, not quite,” he hums, “you’re still stuck with me.”

“whatever,” you mutter, rolling your eyes. “move, i want to shower before suguru wakes up.”

“you have time,” he steps to the side, letting you enter the bathroom, “he’s probably not waking up anytime soon—woah.”

satoru’s shirt is on the floor—why, you may ask? because he’s an annoying idiot who doesn’t have to clean up after himself when people have always been around to do it for him. he never has to care to aim and toss his clothes into the hamper because the maids will pick up after him anyway. old habits die hard, you suppose—you’ve listened to suguru complain about satoru’s messiness not improving even after being his roommate for the last few years. it’s never been your problem, but you don’t appreciate it now that you’re slipping over the fabric on the tiled floor, falling backwards with a squeal.

but satoru’s quick—he catches you with those strong arms of his and wraps them tightly around you, keeping you securely in place as he steadies you against his chest.

his bare chest, in fact.

you can feel the slight dampness seeping into your shirt, and you can feel his hot breath on your neck as he exhales in relief once he makes sure you’re safe. you almost shiver—almost, but you manage to scrape together enough self-control to stay painfully still in his grasp.

“you okay?” he murmurs gently, voice a low whisper against your skin. there’s no bite to his words. no amusement or teasing or even smugness. it’s genuine, the way he checks on you.

this is…new. very, very new.

“yeah,” you breathe, letting out a sharp breath. and then—“maybe keep your clothes in the fucking hamper next time, though.”

“sorry,” the smile in his voice is almost audible—you can’t see it from where you are, but you can hear it in his voice. you roll your eyes, and satoru makes no move to loosen his arms around you. for some reason, you don’t move.

you’re not sure why, but you just don’t.

“you’re still just as messy, huh?” you roll your eyes—he laughs, and it’s a smooth, boyish chuckle that almost makes you wonder for a moment if this is why girls seem to love satoru so much despite his god-awful personality.

it’s a pretty beautiful sound—you hate that you have to admit that to yourself.

“yeah,” he admits, “it drives suguru nuts.”

“yeah, i can’t imagine why,” you snort. it’s like that for a moment—satoru’s muscled arms around you and hard chest pressed against your back. finally, you clear your throat. “you can let go now, you know.”

“right,” he mumbles, slowly pulling away—and when you turn to face him….is that disappointment? on his face? you don’t get a chance to be sure because then he’s bending down to pick up his shirt before he’s standing—he’s already wiped the expression from his features completely by then. “sorry about that, toothless. i’ll keep my shirts off the floor next time.”

“that would be so kind of you,” you smile sarcastically.

and then you shut the door in his face and exhale as you lean against the wall.

this is going to be a longer break than you thought.

—————

the next time you run into him, it’s late at night. everyone is asleep—even your brother and his headache of a best friend, if the silence tells you anything. you can’t sleep, though, so you make your way to the kitchen to hunt for snacks. you’re skimming through the pantry before your eyes land on a surprise—a box of strawberry pocky sits nice and enticingly, right there for you to open and devour.

you grin, reaching over when—

“those are mine,” satoru calls, stepping into the kitchen, “brought them over myself. you should ask before touching people’s things.”

“you literally ate my leftovers the other night,” you say incredulously.

“those were yours? i thought they were suguru’s.” he raises a brow in surprise, making you click your teeth in irritation.

“the principle of asking still applies,” you purse your lips. and then defiantly, you open the box and grab a pack right before his eyes.

he scowls—but you know he doesn’t actually mind because he waits for you to finish grabbing yours before taking the box and grabbing his own pack and a coke from the fridge. you both take a seat at the kitchen table, across from each other, as you open the packaging and silently eat your newfound snack.

it’s satoru who breaks the silence first.

“do you still throw away the ends of these?”

you huff indignantly, not meeting his eyes as you take a bite off the strawberry-covered end, stopping at just where the cookie portion is uncoated. “yes. i’m eating these for the coating—not the bland biscuit part.”

“what’re you, five?” he snickers, earning a glare from you. defiantly, you pop the end of the pocky stick into your mouth just to prove a point—and then the look of distaste makes him cackle louder.

“shut up,” you hiss, “you talk too much.”

“the ladies love it when i do,” he bats his lashes—you stare at him blankly, unimpressed.

“yeah, as if.”

“hey, my ex-girlfriend totally did,” he defends.

ex-girlfriend? that’s a bit of a shocker—you didn’t know satoru dated anyone in the last few years, you haven’t seen or heard anything of it through suguru’s end. in all realness, you didn’t even think satoru was the boyfriend type…but then again, he’s not really the anything type. he just kind of exists to take up space and be the bane of your existence.

“i hope the poor girl is recovering well after dating you,” you shake your head, feigning a concerned look on your face that makes him roll his eyes—they’re still disturbingly bright even in the dark kitchen, dimly lit by the slightest bit of moonlight pouring in through the small window.

“i dated her freshman and sophomore year,” he says casually. you also didn’t expect that—that it lasted that long. something about satoru doesn’t strike you as the long-term relationship kind of guy. something about him doesn’t seem like the relationship kind of guy at all. not because he’s the type to mess around casually, but because he seems the type to seem disinterested all around—he’s snobby like that. “she was…alright, i guess.”

yeah. very snobby.

“you are such a sick bastard,” you spit.

he snorts, taking a bite of his pocky as he shakes his head in amusement. you’re as feisty as ever—it’s always fun riling you up, even if unintentionally.

“hey, it’s not like she was bad. she was just…well, she wasn’t interested in me like that either,” he shrugs, “i think it was just the sex. it was good, can’t lie there.”

“you’re so gross,” you roll your eyes, “have some decorum.”

“what, you’re still sixteen?” he raises a brow, lips curling into a smirk as he reaches for another pocky, “can’t say the word s-e-x?”

“i don’t broadcast my sexual activities out in the open,” you shrug.

satoru chuckles, taking a bite that more or less finishes the entire stick in one go before he presses a finger to his lips, “shh. don’t say that too loud—suguru will come chase you from his room if he hears.”

“suguru,” you groan, “he’s such a pain to have around sometimes. y’know i dated this one guy last year. i think suguru might’ve paid him to dump me.”

“i know. he definitely thought about it,” satoru hums, “he used to go off about it all the time. he was right, though—that guy was a total prick.”

something about you is mildly shocked that satoru knows about your private life—sure, it’s not outrageous or even the slightest bit unlikely that suguru mentions you. satoru and suguru are best friends, and you happen to be suguru’s sister—of course, suguru is bound to mention you here and there. it’s just the fact that satoru even pays attention to anything to do with you that surprises you—although you suppose it would be a good way for him to find his next source to push your buttons.

“i’m not surprised you think he’s a prick,” you nod, “it takes one to know one, after all.”

“oh yeah?” he snorts, waving you off, “i do, in fact remember anniversaries, y’know.”

“okay,” you sigh, defeated—your ex-boyfriend is admittedly not at the top of the list of your brightest choices. not even up halfway on the list. in fact, he’s so low on the list of good choices you’ve made, that willingly choosing to interact with satoru feels like an exceptional decision in comparison. and that’s saying something. “he was pretty bad. but he was really hot. when a guy looks like that, his values are the least of my worries.”

it’s a joke—you’re sure he knows that. but satoru takes a long sip from his coke, silent for a moment. you don’t think you’ve ever seen him so serious, especially so suddenly.

“he can’t be that hot,” he mutters.

“oh he was really hot. probably the hottest guy i’ve ever talked to—” satoru bites his pocky a bit aggressively at that, “and he was so tall. maybe taller than you—how tall are you again? anyway, he was pretty enough to overlook his shortcomings.”

“he’s probably not taller than me,” he grumbles, frowning. you snort—men and their fragile little egos, you think in amusement.

“he was,” you tease, “he was so tall, i’d let him do whatever he wanted.”

“that’s a terrible way to look at it,” he scrunches his brows, “you shouldn’t let some guy walk all over you because he’s tall and his face is a bit easy on the eyes—”

“i know you’re not talking—”

“i’m serious,” he cuts you off. something about him reminds you of suguru for a moment—like he cares who you’re with because he has a reason to. as if you mean something to him, as if knowing someone who doesn’t deserve you has you in their palms is upsetting.

but then you shake the thought out of your head—satoru doesn’t care. he’s never had a reason to, and you don’t exactly plan to give him one, either.

“okay, dad,” you roll your eyes, “i learned my lesson. i have standards now.”

“good,” he nods—and then, as if to keep himself in character, he adds, “because i don’t want to help suguru kill someone, and it’s over something lame like forgetting his little sister’s anniversary. i’d like to go to jail for something more badass.”

“you and badass don’t belong in the same sentence,” you raise a brow. “let’s be realistic.”

“oh yeah? that’s rich coming from—”

“guys, it is five in the morning,” suguru grumbles, throwing a water bottle at satoru’s head. you glance at the kitchen entrance, eyeing a half-asleep and very irritable suguru as he crosses his arms, “can’t you idiots fight over who’s more of a loser at reasonable hours? some of us like to sleep.”

“want one?” you offer your pack of pocky, holding it out to him.

suguru blinks, contemplating for a second before sighing and trudging over.

“yeah,” he mutters, flicking your forehead. “gimme that.”

you watch woefully as suguru takes the entirety of your pack, swiftly sitting next to satoru and leaving you empty-handed. satoru snickers obnoxiously at the deflated look on your face—and then he holds out his pack to you.

you look between him and the pack for a moment before giving him a genuine smile. it’s a rare sight—he drinks it in as you carefully take one and bicker over something with suguru.

you’re pretty when you smile, he thinks—pretty enough that if you had horrible values (which you don’t), he might feel inclined to understand your (awful) reasoning for a moment.

and then he blinks and shakes the thoughts out of his head—it’s going to be a long break.

