#exerted... myself.... more than intended........
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Hhhghnn
Yeah totally take a break and unwind after completing a big piece! By. Grossly underestimating how much fucking work is gonna go into making Plush Body, ultimately defeating the Initial Goal of Taking a Break after Big Piece
#i got. a torso. and a concept. for one [1] leg.#the torso was a mock up/trial and error thing as well but by god if it's usable. i'm using it.#the leg is def too mangled and messy though i'm gonna have to make a new one#it's not alfonse hair levels of catastrophy and disaster but. man. i was supposed to be chillin#exerted... myself.... more than intended........#and feel like i've got nothing to show for it 😭😭😭😭😭😭#i am never gonna streamline making plushies i don't think. i am SO messy w it#i need. to take a nap now#SAD.
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Off The Deep End
Word count: 12.8k words
Summary: Harry is scared of how much he feels and goes about it like a fucking idiot.
Warnings: There is smut. Nothing too crazy
This one has taken me forever to write and it got way longer than i intended it to. But I'm absolutely in love with them and I hope you guys like them too. But be nice to them please. They're my babies.
But I hope you like it anyway. And if you wanna read more of my work, I have it all linked on my masterlist.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated and if you have any requests please feel free to give them to me and I will do my absolute best to do it.
Amber
“Fuck. Just like that, baby.”, Harry praises, dropping his forehead to my neck. His harsh breaths hit my sweaty skin making a shiver travel down my spine as I ride him. The need to make him feel good drowned out the burning in my thighs from the exertion.
As long as he feels good it doesn’t matter.
Burying my fingers in his damp hair, I hold onto it as if my life depends on it, the moans falling from my lips loud and unrestrained as I feel that pressure in my tummy starts to build.
With my thighs straddling him, knees digging into the mattress below us, Harry keeps his hands on my hips to guide them to his liking as he kneads the flesh of my ass. The low moans and whimpers of pleasure he lets out only fuel my own.
His hair is messy from how much I’ve pulled on it. Skin flushed and gleaming with sweat. The crease between his eyebrows is deeper than normal and his red, swollen lips are parted with needy moans.
My eyes flutter when I feel Harry place a hot open-mouthed kiss on the base of my neck before he starts sucking on the sensitive skin. Sharp stings of pain travel down my spine as he nips at the skin before gliding his tongue over it to soothe it again. It has me clenching and fluttering around his dick as I feel the unmistakable feeling of my orgasm growing as my hips falter in their work and I struggle to keep lifting myself up.
Harry must notice because he flips us so he’s on top, my head hitting the pillows next to where his just laid all without slipping out of me. And he picks up right where I left off, pulling out almost all the way so that just the tip of his cock is left inside of me before he slams his hips in, filling me all the way to the brim.
The new angle has me choking on a breath as he hits that spot that makes my toes curl and my eyes squeeze shut.
Harry supports his weight on his arms, his body hovering just above my own as he drops his sweaty forehead to mine. It feels like his eyes are staring right into my soul, pupils blown out from lust. “That feel good, baby? You like it when I fuck you like this, yeah?” His voice is deep and raspy and dripping with desire
I don’t even get the chance to answer him, interrupted by a harsh groan as he delivers an extra hard thrust that has my eyes rolling into the back of my head.
That should be answer enough.
The sound of skin slapping against skin is sinful enough. But the things Harry is saying in my ear could come straight from the devil himself.
“Fuck.”, I cry out when Harry shifts all his weight over to his left arm, attaching his thumb to my clit and rubbing it in fast, precise circles. It feels like too much and I’m gripping Harry’s shoulders as if I would float away if I let go when the intense pleasure that’s lighting my skin on fire makes it hard to breathe. Almost as if the air is too thin.
“Harry. I’m gonna-”, I try to warn him, but I’m cut off by my own moan. I don’t last as long as I would normally from all the teasing Harry has been doing all day. I’m defenceless against the fireworks just waiting to go off and make the sky bright with all the colours of the rainbow. And he knows it.
The dazed half-smirk on his face says it all as he nods, “I know, baby. Let go. Cum all around my cock. I need it.”
That’s all it takes and I’m toppling over the edge with Harry’s name on my tongue like a never-ending prayer. My cunt spasms and my body trembles with the blinding orgasm that makes my ears ring and my vision go white.
I’m so far up in the clouds I barely even register Harry’s thrusts faltering as he reaches his high not long after me.
When I’ve come down from my orgasm, it’s with Harry laying on top of me. Our bodies as close as they could physically be.
Still not opening my eyes, I run my fingers up his back, finding comfort in how warm and soft his skin is. The heat that spreads across my cheeks when I feel him smile against my neck makes me grateful that he can’t see my face right now.
I find myself not wanting this moment to ever end. Perfectly content just basking in post-orgasmic bliss and the warmth of Harry’s body. There have been times I’ve thought things couldn’t possibly get any better than they are. This moment right here might just take first place on the list though.
“You feel good?”, Harry breaks the silence, bringing me out of my head and placing a small kiss on my shoulder as he lifts himself up.
“Mhm.”, I hum, the tiredness from our activities settling in my body. “Really good.”
Even though I knew it was coming, I still can’t help the whimper from sensitivity when he pulls out. “I know, darling. I’m sorry.”
I feel his breath on my face as the mattress dips next to my head, telling me that he is hovering above me again. “Look at me.”
“No.” I shake my head, a small smile tugging at the corners of my mouth, tucking my bottom lip into my mouth when his nose bumps against mine. An explosion of butterflies erupts in my stomach from the gesture.
Harry kisses the tip of my nose, then both my cheeks before he results to pepper kisses all over my face until I’m full-on laughing, opening my eyes to find him looking down at me with a cheesy smile on his face that has his dimples carving into his cheeks. “There she is.”
The words on the tip of my tongue falter at the next thing that comes from his; “You’re so damn beautiful.”
There isn’t a hint of sarcasm or irony. Just honesty. And dare I say affection?
If I wasn’t so tired right now, I might have started running around my apartment, screaming like a crazy woman.
Cupping the sides of his face, stroking his soft, glowing cheeks with the pads of my thumbs as my gaze switches between his eyes. Taking in the gentle green with speckles of gold so beautiful and delicate my breath gets caught in my throat all over again.
“You’re a special kind of beautiful too.”, I whisper, eyes widening in slight panic when I realise I said it out loud. That is not what I meant to say. It has my heart picking up in my chest as I search for any sign that I fucked up.
My anxieties prove to be without merit when the initial look of surprise on his face is washed away by a gleaming close-lipped smile, his bunny teeth digging into his bottom lip.
An emotion I can’t quite decipher flickers through his twinkling eyes before he dips down and connect out lips in a soft, tender kiss that has my eyes fluttering close. The kind of kiss that doesn’t lead anywhere.
It’s new and unlike the kisses we’ve shared in the time we’ve known each other. But I can’t lie and say that it doesn’t have a new kind of warmth glowing around my heart.
As terrifying as it is, it’s also something I find myself craving to feel again the second he pulls away.
The sound of my alarm is what pulls me out of my deep sleep.
Drowsily and blindly, I fumble around my nightstand for where the horrible noise is coming from so I can make it fucking stop.
After a few seconds of enjoying the silence, I notice the cold, empty mattress my arm is spread out on. Cold enough for it to have been unoccupied for quite some time now.
The realisation has me sitting up quickly, suddenly wide awake as I struggle to make out anything in the dark room. The only sound I can hear is the rustling