—————

satoru meets you when you’re six.

he’s nine at the time, and he feels on top of the world knowing he’s three whole years older than you—in hindsight, three years is not a very large gap, but to nine-year-old him, it feels like centuries. he’s remembered you as the fun little drama queen that’s too easy to poke fun at for years—that’s all you’ve always been: suguru’s younger sister who puffs her cheeks out and scowls way too often to be normal, the girl that’s way too easy to tease than should be standard.

somehow, he wasn’t expecting for you to come back so grown…and so hot. suddenly, it really hits him that you’re not a kid—have not really been for a long time now. he’s always treated you like you’re way younger than he is, way too little to be in his presence and be worthy of it—but you’ve really become a fine young woman.

a magnetizing one, in fact.

it’s now his third night at your house—your parents are as lovely and welcoming as ever, and suguru is always a good time to be around. but somehow, satoru is not satisfied. not anywhere near sated by the few, minimal moments of contact with you.

when did you get so pretty? although, as much as satoru has always liked to poke fun at you, you’ve never been ugly. not even a little—but you’ve grown into your features better, outgrown the awkward teenage era of your life, and now present yourself with a newfound confidence that just looks…so good. satoru doesn’t see his best friend's kid sister anymore—no, there’s something so alluring about you now.

the nail on the coffin that solidifies he’s officially screwed is when you mention your ex-boyfriend—why would your dating life make him this irrationally angry? why is the thought of someone being on the receiving end of your praise (and shameless heart-eyes) so aggravating for him?

he doesn’t know—but what he does know is that the raging boner has been killing him all morning ever since he woke up from…well, less than proper dreams about you.

so now he’s here, forehead pressed against your shower wall as the hot water hits his back, swollen cock in his fist as he thumbs at the tip, teasing the slit just the way he likes. he thinks about you—how he’d show you what makes him feel good, how you’d probably learn fast and take care of him just the way he needs.

your hand would look so much daintier compared to his—smaller, but he’s sure it would still feel infinitely better.

he bites his lip, fighting back a moan as he strokes himself slowly, pre cum smeared along the length of his hard, aching cock—red and angry at the tip, leaking with more pre cum no matter how many times his thumb collects every drop.

“f-fuck—” he breathes, and his voice lets out a shaky, breathy little call of your name—he’s screwed if anyone hears it. he’s sure you and suguru will both band together to kill him, but thankfully, the words are lost in the sound of the shower running. “fuck baby,” he says hoarsely, voice cracking ever so slightly as he whines.

it’s soft and quiet, the noises he makes—careful and deliberately hushed to make sure no one hears the improper way he’s thinking of you right now. but fuck, your tits are so pretty when you walk out of your room in a t-shirt in the mornings—he can just tell you’re not wearing a bra. he can’t stop thinking about it, can’t stop trying to picture what they’d look like uncovered and bouncing.

“jus’ like that, baby,” he pants, whimpering softly as he squeezes around his tip, teasing himself with that slow, painful pace of his.

satoru is sure that if it were you, that if the hand stroking his cock right now was yours, you would never let him cum so easily—you’d drag it out just like this, pump him slowly and twist your hand around him in a pace that’s painfully not enough before ever thinking about letting him come undone.

it’s just the way that you are—never ready to back down from a challenge, unwilling to go down without a fight. but he loves it, he thinks—lives for the way you keep him on his toes and work for the satisfaction.

“more,” he gasps, “n-need more—gimme more, sweetheart.”

he imagines it—the way you’d kiss his jaw, maybe even the corner of his mouth, as you hum. say please, toru, you’d probably say—and fuck, he’d kill to hear you say toru.

“please,” he rasps, “please, baby. d-don’t tease.”

he can practically hear your light giggles, the sweet, okay, baby. no more teasing, that you might whisper. he’d also kill to hear you call him baby—he’s almost nauseous at the idea that some other guy must’ve heard the pet name from your lips before him. and then he lets himself pump his erection faster, squeezing tighter as his thighs quiver while he stands in the shower.

fuck—you feel so good. you’re not even here, but he’s sure you do, and he’s desperate to envision it. it practically hurts—the way he’s so hard and swollen and ready to release. just for you, he wants to tell you, he’s going to cum all for you.

“baby,” he whimpers, “‘m so, so close—fuck ‘m gonna cum. ‘s for you—gonna cum for you—ngh, sh-shit.”

and then there’s cum on the tile walls, on his hands, on his abs as they flex with every labored breath. satoru cums—hard. his eyes are squeezed shut, lips parted with a silent cry as he pants and strokes himself through his high. you’d kiss him, he likes to think, on his jaw and cheeks and maybe the tip of his nose as you sit on his lap and work him through his orgasm. you’d watch him closely, take in the way he comes undone for you, maybe even call him your pretty boy as he paints your hand white with his seed.

would you praise him? murmur softly into his ear and seal the gentle words with a kiss to his skin? would you stroke his hair from his face as you admire his blissful, fucked out little expression? maybe he’d ask you then—maybe he’d ask you to admit he’s way more handsome than that douchebag you dated as your hand holds his softening cock, sticky with his release.

god, what he wouldn’t do to see your hands coated with his cum—did you do this for your ex? did he look as hot as you claim he was when he came for you? the thought makes him sour—he grits his teeth and clenches his jaw at the idea, panting and catching his breath as he stares down at the mess he’s made.

he should feel bad—this is wrong. so, so wrong—suguru would kill him if he was aware satoru was lusting over his little sister. but it felt so fucking good—he’s never cum as hard as when he’s pictured cumming for you.

it can’t be that wrong, if that’s the case—can it?

——

“suguru,” your voice is shrill, deadly—like you’re out for blood. “next time you jack off in the shower, maybe clean the fucking wall? are you joking?”

“wha—i definitely cleaned that,” suguru defends.

oh, fuck, satoru thinks—he forgot to clean that. so he makes himself very scarce and stays within the confinements of suguru’s bedroom—his messy habits are starting to really catch up to him. if his defense, he really would clean that up…it’s just that he was a bit distracted.

“so you admit you jack off in our shower? our shower?” you sound inconsolable, downright devastated, and borderline hysterical. having siblings seems like a lot of trouble, he thinks—but then again, sometimes satoru is jealous of your bond with suguru. it’d be nice to have someone in his family he can actually depend on. “keep that shit for your bedroom, you jackass!”

“well, how am i supposed to do that when satoru is there? you tell me.”

“i don’t know! figure it the fuck out—you guys probably jack off together anyway.”

“what?” suguru sounds appalled, “we do not—that’s outrageous.”

“whatever,” you say—you sound almost murderous as you warn, “next time you better clean up your fucking mess, you asshole.”

satoru can’t help but smile a little—your pointer finger is definitely held up as you scold suguru—you’re so cute when you’re mad, he thinks. he almost wants to step out and catch a glimpse, but he decides against it for now.

silently, satoru thanks his best friend for taking one for the team—even if it was unknowingly.

—————

it’s night four.

satoru has surprisingly kept to himself—he even promptly looked away after meeting your eyes in the kitchen yesterday morning as you walked in for breakfast. that’s…new. a lot about satoru is new.

he’s taller and more muscular now—at one point, suguru used to tower over his scrawny little form. now he’s seemed to grow into his body, seemed to learn how to style himself better, and actually do his hair a bit. it’s still messy now that he’s just lazing around in your home—but it’s oddly handsome.

scarily handsome, in fact.

you don’t enjoy the idea of thinking about the jerk of your childhood like that—but ever since you felt the hard press of his chest against your back, sometimes you wonder what it’s like to know satoru outside of just your older brother’s obnoxious friend.

maybe, somewhere along the line, had you put your pride aside and actually tried to get to know him, maybe you both could at least be friendly. but then again, there’s never been any real animosity between you two—you can share a lighthearted talk from time to time, like that night in the kitchen.

you decide not to dwell on it too much, decide that he’s not really worth your thoughts when he’s just a guy who’s always been a bit too spoiled to learn how to be humble. instead, you go down to the kitchen to grab another pack of strawberry pocky—satoru will just have to deal with it. if he doesn’t want his snacks eaten, he shouldn’t keep them in the pantry where anyone could stumble across them.

you walk into the kitchen until—oh. it’s satoru. again.

“oh, hey,” he grins cheekily, taking a sip of his coke—he needs to break the habit of having so much sugar this late at night…but then again, why would it matter to you? “stalkin’ me?”

“for an unwelcomed guest, you sure do talk a lot,” you roll your eyes, making his lips curl into a smug little smirk.

“i don’t know—your parents seem to love having me over. what if i become their newest son?”

“i doubt my parents are looking to adopt you,” you raise a brow, slightly amused.

he hums, sipping his coke before blinking at you through those long, perfect lashes of his. “well, there are other ways to blend into a family. marriage, for example, is a great way.”

“you and my brother might as well marry each other,” you snort, “no one else will do it.”

“who said anything about suguru?” he winks, chuckling when your face twists into an exaggerated look of horror—always as dramatic as ever, you are. he can’t help but find an endearing side to it now.

satoru stands, walks over to where you are and stands in front of you as you scoff, shaking your head as you huff out a disbelieving chuckle.

“that’s pushing it,” you muse, “marrying you would be the last open option i’d have left—and even then i doubt i’d ever take it.”

“yeah?” he raises a brow, leaning in so close, you can practically feel his breath fan over you. he smells like expensive cologne and your shampoo—why is he using yours instead of suguru’s? before you can even ask him what he’s doing, he throws away the empty can of coke in the trash can behind you, eyes bright with amusement as your breath hitches.

it’s like he knows—the fucking asshole.

“yeah,” you breathe, “you don’t deserve me,” you try to say matter-of-factly. it comes off a bit more breathless than you intended—the air feels suffocating. maybe because satoru is so close, maybe because his breath is on your face, maybe because all you can smell and feel and hear is him.

you can’t find it in yourself to pull away—why aren’t you pulling away? it’s just like that day he caught you, when his arms wrapped around you and all you felt like doing was lean into his chest. what about satoru and you has shifted so quickly to make you want to do that? what makes him so easy to fall into when all you’ve always known was to shove at him?

he hums, leaning in closer and closer until his forehead touches yours. “you know who didn’t deserve you?” he asks, “that shitty ex of yours.”

you look up at him with wide eyes, speechless as his hands find purchase of your hips, grabbing them and pulling you closer—and against better judgment, your hands lay themselves across his chest. it’s as firm as you remember it.

“how would you know—”

“heard suguru rant about it all the time,” he murmurs, “how he forgot your dates. got you a shitty birthday present. didn’t show up to your anniversary. made you hang out with his friends and didn’t even meet half of yours. you’re tellin’ me he deserves you more than me?”

“he was hot—”

“yeah? and i’m not?”

he’s cocky—you hate that about him. always did. but he’s so close, so intoxicating, so irresistible, and fuck, he is hot—so incredibly hot, you’ve been losing sleep over it the last four nights no matter how hard you try to deny it.

“satoru, what are you—”

“y’know, i’ve been helping suguru pick your birthday presents since you were twelve. i’d pick you the best gifts,” his nose is brushing against yours now, lips just millimeters away from his as he speaks—“and i never forget an important date. i’m very punctual too, believe it or not. i’d meet your little friends—show ‘em what a catch i am when you introduce me.”

“and what am i supposed to do with this information?” you ask defiantly.

it’s a last-ditch effort—you both know this. you know exactly what he wants you to do with this information.

“i don’t know, sweetheart,” he chuckles, “what do you think?”

and then you’re kissing him—because fuck, satoru is right there, and how could you not? his chest is under your palms, his lips are right against yours, and you can feel his thumb rub circles into your hips.

so you kiss him—loop your arms around his neck and tug him closer and press your lips to his. he groans, responds almost instantly as his mouth molds against yours, kissing you deeper as his hand moves to cup your cheek.

your lips are softer than he thought, and his hair is silky against your fingers. you tug at the strands, grab a handful, and feel them against your fingers like you’ve wanted to for so long. and when he nips at your bottom lip, who are you to deny him? your lips part, letting his tongue slide in and taste you with a breathy sigh that makes your knees wobble.

“s-satoru,” you stutter, whispering between kisses, “suguru might come in like last time—”

“god,” he groans, head burying into your neck, pressing hot, open-mouthed kisses against the skin, “don’t fucking talk about your brother right now. please.”

“my room,” you say urgently—it’s all he needs to hear before his hands are on your ass, grabbing you as you wrap your legs around his hips. it’s urgent, the way his mouth is back on yours—he doesn’t pull away even once the entire walk to your room, not even when he lets your back fall onto the mattress as he hovers over you, pressing kisses along your collarbone.

no bra, he notes happily, his hand sneaking under your shirt to toy with your pert nipples.

“god, you’ve been driving me fuckin’ crazy,” he mumbles, tugging the hem of your shirt over your arms and tossing it over his shoulder. he stares, takes in the sight of the same tits he’s been fantasizing over for the last few days in awe. “you know that? been thinkin’ about these for days,” he says lowly, cupping your tit and massaging as he presses a kiss to your jaw.

“you’re shameless,” you mutter, snorting before you cut yourself off with a gasp as he squeezes your nipple, pinching and rolling it between his fingers and pulling a soft whine from you.

“shhh,” he chuckles, tilting his head toward the wall next to you, “don’t want suguru to hear, do you? that wouldn’t be nice, would it?”

“it’ll be worse for you than me,” you grin, tugging at the hem of his own shirt, indicating you want it off. he grins widely, wiggling his brows and making you purse your lips.

“wanna see me shirtless again, huh? third times the charm, as they say,” he winks. you would retort with something as witty, but then your eyes fall on that tattoo again—right under his collarbone, making your hand reach out to trace it with your thumb.

“what compelled you to get this corny little tattoo of yours,” you grin, giggling as you trace over the small infinity sign.

for the first time, you think you witness satoru shy, blushing as he rubs the back of his neck and chuckles awkwardly. “that…that was an accident. when i got drunk for the first time.”

“oh,” you snort, “you’re so weak, satoru—”

“do me a favor, sweetheart,” he hums, cutting you off, “as much as i love when you say my name, say toru for me, yeah? i wanna hear it.”

you roll your eyes, huffing as your hand finds the back of his head and pulls him into another kiss, moaning into his mouth as he grinds the throbbing erection in his sweats over your heated core.

“toru,” you say breathlessly, “more.”

that’s all he needs to hear—satoru doesn’t waste a second before he’s crawling between your legs, sliding your cute little pajama pants down your legs before meeting your dripping pussy.

it’s wet—so wet, he almost wants to chuckle and tease you a bit. just for old-time's sake. but the ache that shoots down to his cock reminds him that he’s in no position to tease you when he’s not faring any better himself. so he spreads your legs, kisses lightly at your clit in a feather-like touch that has you whimpering and clutching the sheets in anticipation.

“how pretty,” he mumbles, “been hiding this pretty little thing all this time. what a perfect pussy.”

“satoru,” you gasp in embarrassment, hands reaching for his hair and tugging him closer to where you need him most—equal parts because you really need his mouth on your cunt and equal parts because you really need him to shut up.

but he chuckles, takes his time to spread your folds open with his thumbs, and watches in wonder as you flutter around nothing, arousal dripping and leaving a mess. it’s perfect—you’re perfect, and he wants to take his time with you.

“god, you’re soaked,” he groans, chuckling as he murmurs, “that’s fuckin’ cute.”

before you can even whine at the way his words are shameless, his mouth is back to kissing your clit, lips wrapping around it as he sucks and rolls his tongue along the sensitive bud. his fingers sink deep into you, pushing past your folds and slowly bullying into you until the tips of his fingers curl and brush against a spot that makes you squeal.

you gasp a breathy, “fuck, toru—” before he hums around your clit, vibrations making you whimper as he thrusts his fingers back in to hit that spot again. it’s sensitive, the way he makes you feel—your nerves are on fire, and your head is light, and fuck, it feels so good you can’t help but sob brokenly and squeeze your thighs around his head. he moans against your cunt, pulling his fingers out before letting his tongue lick a stripe along your slit, tasting you with a sharp inhale.

“f-feels good,” you whimper, biting your lip as your eyes crinkle at the corners from squeezing shut.

“yeah?” he hums, kissing your inner thigh, leaving a wet little sheen of his spit and your arousal on the skin, “that’s a good girl—just keep telling me how good i make you feel, kay?”

he could stay buried nose-deep into your pussy for as long as you let him—tongue alternating between fucking into you and rolling over your swollen clit, hearing the broken little gasps and whines of his name as you repeat toru over and over again like a prayer. his hand grips at your thigh, sinking his fingertips into the plush skin and rubbing soothingly with his thumb as you rut your hips and grind against his face.

satoru has half a mind to watch it again—to lick and suck at your core again and again just so he could burn into his mind what you look like when you cum. it’s divine—like he’s halfway to stepping into heaven and has to pause just to admire the sight before him.

your hips leave the mattress as your back arches, and your fingers tug relentlessly at his roots as your walls quiver, letting satoru taste every drop of your release as you press a palm to your hand and try to keep yourself from squealing at the pleasure.

suguru is right next door. you can’t wake him—can’t let him know this is what you and his best friend get up to in the late hours of the night.

it’s not until satoru pulls away, catching his breath as he wipes the wet trail on his chin does he realize how hard he is—how badly he’s aching as his cock strains against his sweats. he hisses as he frees himself; ridding his sweats and boxers and wrapping a large hand around the tip of his erection and smearing the leaking pre cum along his length.

you watch in awe, reaching over and replacing his hand with yours. satoru was right—your hand is infinitely smaller than his, and yet, it feels a great deal better. so much better, in fact, that his arms shake as he hovers over you, burying his head into your neck and groaning as you slowly stroke him, squeezing at the tip and rolling your thumb through the slit.

he didn’t even have to show you what he wanted, what makes him feel good, what makes his mind fog with pleasure and burn through every nerve. no, you figure it all out on your own, pulling strangled moans and hushed gasps from him that make your clit ache once more.

“fuck, baby,” he pants, “can’t last long like this—c’mon, g-gotta feel you.” gently, he pries your hand from his thick, pulsing cock, laying it against your stomach as he peers down in fascination. “i’ll be right here,” he hums, drawing a line on your skin right where his tip ends, “see that? that’s where you’ll feel me, sweetheart.”

“then let me feel you,” you murmur, cupping his cheeks and brushing a thumb over the skin, “fuck me, toru—wan’ it so bad.”

so he does—drags his tip along your folds and collects the slick pooling at your entrance before pushing his tip past your folds, splitting you in half as he slowly buries himself to the hilt. his jaw is clenched, breath labored as he waits for you to adjust, lets you kiss his cheeks and nose as you murmur how handsome he is, how perfect he feels, how good is to you.

“that asshole ever make you cum?” he asks lowly, “he ever eat your pussy like that? make you cum hard enough you had to cover your mouth so you’re not screaming his name?”

“no,” you breathe, quivering as his thumb rolls over your clit in slow circles, still painfully still as he stares down at you, “n-no, never. just you—only you—”

“good,” he grins, “that’s what i like to hear. and when i make you cum on my cock, make sure to tell me he’s never done that either, yeah?”

“you’re full of it,” you scoff, “always have been.”

“and you’re full of me,” he says cheekily, chuckling as you glare half-heartedly. “can i move, baby? please? need more, ‘s not enough. n-need more—”

“yeah,” you whimper, pulling him closer, chests brushing against each other as your lips meet in a sloppy kiss, “yeah—need more too, toru.”

satoru, in all his years of knowing you, has never seen the side of you that could be this gentle. the side that glides your hands over his back, feeling every flex and every pull of his muscles, gently caressing the skin like it’s holy, like it’s not worthy of marks—instead to be worshipped and revered with thoughtful touches. your lips sear into every part of him they can find—his lips, his forehead, his nose, his hair as his face digs into your neck. even your voice is a gentle whisper of his name, so soft and careful, it’s like saying it wrong could break him.

your hips buck up in tandem with his, meeting his rhythm as he slams into you, his balls slapping against your skin as he buries his cock into you as deep as it’ll go with every harsh thrust. you can feel his tip kissing against that sweet spot in the back of your walls, your abused cunt sucking him in and hugging around him as he groans.

the friction feels sickening, like he’ll pass out any second, like he’s floating between the precipice of pleasure and the edge of consciousness.

you do that to him—he doesn’t know how or when or why, but you make him feel like he doesn’t have a grip on his own senses. he doesn’t mind it so much, he thinks—doesn’t hate the idea of letting himself fall into your palm and wrap around him. it feels nicer that way, like it’s where he belongs.

“fuck, ‘s so tight,” he rasps, whining into your neck as your hand cups the back of his head, holding him in place. his hips are rutting into you sloppily now, barely maintaining the rhythm from before as he nears his high—but that doesn't stop him from angling into you perfectly, slamming into your sensitive spot every time without fail. “c-cum—’m gonna cum. cum with me, sweetheart.”

“‘m so close, toru,” you sob—and then, just as his thumb finds your clit again, rubbing harsh, desperate little circles to get you over the edge, you cum again—harder than the last time, spasming around his cock and pulling him in as you squeeze around him. “t-toru,” you gasp brokenly, “fuck, ‘s good—so good.”

“baby,” he moans lowly, “fuck, you’re so perfect. prettiest thing ever—prettiest pussy ever. i, sh-shit—” your orgasm quickly has him falling into his own, hot, thick ropes of cum spilling into you with every twitch of his cock, sweet little noises pulled from his throat that he sings into your neck, fucking his load into you.

it’s messy, the way cum spills out of you and coats his cock—but it’s perfect and feels so, so right. you can’t help but think how perfectly satoru fits against you as his body slumps on top of yours, panting and spent as he cages you in his arms.

your hand doesn’t leave his hair—now that you know how it feels, you don’t think you can stop threading your fingers through it, ever.

“wow, toothless,” he chuckles after a bit, “you’re seriously obsessed with me, huh? i mean, how long have you been nursing this crush on me, hmm? thinking about your brother’s best friend, you naughty little thing—”

“satoru, would you shut that mouth for once,” you hiss, rolling your eyes—still, there’s an affectionate grin on your lips this time as he chuckles into your skin.

“oh baby, i’m afraid this mouth never shuts, so you should get used—”

suddenly, you both freeze as you hear suguru’s voice through the door. “you two better not be fucking doing what i think you’re doing,” he seethes, making your jaw drop and satoru’s eyes widen.

fuck—that was never supposed to happen. suguru was never supposed to hear, let alone know.

“hey,” satoru starts, “if suguru kicks me out of our place, i can come be your new permanent housemate, right?”

do not comment about a part 2

but yeah he can come live with me any time and as long as he pays by sucking my tiddies i shall provide all food and utilities and everything

#teepods.writings #fics.#thirstee!#gojo x reader #gojo x you #gojo smut #jjk x reader #jjk x you #jjk smut #gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru smut #gojo satoru x you #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen x you #jujutsu kaisen smut

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oceantornadoo · 3 months

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protective ex-husband!simon, implied violence/break-in

“i know! and that’s when i told her-“ you paused, your hand halfway to the keys at the bottom of your purse. your apartment door was open, a menacing sliver of darkness awaiting you. “hey, i’m going to have to call you back.” you ended the call with your friend, slowly backing away from your door. shit. you knew you locked the door when you left for work, and no one else had a copy of your key. a creeping sensation came over you, like someone was watching from within. slowly, you retreated, taking the elevator down to your apartment’s lobby as the anxiety crawled through your body. you wracked your brain, wondering if you should call the police. wondering if they would even believe you. there was only one call to make.

“come on, pick up.” you tapped your foot impatiently as your ex husband took forever to answer the phone. it was all you could do to not think about your home being violated, about a potential stalker or date gone wrong.

“‘ello?”

“si- simon, it’s me.”

“i know, lovie. that’s why i picked up.” you let out a quiet sob of relief at his voice, the bottle on your emotions starting to leak.

“what’s wrong?” his voice changed, immediately hearing your silent tears. he could always read you too well. “i don’t want to bother you but” you hiccupped. shit. “but my apartment door was open and i’m pretty sure i closed it, i usually do. i don’t know if im being silly but now im in the lobby and im just scared, simon.” there was a fumbling sound, the echoes of simon zipping up his jacket and pulling on his shoes.

“go to that cafe across the street, dove. go get yourself one of those overpriced hot chocolates. i’ll be there in 15.”

9 minutes later, your shaking hands were tapping random patterns on the cafe table, unable to raise your drink to your mouth without spilling it. your eyes were locked onto the wood grain, counting lines to distract yourself.

suddenly, a gloved hand covered yours. you looked up and there he was, your ghost in all his glory. you forgot everything for a second, forgot the past arguments and the strained silences, and flung yourself into his arms. you breathed in his comforting scent of pinewood that masked his cigarettes, a cologne you got him four years ago for christmas. your face was wet, and as he pulled you back to check you for injuries, his thumb brushed a stray tear away from your face. you didn’t even realize you were crying.

“‘s okay, baby. i’m here now. give me your keys.” you fumbled for your keys, purse strap sliding off your shoulder as your hands shook too much to keep it balanced. simon caught it gracefully, finding your keys in the same pocket you always kept them. “stay here. i’ll be back.” you nodded instinctively. only when you saw his figure retreat to your apartment building, clothed in all black like a figure of death, you realized you hadn’t told him your new apartment number.

twenty minutes passed. simon’s presence had worked like medicine as your heart rate has now dropped back down to normal, your hands stable enough to finish your drink. any other person would be worried for simon’s safety, but you knew the only person you should be concerned for was your intruder.

“you’re stayin’ with me tonight.” he was back, looking exactly the same. he wasn’t even winded. “thank you simon, but don’t be ridiculous. i can get a hotel. you live so far from my work anyways.” he approached you, crowding into your space as he leaned over you, even with a cafe table in between. “consider it payment then.” he tilted your chin up with his left hand as he hid his other one, covered with blood, in his pocket. “one way or another, you’re in my bed tonight, dove.” you gulped at that. “and i’ve got riley in the car. you wouldn’t abandon him, would you?” of course he had gotten your cat when he checked out your apartment. riley hated men, but never simon. cheeky bastard.

“you win.”

fast forward a couple of hours and you were getting ready for bed at simon’s, belly full from the meal he had made you. riley made himself at home on the living room couch, of course. “he’s in my spot.” you gestured to your cat on the couch. “wha’ d’ya mean?” your husband simon was now in sweats and sweats only, clean from the shower he had after you both got home back to his place. you pretended not to see him methodically wash blood out of his fingernails, reasoning quite easily with yourself that it was for a good cause.

“my couch for tonight.” simon moved toward you and you avoided his eyes, trying not to stare at how beautiful he still was. muscular but thick, torso adorned with scars you used to trace on sunday mornings when you both stayed in bed until the afternoon. he gripped your chin, forcing you to make eye contact. “told’ya you were in my bed tonight, dovie.” you swallowed and he watched your throat move, memories of you swallowing something else countless times rising to the surface.

“don’t be silly, simon. that would cross a line.”

“what line?” his arms were crossed now, drawing your attention to an unfamiliar tattoo right above his heart. a small dove.

“we’re not together anymore, simon.”

“you’re still my wife.”

silence. he was always like this, pushing you until you broke. he was unwilling to compromise, even on the smallest of issues. usually you’d fight him, spit fire until you lost your voice. tonight though, you were reminded of how he was the only person you were able to call, the only one committing dark sins without asking, all for your safety. instead, you threw your hands up and walked into his bedroom, mechanically stripping as you put on one of his shirts and a pair of boxers. you felt his eyes on you, burning a hole through the fabric. you were tired, so tired of this push and pull.

“what.” you whipped around, all venom. his eyes were impossibly soft, holding yours with a peaceful caress. “you’re as beautiful as the day i lost you.” your fire went out at that. “you’re just trying to get me naked.” you mumbled, looking down as you fidgeted with the hem of his shirt. you watched as his body came into view, pressing your forehead against his bare skin.

“could see you in a thousand layers and you’d still be the most beautiful person i’ve ever seen, dove.” ever so slowly, your hands crept up his body to grab his shoulders and neck. he picked you up with ease, turning the lights off and tucking you both in bed. “when did you get the tattoo?” you asked in the dark.

“3 months and 12 days ago.” what would have been your 3rd year of marriage, your anniversary. you lowered your head and gave him a kiss right where the tattoo was. “can we talk about it in the morning?” you snuggled into him, that familiar scent calming you once again. “always, dove.” he kissed your forehead, smiling in the dark.

----

idk why im obsessed with the break-in and simon to the rescue trope but its fueling me lately

#simon ghost riley #simon riley x reader #simon riley x you #simon riley smut #simon riley wife #ghost call of duty #tornadothoughts #ex husband ghost #fluff

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sistertotheknowitall · 3 months

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“But to the BatFam? That is just Some Guy. A random dude - if you will.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’m missing my spleen.”

“Oh cool, yeah, missing organs suck. I’m missing a kidney and part of my liver. Oh! And my gallbladder but that was more of a necessary evil, it was like, poisoning me or something.” Danny was so focused on applying pressure to his wound (and maybe being a bit too light headed) that he didn’t notice how silent his friend had gotten. Like-wise the comms had gone equally quiet as Gotham’s vigilante family realized that they knew very little about this kid.

It was concerning how quickly they all started to see him as a friend considering it was them as vigilantes he interacted with the most. Tim was the only one who saw him frequently when out of the suit because he was a regular at Danny’s day job. (He worked as a barista in the coffee shop Tim favored.) The others saw him occasionally but more often than not it was just in passing. Steph, Duke, and Dick had to stop themselves from approaching him on the street.

It was odd, one day he had just moved to Gotham, seeming to appear out of nowhere, and then the next he was a constant presence in their lives. Usually armed and ready with a concerning or odd quip, it had started with him being another victim of the city’s petty criminals and had snowballed from there.

Now it wasn’t like the bats saw Danny everyday, but it was expected that he would cross paths with at least three of them before the end of the week. They ran into him more often than any other Gothamite, including the criminals and rouges they fought.

At first the constant meetings by “coincidence” was suspicious. If he wasn’t the one being saved from a mugging, kidnapping, or city wide villain assault, then he was near by and trying to help.

(“Trying to help” usually meant drawing attention to himself so the original victim could escape. Once it had meant Danny armed with a baseball bat against four grown men. Bruce and Dick have tried to talk to him about putting himself in harms way but the kid is surprisingly elusive when he wants to be. Yet, even when avoiding Batman and his eldest, Danny could be found on the patrol route of another family member.)

But honestly? The guy seemed just as exhausted as they were of seeing each other. By the twelfth time in a month, Danny had accused them of stalking him.

The background check Bruce and Tim had run came back clean and he never seemed to be involved in the various criminal activities. He was just there, a weirdly unlucky bystander. So as far as Dick and the others could see, Danny was a completely normal dude. He just said strange things and wasn’t intimidated by them, he actually made it a point to be unhelpful sometimes. When trying to learn his name he gave them the run around for two months. (“I know about stranger danger. I don’t care how often you say you’re the ‘good guys.’ I’m not falling for it.”)

On one memorable occasion Danny had disappeared for a week and a half. When they started to assume the worse, he popped back up behind the counter at work. Tim had relaxed significantly when he entered the shop to Danny organizing pastries in the display case. Once he’d placed his order, the young CEO asked Danny if he’d been on vacation. To which Danny had just sighed and told Tim “I wish, but no I was called to court to handle some affairs I couldn’t get out of.” (After a check to see if Danny had gotten charged with something and coming back empty, Tim had concluded that it was an odd way to say he had had jury duty.)

Thinking about it now, outside a stray comment or two, Danny didn’t talk about himself or his life. They knew he didn’t have a good relationship with his parents, “they were much more goal oriented than that joke of a kidnapper, but I think drugs do that to a person.” (It was still unclear if he meant his parents were kidnappers themselves or on drugs.) They knew he had an older sister who would “kill me again if she finds out I was in another bank robbery.” They also knew he was, possibly, depressed after last week’s comment of “is it considered murder if you’re already dead but, like, still alive?” (Damian had saved him from a drug ring but after another “baby ninja” comment the young Robin had threatened to give Danny back to his would-be murderers.)

Dick knew Danny was a weird guy who never wanted to elaborate on the things he said. (Jason was still confused on what he meant by “rotted milk soul.”) That didn’t mean the comments themselves didn’t say a lot about him. And tonight’s comment, accompanied by the prominent and jagged autopsy scars, said more than Danny was probably willing to share.

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mondaymelon · 3 months

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₊⊹ "𝐧𝐨𝐨𝐨, 𝐢 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚 𝐡𝐮𝐬𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐝…" | xiao, childe, alhaitham x gn!reader

「 "𝐦𝐲 𝐡𝐮𝐬𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐚𝐚𝐚𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮!!"」

— in which you've gotten drunk... drunk enough to fail to recognize your own lover.

— silly fluff. soft xiao, had this one in the drafts for far too long and its about time i choke it out... happy white day !!

the moment your slurred words reached his ears, XIAO knew that he never should've let you get your hands on that cursed rice wine.

in a way, he supposed it could be his fault. the one time he had decided to indulge in trivial mortal matters like alcohol due to your constant insistence... well, just look at you.

red-faced, the tips of your ears and cheeks stuck in a helplessly drunken flush, you babbled incoherently with half of your face smushed against the table. xiao could only stare in contempt as you feebly reached towards the already-emptied bottle,

( xiao had taken one sip and refused any more indulgence, claiming it was bitter, when in fact, you had gone out of your way to find a sweeter drink ),

and sigh, massaging the bridge of his nose with a certain disillusionment.

"come on, you're getting to bed." the man was just about done with your hopeless actions. he grabbed your wrist and tugged, only to be met with resistance. you're pouting like a child, brows furrowed lazily as you stare upwards at him.

"nnno. m'not going with you."

"...excuse me?" what in the archons was the problem now? he tugged again, this time with a small margin of force, and was met with an even larger pull back, this time paired with a low whine. "hey, it's late, and all the wine is gone, so just comply with me won't you?"

"i already told you... i have a husband..."

your complaint met the cool night air and the adeptus' silence. his lips were slightly parted as his round eyes blinked once, then twice, in a sort of stunned stupor. "...love, i am that husband."

archons, how had he found himself such a foolish mortal to love?

"don't lie to me!" you shook your head profusely, wiggling around in his grasp relentlessly until the adeptus had no choice but to let go. "i know my husband when i see him... and he's way handsomer than you, stupid..." you stared him up and down with squinting eyes, eyeing the way his ears were beginning to turn pink, and sat heavily in thought as you pondered the man before you.

definitely not your husband.

idiot. with a huff, he easily hauled your body over his shoulder as if carrying something as trivial as a sack of potatoes. you hung loosely over, landing a couple weak punches on his back as you proceeded to prattle on, your defiance seemingly having little effect.

then, you were silent, and xiao had to look back to make sure you hadn't gotten hurt. sure, he had considered once or twice leaving you out there all passed out on the balcony, but not without reason, yet he'd decided against it. you seemed fine, mouth hung slightly ajar as you snoozed peacefully, your eyes shut and cheeks still warm from what you'd downed. the audacity to fall asleep... xiao couldn't deny that his sigh was one of fondness.

"night, this husband of yours loves you."

strange, wasn't the wine from liyue supposedly far less intense compared to the vodka CHILDE had tried back home?

that, or the people here simply were more susceptible when it came to the topic of intoxication. you were no exception — he'd taken you out drinking, his mistake, thinking it'd be an easy, splendid time.

and don't get him wrong, it was! not just, well... conversation was rather hard to make when the other person was practically unconscious. you're practically splayed across the mahogany table, eyes nearly drooped close and fire across your cheeks.

you giggled. it's a muddled sound, when you're mostly mumbling into the table. "hhhey, pour me another glass~"

childe scans your less-than-ideal state and procures an answer in a little under a second. "love, you've had too many."

you seem shocked at his words, leaning forwards a little with narrowed eyes. your figure sways as you shake your head lazily, from side to side. "wwhhhat? nnno, that can't be right..."

the man holds back an amused chuckle. it's entertaining. "and how many fingers am i holding up?" he holds up just one hand, displaying a reasonable amount of three.

there's a beat of silence. "...nineteen?" you blink a couple times, as if to shake you out of your stupor. "...nineteen," this time, with confidence.

childe claps his hands together, a sudden sound that makes you startled, and he moves to apologize immediately. "we're getting you to bed, love. clearly you've had more alcohol than you can handle."

"what, was i wrong??" there's tears forming in your eyes, and your lips tug downwards in a frown. "u-uhm, fifteen? nno, four...?"

"still incorrect, love. i'm afraid it's time for you to go to sleep. you'll wake up with a hell of a hangover tomorrow morning, but..." he sighed, thinking back to his time in shneznaya, then made a mental note to prepare you a hangover drink in the morning. his hand found its familiar place in your hand, unnaturally warm with your skin rosy from the alcohol. he smiled, turning to glance at you, but ceased when he saw you on the ground, tears now falling from your eyes, quietly sobbing as you shook your head back and forth.

panic immediately sets in. what has he done wrong?? "love, what-"

"nnnno, don't call me that..." you squinted upwards at him, looking quite displeased. "no 'love', 'kaaay? i'm not your love, mister."

he paused. wait, you didn't possibly think that... "love-" oh, old habits died hard, and the word had already left his lips before he could process what you'd said.

"i have a husband, you!!" in some sort of fit, or perhaps better worded as a tantrum, you stood, wrenching yourself from his grip and then hitting him repeatedly in the shoulders, chest, anywhere your fists could reach, really. the alcohol had surely affected your capabilities of combat — you missed half the time, and what punches did land caused no pain at all.

as your anger subsided, your step faltered, body swaying in the open air before childe reached over to catch you in his arms. he was concerned, naturally. "lov- are you alright?" his worry only grew when he heard no response, but it ebbed with a chuckle when he saw you were already fast asleep in his arms, snoozing without a care in the world.

"a husband, hm? whoever it is, he must quite be the gentleman..."

ALHAITHAM knew his night was fated to end in idiocy the moment you knocked on his door.

it didn't even strike him that you were holding wine, of all things, when you waltzed into his house like it was your own. sure, it wasn't as if these occasions weren't frequent, but really anyone would be surprised to glance up from a quiet reading session only to see their (annoying) lover pressed against the door, repeatedly calling out his name in a sing-song, satire-like voice.

like... calling a cat. it was a realization he made with not too much contentment. silently, he thanked the archons that kaveh was not home — they knew that he could not handle the both of you.

it was only when you sat down at his table, where he'd been reading up to the point when you barged in, that he noticed. green-tinted glass, a little wind motif on the front... dandelion wine from mondstadt. now, just how did you get your hands on that?

"connections," you had stated. with a note of pride, he might add. what, was he supposed to congratulate you on being able to talk to other people? even he, a person who generally hated people, could do that.

ah, but he didn't hate it. your voice, that is, when you rambled on for hours on end. he didn't have the heart to interrupt you, especially when you were so heated on a topic — be it work troubles, an especially annoying sailor, or you accidentally dropping your pita pocket into the water when walking along the port, he didn't mind.

"...mmbottle. haaithammm, the bottle..." your drunk complaints reach his ears, and he his irritation is more so disrupted with inward amusement as he watches you in the predicament you've landed yourself in.

"the bottle?" he questions, raising an eyebrow. his hands are crossed over his chest; he's clearly getting a ruse out of this. "just what would you need the bottle for, love?"

your eyebrows scrunch together. he can tell your brain is working at its max capacity. "...im. thirsty?"

"you've already drunk two thirds of this bottle." he holds said bottle high above your head, hopelessly far from your reach. "if you're so thirsty, drink water."

"i don wanna."

"..."

"just... one drop?"

"hah..." he pinches the bridge of his nose, sighing deeply, and places a hand on your shoulder. you barely react, and don't even glance at the sudden weight. "love, you're staying over. you're going to bed."

"bed...?" horror crosses your face, paired with evident irritation. "y...you, who do you think you are, to suggest such things!?" your face is bright red, and you're hugging yourself with one arm and pointing an accusing finger towards the male with the other. "i have a husband!!"

ah. "...what's his name?"

"and why do youuuu want to know?" you narrow your eyes suspiciously at him, but seem to come up with an answer to your own question, for you answer him anyhow. "haitham."

"do you love this 'haitham'?" alhaitham's enjoying himself. when he teases the sober you, all you do is retort back, but now... he can see your flustered expression on full display as you stammer out an answer.

"o-of course! a-and, if you wanted to know, he's waaaaay handsomer.. than ... you..."

just like that, you topple over and sink into the couch, knocked unconscious. a trace of a smile crosses alhaitham's lips as he looks at your sleeping form.

"fortunately for you, this 'haitham' you speak of loves you too."

(a/n) bye i was gonna add kaveh to this one too but i realized oh fuck its white day i said id post a month ago what the fuck am i doing so i just like regurgitated this out and spat it onto your dashboard. ahodfjlds

tags (id paste the aesthetic thing but i cant find it so we're just gonna roll w this):

@manager-of-the-pudding-bank, @iamdedinside, @ilyuu, @ @falors, @swivy123, @scara-is-my-wife, @lupicalbestwolf, @justyoureader,@fiannee, @aether-darling, @ceneid, @avensuersa, @solxima

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sugume · 4 months

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CONJUGAL VISIT w/jujutsu Kiasen

Description: in which an inmate of a prison or jail is permitted to spend several hours or days in private with a visitors

More: Fem!Reader, explicit content, unprotected sex, some d/s dynamics with Toji, American prison system? (idk if other countries allow this lol?)

☾ Ryomen Sukuna

He's been in solitary for so long that you start to think you'll never see him again. He finally fixes his attitude enough to come in contact with others and eventually gets some visitation rights. Get used to having sex with him here because the guards inform you he isn't leaving for a long time.

“s’too much Kuna!” You whine into the flat pillow but your boyfriend Sukuna could care less and keeps pounding into you from behind.

“Think I care slut? Been away from this pussy for months now, shut up and take what I give you.” He grits out, pushing deeper into your back with one hand, fisting your hair with the other. He’d be damned if you tell him what to do after all this time away. Do you know how spineless he had to act in order to get this visit, on his ‘best behavior’, desperate to finally be able to sink in some cunt after being surrounded by irrelevant men and guards with their heads up their asses?

“Feels s’good,” you moan when Sukuna hits your special spot. “I’m gonna cum!”

“That fast slut, it hasn't even been ten minutes” He chuckles, leaning down to bite your shoulder.

“Missed you, ‘Kuna, c-cant cum ‘out you.”

“Can’t do shit without me, bet you can’t even function out there without me,” He groans in your hair, you don't understand half of what he’s saying you just nod mindlessly and slam your hips back on his cock.

“Then cum on my cock, whore.”

☾ Gojo Satoru

He's on a mission that requires him to go to jail. The prison warden is in on it, but that doesn't mean your boyfriend doesn't want to experience the "real deal." He convinces the warden to allow him weekly fuck sessions because he says he can't complete the mission without them.

“i-Im gonna cum ‘Toru!” you whine aloud, to far gone to be embarrassed that your boyfriend is fucking you on scratchy sheets in a bed that probably hasn’t been thoroughly cleaned in years or the fact that multiple other girls have probably been in the same position you’re in with other inmates, on the same bed.

“So tight love, haven't you been using your dildos in my absence?’ he questions as he thrusts into your glistening cunt. Watching as you throw your head back, tears running down your cheeks.

“They’re too small ‘Toru!” You wrap your legs around his hard ass trying to get him as deep as he can.

“Aww, they can't make you cum as hard as I can, can they love?” he pouts against your swollen lips. You shake your head furiously, listening to the sounds your squelching cunt makes when he thrust back in, his balls slapping hard against your ass.

“Think i'll ask if I can get out early on good behavior. I can't leave my girl unsatisfied now.” He chuckles before diving his tongue into your mouth.

☾ Toji Fushiguro

Your mans got locked up again! This isn't the first time, nor will it be the last. You don’t know how he convinces the guards to allow you to visit time and time again, but you won't complain. You always miss him when he's gone every few months. The guard just sighs when he sees you’re here for visitation again

“You miss me, little girl?” he grins, sticking thick fingers in your already sopping cunt. “You know I always miss you when you’re gone, daddy.” You gasp, your back hitting the cold concrete wall behind you when Toji curls into your g-spot.

“So so bad.” you whine, grinding your aching clit on his hard stomach, legs tightening around his slim waist when you find the perfect spot.

“You wanna cum little girl?” he asks while marking up your neck. He needs others to know you’re taken and if he can't be around you at the moment he’ll make it known another way.

“Yes Toji!” You scream.

“Yes what?” He stops his fingers.

“Yes daddy,” you whisper, moving your hips desperate to not lose the orgasm you were chasing. “Please make me come daddy, please!”

“That's what I thought little girl” He says before continuing his movements and biting down on your heavy bottom lip.

☾ Choso Kamo

Too ashamed that he ended up in prison to allow you to visit him for a while. After much reassurance from you that you don’t look at him differently he finally comes out of his shell and makes friends. Get’s out early on good behavior.

“You think someones watching?” You mumble, looking back at the camera in the corner of the dark lit room.

“F-fuck baby, don’t fuckin’ stop,” Choso whines, gripping your waist, trying to make you bounce on his stiff cock. ‘Who cares if they are, baby? They won’t touch.”

You turn back around and grin down at your boyfriend “mmm, isn't that how you got in here in the first place Choso, beating up a man for touching me?” You start grinding on his cock again.

“Do anything for you, baby.” He moans gripping your waist when your tight walls start squeezing down on him, trying hard not to bust a nut so quickly.

“Yeah,” you moan out, feeling his cock twitch in you. “Now you’re stuck in here for months away from me.” You pout and claw at his chest when Choso starts to bounce you on his cock. God, if only he didn’t beat that man up you’d have this every night.

“Worth it.” He looks up at the camera, imagining the security guard looking down at your ass recoil when he slams you down on his cock

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hikarry · 5 months

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It's the third time I read a fanfic where Crowley destroys his plants out of rage, and that actually had me thinking

Yes, he is hard on them. He yells, and the threatens and, well, "makes them go away"

But most of us must know by now that, every time he takes a plant away, he keeps it on the side until he gives it to his neighbor. It's canon, I'm not making that up. He never truly hurts the plants. Puts the fear of Crowley into them? Yes. Terrifies them? Absolutely. But physically hurt? I don't see it. He is way too soft for that, even in a fit of rage

The plants are, unconsciously, a mirror of himself. When he terrorizes the plants, he is reliving his trauma of not being good enough for Heaven and being tossed out like he was broken and useless over and over again

He treats the plants like Heaven and God treated him, and yet, he never truly destroys them or throws them in the trash for being disobedient or imperfect. That's a step too far. Instead, he finds them a new home. Some place better. Some place he wishes he also had found. And maybe he already did: Earth, with Aziraphale

Alas, all this to say: destroying the plants, even with his rage goggles on, it's not very him

Destroying furniture? Throwing shit at the walls? Screaming? Sure, I can see that.

So far, we've mostly seen a very controlled type of rage from Crowley, mainly aimed at Gabriel in season 2. The only scene of actually explosive active rage we see is the one where he, well... explodes in the middle of Soho

And even that was very controlled, if you think about it. He just lets it all out at once, and then the rage is gone, only the low-key depression (over fighting with bae) remaining

So, yeah, realistically, I can kinda see him breaking stuff if he is at the very end of his rope and with no other way to decompress but never ever hurting his plants. Au contraire, I believe he would turn to the plants when he comes out of the high of being furious in search of some quiet comfort

#good omens #crowley #aziraphale #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #david tennant #michael sheen #anthony j crowley

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ohbother2 · 4 months

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Lucifer x f!reader - Forced Proximity

PART II

PART I

This was supposed to come out at the weekend, but holy shit the previous part already has 1k likes so here you go a few days early.

This is just smut, no plot, you've been warned. Minors DNI.

Btw I'd love to hear your feedback! I'm not very experienced at this type of writing, so I'd love to know what you think!

(Srsly, thank you guys for the amount of love on the previous part, don't think I've ever had a piece of writing be so popular)

Tag list - @xx-all-purpose-nerd-xx

"You know," You complain, letting him guide your face back down towards him, you prop your weight on your hands either side of his head, not allowing him to pull you into another kiss quite so soon. "you could've let him leave the door open. I'd quite like to be able to see you."

His free hand slides down from its place against your shoulder blade, and he hums contemplatively as it slowly trails down your spine, finally resting on your hip. His eyes are heavy-lidded, and he looks as though he's struggling to focus.

"You can look at me later." He tries to crane his neck upward, but you're determined and turn your head slightly, his lips only finding the corner of your mouth. He groans in frustration.

Realising you weren't going to kiss him any time soon, he presses his lips against the side of your throat, giggling into your skin when you gasp in surprise. He doesn't stop though, and you feel his fangs graze against your jugular teasingly.

"Are you not uncomfortable?" Both of his hands are now on your thighs, rocking you gently.

"God, no." He mumbles against your throat, too distracted with covering the areas of sparse unblemished skin he had glimpsed when the cupboard had been opened. "I'm very happy here."

"We could've gone somewhere with more room." Your eyes close, sinking into his touch as he peppers kisses along your collarbone. You start moving your hips lightly to join his movements. He exhales deeply, one palm pressing against the small of your back to press you down onto him.

"And where would we be?" His voice is quiet, husky, and muffled against your shoulder. The question was non-commital, not expecting you to answer.

"Your desk."

He inhales sharply and his claws dig into your thighs painfully, you feel him stop breathing beneath you. His lips detach from your neck and when you glance down his wide eyes are staring straight at you, suddenly far more alert.

"Y-You," His voice audibly cracks, mind reeling at the images that assaulted him. Images that he had been burying for the past several years. He almost feels sad; he definitely should've made a move sooner. You smile at how strained he is, voice an octave higher than it should've been. His trousers were suddenly painfully tight. "should stop talking."

"Flustered?" You hum cheekily, a hand resting against the side of his face, fingers carding through his disheveled locks as you lean impossibly closer, teasing him with a kiss. His head tilts with your hand hopelessly, and you watch his eyes flutter. Your lips graze against his own and a high-pitched pathetic little sound catches in his throat. Your lips ghost away from his own, across his cheek, and finally press firmly against the crook of his jaw.

"No." He breathes deeply, but his composure falters again when one of your hands slithers between your bodies, tugging gently at his belt. He was a bad liar. "But you keep talking like that-" He gasps, high and airy, as you slowly pull the zipper down his front, fingers grazing generously at the tent in his boxers. "and this'll end before it even begins." His voice pitches and warbles when you lick a line up from the hickey you had been leaving at the juncture between his throat and shoulder.

Your hand rests teasingly against his waistband, a finger slipping just below the hem and pulling playfully. He whines, a hand gripping your hair and pulling your face up to meet him. "Please," He gasps as another one of your fingers teases at the band of his boxers. You can feel his knees spread behind you, allowing room for you to press against his upper thighs. "kiss me."

He was staring at you desperately, the hand in your hair beckoning you closer, but not forcing. Oh how you wished you could see his expression, and you wanted to punish him for not allowing the door to remain open. You catch a glimpse of his furrowed brows, barely visible in the dim light that emanated from his big eyes, and you bite your lip thoughtfully.

"Sweetheart, I'll beg if you want." You didn't doubt it, leaving your fingers pressing against his quivering stomach.

"Next time," You instruct, and you can see the way his eyes flash red at the prospect before settling back to their amber hue. "I choose where, even if that means you have to wait."

"Anything." The word is half whispered, half mumbled against your lips as you finally lean down. He doesn't waste any time, hand gripping your hair tight and forcing you closer, guiding your head to tilt to the side and forcing your lips to open. His tongue snakes its way back into your mouth, and you have to grip his hair for stability, barely able to reciprocate the bruising force of the kiss, never mind keep up. He groans again at your fingers against his scalp, he hums something incoherent, and you're only allowed a second to gasp for breath before he's pulling you in again.

You were too distracted to notice the way his free hand slithered down your body, gracefully unbuttoning and unzipping your trousers. You were even too distracted to notice the way his fingers had pulled at your underwear, but you do notice when a cool finger presses exactly where you needed it to. You moan into his mouth, and you can feel his lips smile as he rubs a small tight circle over your bundle of nerves. "Luci." You whimper as he pulls back for a breath, your damp foreheads pressed together as you try and steady your heart. He pulls you back into a kiss, muffling a whimper when two of his fingers push deeper, gliding easily against your wet folds, pressing against your entrance as his palm rubs against your clit.

"This wet already for me?" He tries to sound seductive, but the breathlessness of his chest and panting of his breath betrays him. "I've barely touched you, love." A fingertip presses in lightly, and your legs spread wider invitingly, but he pulls back to circle two fingers against your peak. He swallows your whine with another breathless kiss.

You writhe on top of him, and his hips jerk involuntarily when you plead his name against his lips. One finger finally breaches your entrance, sliding in easily, and you rut against his hand to speed up the agonisingly slow pace he was taking.

Lucifer had been playing along, grinning against your lips and flexing his fingers enticingly, showing you what he could do but not quite giving you a pace that would accomplish anything. He glides a second up alongside his first finger, and his own moan catches in his throat at the way you tighten around him. You mewl at the pleasurable stretch. Truthfully, he had been thinking ever since you had made your comment about his desk, and the many ideas he had come up with on his own whilst sat there pining after you. He had an idea. He wasn't going to let you interrupt this plan.

His fingers suddenly pull away, leaving you empty and confused, chest heaving as you sit up, staring down at him.

"Off." He pats at your thighs, tugging at your trousers and shimmying them as far as they would go. The smile in his voice was palpable, but you didn't question his sudden giddiness, lifting your hips to help him. It was a little awkward with the small space you both had, but you eventually wiggle free of the tight garment, underwear following in a heap in the corner.

You sit back against him, completely bare on your lower half whilst your top still bunched around your elbows. You lower yourself all the way, folds pressing against the tent in his boxers and grinning wickedly. He doesn't react as you'd hoped though, staring up at you with large shining eyes, admiration in their depths, as well as something else you couldn't quite distinguish, something a little more, mischievous.

Without warning he thrusts his hips up, and you nearly crash into his chest at the sudden forceful jerk. His hands grasp your bare ass firmly, claws digging into the supple flesh. You're so impossibly close to his face you can just make out the grin adorning his features.

"What are you-" You go to sit back against his hips, but his hands stop you, forcing you up instead of down. His own breathing had picked up in anticipation. You hover above him, not sure what he wanted you to do.

"Come on, sweetheart." The words slip from his lips fast and energetic, and his strong arms pull you higher up his torso, now hovering above his sternum. "I promise it'll be worth it."

"Wha-" Realisation hits you like a freight train and your breath leaves you horribly quickly. You had never done this before, and you most definitely had never had someone excitedly trying to yank you up their body. "Luci- I-I don't-"

"Please?" He pleads, and you twitch when he turns his head to place a quick peck against the inside of your knee.

"You want to-?

He doesn't even let you finish. "Yes." His hands tug you closer, inch by inch, and you tentatively let yourself be risen. "I wasn't lying earlier; would've been on my knees for hours."

The way his voice had taken on a whiny pitch had you clenching around nothing in particular, struggling to believe such a powerful man was here, on his back, desperately trying to persuade you to- to- you couldn't fathom it.

"I've never done this before." You hesitate, your nerves growing in the pit of your stomach as you stare down at his bright eyes. If you could see anything in this darkness, you'd see his ear-splitting grin and the way his tongue flicked against his lips as he positioned you. You'd also notice the way his cheeks and chest had flushed feverishly once he had realised you were actually going to let him do this. Instead, you focussed unwaveringly on his bright eyes, which constantly flicked between your face and the growing heat between your thighs.

Something in his chest jumps, knowing he'd be the first to do this to you. His mounting resolve had just solidified, you were most definitely not getting out of this now. You hover direction above him and he places a clawed hand on either of your thighs, gently coaxing you down.

"Perfect," Some of his cocky self had come back now that he was finally getting what he wanted, and his hot breath fans across your thighs as you slowly lower down, your hands grasping the shelves above your head to stabilise yourself. "just let me take care of you."

You pause your decent when you feel his hair ticking at your thighs, and he takes the opportunity to turn his head slightly to the side, immediately pressing a hot open-mouthed kiss against your inner thigh. You gasp, fingers clenching around the shelf above you, as he sucks your skin into his mouth, teeth grazing over the sensitive skin. He hums, slowly licking and kissing his way towards your core. He presses a delicate kiss against your heat, and you automatically lurch upwards, but his grip around your thighs prevents you from moving at all.

You breathe deeply, and his eyes connect with yours, gently but forcefully pulling you closer.

"it's okay, sit."

You comply, albeit hesitantly, worrying for his head when he pulls you closer, your thighs flush against either side of his rosy face. You stare down at him, wide-eyed, as he stares back. Without warning another kiss presses against your folds, and you jerk again, but he had been anticipating it and his hands flex against you, rooting you in your spot and digging deliciously into the flesh of your upper thighs and hips. He kisses again, and again, each one lengthening and growing more sloppy. You pant above him and he watches your expression gleefully, finally suckling your little bud into his mouth. You jerk as he presses his forked tongue against your most sensitive spot, and a moan heaves from your chest when he grazes his teeth against you, lavishing that one particular spot with unfaltering enthusiasm.

Just as you begin to whine, hips twitching at the ministrations, he shifts lower, long tongue lolling from his mouth and licking a decisive stripe up against your entire length, parting your folds and gathering your juices on his tongue. You moan his name sinfully, and he whines, hips raising against nothing as his tongue finally delves its way into you, slithering inside your walls and licking up into your heat. You gasp in surprise: his tongue was long, sinfully so, and its forked edge delved deep as he explored.

His claws grip you tighter as you shift around, pinning your hips in place as his tongue presses against that special spot inside of you. You whine, and you can feel his teeth press against your opening as he grins, a mumbled "found it" lost against your damp flesh, tongue licking harder against that spot. His eyes close completely, brows furrowing as he concentrates, sinking into the floor and making sure to drag your hips down with him.

"Oh- Luci-" You gasp, fingers tightening against the shelf as he withdraws his tongue, sucking your clit back into his mouth like a man starved. He uses his forearms to make sure your hips stay down, hands coming to grasp the insides of your thighs and forcing them to stay apart as they threatened to twitch close. He hums against you, and the sounds of his lips against your core is downright sinful; you spread your thighs further and he groans when he realises he can reach more of you with his mouth.

"Yes, hngh, yes-" You moan, hips beginning to grind down to meet his tongue. "There-!"

"mhm" He hums in acknowledgement beneath you, grasp tightening on your thighs as he abuses your clit. His own chest was heaving as he worked, and his forehead creased as he concentrates, swirling his tongue in circles and sucking just the right amount before it became painful.

He cracks one eye open, suddenly incredibly aware of the lack of your hands against him, and he follows your twisting torso up, frowning at seeing you grip the shelving unit above his head. He doesn't stop, tongue continuing to lick its fiery trail against you, and his eye closes again as he lifts his hands from your thighs, travelling up the length of your body.

You shiver at the contact, head thrown back and eyes flickering wildly behind your eyes as you continued to grind down against him. You feel his hands travel up your shoulder blades, down your biceps, your forearms, coming to rest against your wrists with a tight grip. You allow him to pull your hands away from the shelf, and your eyes open as he draws them down to his hair, tugging them against the strands and tangling your fingers in his locks before his own claws are settling around your thighs again.

Had he just wanted you to touch him? You wonder, though it was hard to form a coherent thought as his tongue thrust into you. Experimentally, your fingers tighten against his blonde locks, and he moans hoarsely, teeth grazing your folds as he drags you impossibly closer.

This new position allowed to you to glance between your arms at his face, and you pause confused when no dim light meets you. Then, your core clenches as you realise what he was doing. You couldn't see his eyes. He had closed his eyes. The realisation has your own eyes rolling to the back of your head and your fingers tighten against his hair, pulling painfully at the roots. He whines, a high-pitched cracking groan, hips jerking up voluntarily.

He carries on working his tongue against you until you dissolve into a panting mess, sweat beading down your forehead as you hips jerk against his mouth, that familiar tight coil winding quickly in the pit of your stomach. You moan weakly as he continues to abuse your cunt, and the muscles in your thighs tighten as you feel that coil suddenly tighten to its capacity.

"Luci." You warn, hands tugging at his locks so tightly that he opens his eyes to gaze up at you, a bleary pair of ruby eyes looking up at you questioningly. "S-stop, I'm close."

"nuh-uh" He hums against you, eyes slipping closed as his hands fasten their hold around you. His tongue leaves your entrance, your clit once again finding itself in his mouth as he sucks harshly. You got the message: 'no chance'.

"Luci!" Your voice raises a pitch, and your hands pull so tightly against his scalp that it hurts; he whimpers, hips shifting as he continues his ruthless pace against your heat.

"W-wait, shit-" You gasp uselessly, teetering on the edge of losing complete control. Lucifer seems to realise, and he pulls out a move that he'd been saving. His mouth opens as wide as it would allow, and his tongue slithers out and into your folds, immediately pressing against your g-spot as his upper lip closes around your clit, working the small bud between his upper lip and the base of his tongue. The double stimulation has all air forced from your lungs, and it only takes one press of his tongue against your g-spot before your crashing down from that blissful tightness. Your toes curl as he licks against your spasming walls, claws lightly breaking your skin as he wrestles your thighs to stay apart. He moans into you and you see stars, hips faltering as you let him do as he pleases.

You can't form words as he guides you through your orgasm, body tight and hunched forward, his head grasped tightly between your hands as you moan and whimper. "God." You groan as he grazes his fangs against you clit, sparks shooting up your entire spine at the oversensitivity.

When it finally ends you slump forward tiredly, hands still knotted into his hair as he presses one last longing kiss against you. He guides you down his chest with his hands until you lay flat against his chest, breathing ragged and core fluttering as you try and regain your bearings.

"Good, sweetheart?" Lucifer hums against your temple, but you can hear the shit-eating grin in his breathy voice, and you just know the he knows he was good.

"Yes." You mutter, placing a kiss at the base of his throat as you breathe deeply, heart rate beginning to come back down. "Absolutely amazing, Luci."

You can feel him shift at the compliment, a breath catching in his throat, and you arch a brow inquisitively. You prop yourself back up, and immediately place your lips over his, kissing him deeply and taking him by surprise. You can feel the wetness that coated his chin and lips, and a hand against the side of his face tells you he was practically covered in you, the skin damp and warm beneath your touch. He grunts against your lips, returning the kiss with as much excitement.

"You were so good to me." You hush against his lips when you pull away, and you grin when his breath hitches and his pupils dilate. You had him.

"We can't leave you like this, can we? Not after you were so good." You grin more when he gulps, hands landing on your hips when you shimmy down his torso, pressing your soaking heat against his still clothed, painfully-hard erection.

"Am I that easy to read?" He questions through deep breaths, a hand tucking a stray piece of hair behind your ear.

"Just to me. I did notice how you always got so flustered at compliments." You reveal, pressing a kiss to the corner of his mouth.

You turn awkwardly, straddling him backwards as you make quick work of his trousers and boxers. You tuck your hands into the waistband and gently tug down, unable to really see what you were doing so moving carefully not to accidentally hurt something. He lifts his hips to help you, and hisses when the cool cupboard air finally reaches his throbbing cock.

Unbeknownst to you, he had grown impatient as you struggled with his hips, and pushed himself up by his elbows to gain more access to you whilst you finished sorting his trousers. You feel him kissing the back of your thigh as you push them past his knees, and you have to force yourself to breath as you finish pulling them down to his ankles.

You pull away from his reaching hands which had tried to tug you back towards his face, swatting at him playfully as you turn and reposition yourself.

"Can't blame a guy for trying." You can hear his smile as he rests back, his hands sliding up your thighs and resting against your hips, thumbs pressing into the divot of your hipbone.

You could hear his deep puffs of breath in the darkness, still trying to recover from the energy he had used when treating you, and you decide that you wanted to work him up a bit more before you rewarded him in return.

"I really wish you'd let him leave the door open." You start complaining again, resting against his thighs instead of his hips, a hand running slowly down his sternum and tickling the sticky skin that quivered under your touch. "I want to see how pretty you look like this."

He stares at you from the darkness, utterly dumb-founded, mouth agape and his breath quickening.

"Trust me, I'm a mess." He forces out a nervous chuckle, but you can feel the way his fingers flex at the compliment, and your confidence only grows.

"I don't think so." You slide your palms up either of his sides, feeling the way his lungs expand as you slowly wind your arms behind his neck, drawing yourself down closer until you can feel his nose brush against your own. "I bet you look gorgeous. More handsome than you usually look, and I can barely keep my eyes off of you normally, you're just such a pretty boy."

"W-What?" He questions quietly, breathing deep when you tilt your head and kiss against the shell of his ear. His hands fall slack against your thighs, too enraptured by your words to bother to control your movements.

"Hmm," You hum, and your warm breath against his ear has him shivering. You kiss just beneath his ear, whispering huskily. "Such a handsome man. The most powerful man in Hell, and yet he's beneath me, eager to please, letting me do whatever I want, being so good."

His cheeks burst into a fiery red at your compliments whispered against the shell of his ear, chest almost caving in with the way he struggles for breath. All he can think of is you, all he can feel is you: your hands resting against his chest and against his throat, your lips and tongue peppering their way along his angular jaw, your hair brushing his forehead as you move closer.

Your hand sneaks down his chest lazily, finally grazing against his throbbing member resting heavy against his stomach. He stutters when your fingers graze against him, and you grin into the skin on his jaw when you feel how damp he is, pre-cum covering his length and puddling across his stomach. He was already fully mast, and you hadn't even had to touch him.

"Eager?" You question, hand finally wrapping around him as he pulls you in for a heated kiss, whining into your mouth when you give a leisurely stroke, thumb swiping across his slit. His hips jerk at the small action and he bites at your lips when you grip him firmer, pulling once, twice.

"You're the Devil." He gasps against your lips, tongue already flicking out to lick across your bottom lip, fully intending to pull you into another kiss.

"I think you'll find that's actually you."

You let him snake his way into your cavern, tongue filling your mouth as you shift your hips, stroking his cock agonisingly slowly, coaxing him into position without him even knowing. You take him by surprise when he feels his tip pressing against your opening, and his eyes shoot open with his tongue still mid-way towards your throat. You grin against his lips as you sink down, sheathing him in one steady rock of your hips. A pathetic little sound screeches in his throat, eyes screwing shut at the pleasurable pressure and hands regaining their death-like grip on your hips. He whimpers against your lips when you rock your hips again, beginning to set a slow, steady rhythm.

"Oh- oh, darling." He whines the pet-name through clenched teeth, hips jerking erratically as you try and find a rhythm.

You loved the little sounds he made, and you decide to let him know, carding a hand through his tussled locks, breathing against his lips. "Such pretty little noises."

You catch a glimpse of his eyes rolling back before they're hidden behind lilac-hued eyelids, a pitiful whimper rewarding your compliment, and his hips slowly begin to match your rhythm. You attempt to sit up, to really take control, but his hand at the crook of your neck prevents you from pulling too far away from him, and he grasps desperately when he realises your attempt to pull away. You could pull away if you really wanted to, plant your hands on his chest and begin setting the pace you wanted, but his needy little whines and the way he clung to your neck has you leaning forward and succumbing to the slow and steady rhythm.

It didn't take long for Lucifer to become a panting whimpering mess, not with the way your walls clung to him so achingly, hips rolling against him in such a deliciously delightful way, and lips meeting his own like an unholy prayer.

"C-close." He warns, gasping against your lips and continuing to raise his hips to meet yours. Both of his hands grasp your hips, but he allows you to set the pace, clinging on for stability more so than control.

"It's okay, Luci." You assure him, grinding harder as you edge him towards release.

"No." You feel him shake his head, hair swishing against your jaw as he licks and sucks at your throat. A hand leaves your hip and circles around to your front, thumb pressing harshly into your sensitive clit and circling it, hard. "'m not done with you yet."

You feel his thighs spread behind you, his feet planting firmly on the floor as he thrusts harder than before, pummelling that pleasant spot inside of you with renewed urgency. He was close; he couldn't cum before you did again.

"Luci," You gasp in surprise, hands fighting to find purchase and ultimately finding their way back into his hair. The rest of your sentence dies in your throat, his thumb circling harshly against your sensitive bundle of nerves, his cock drawing pleasure from the deepest parts within.

"Come on, sweetheart, please just one more. For me." His voice was a wreck, a plea muttered between gasps and chocked-back whimpers. It was the gentlest, and yet most sultry thing you had ever heard. His desperation was palpable, his throat tight, the muscles in his neck and chest rigid, his toes curling inside his shoes as he tried to fight back the pleasure rapidly building in his stomach.

"I-I-" You don't think you can until the very last second where his dick hits that deep spot inside of you in one particularly hard thrust, and then your vision blotches around the edges as pleasure sparks from the tips of your fingers all the way to the soles of your feet, your spine rigid and hips stuttering as you moan and pant. Your body shakes with pleasure, and Lucifer silences your cries of ecstasy with his lips sealing over yours, brows furrowing as he continues to rub tight little circles over the centre of your pleasure.

Your walls flutter and spasms around him, and Lucifer grunts and groans as he tries to fight back his own high, both hands falling back to your hips as he tries to concentrate, brows knitted together and mouthing thoughtlessly against your lips. You had no chance to recover from your own orgasm, his hips stuttering up into your with a frantic urgency, thrusts sloppy and out of rhythm. His resolve completely shatters when you decide to sink your teeth into his bottom lip, and then his voice is breaking and his hips are humping pathetically as his own orgasm crashes over him.

Some attempt at your name is whimpered against your rouge lips, his arms encircling your waist fully as he pumps into you once, twice, hard aborted thrusts attempted on shaking legs. When he's finally spent, with nothing more to give, he pulls away from your lips, forehead pressing heavily against your own as he gasps in a shuddering breath, panting pathetically and gazing at you with blurred eyes.

His arms don't fall from your waist as he sinks back into the cool ground, all muscles in his body lax, the aftershocks of pleasure thrumming through his weary muscles. You lay flat against his heaving chest, fighting to catch your own breath, beginning to feel the bruising muscle of your thighs, continuing to straddle him, neither one of you wanting to pull away.

"Sweetheart," His voice is rough, and he has to clear his throat before he continues. A hand slowly slides up and down your spine as he talks, clawed fingers gentle and delicate as you shiver at the sensation. "if I'm ever as dumb as I have been for the past six years, I want you to shoot me."

You giggle at how serious he sounds, tilting your head to look up at him. His eyes are upturned towards the ceiling.

"I mean it. Can't believe I waisted so much time with you because I was scared." He laughs around the last word, embarrassed and not quite believing his own sheer stupidity.

"You were scared?" You question quietly, a finger tracing an imaginary pattern against his side, your eyes closed to the world as you breathe deeply.

"Of course, look at you: you're so fun, so happy, absolutely perfect at everything you do. Hell, you even join in with my lame jokes and terrible dancing. You're too good to be true, especially down here."

"If it makes a difference, I could've acted, but I was scare too."

The cupboard falls into silence for a moment, nothing but the sounds of your slowing breathing filling the silence. His palms slide up your back slowly, claws grazing the skin lightly, teasingly, repeating the motion along the expanse of your back and hips, again and again.

"There's plenty of time to make up for lost time, we've got forever." You mumble against his chest, sighing as both of his hands massage over the bruises he had unwittingly left across your thighs. Your tone turns cheeky, and you pick your head up to look at him properly. "How long do you think we have left in here?"

He seems to take the hint, gaze snapping down towards you. You grin when you see his eyes brighten in the darkness. "Give me five minutes."

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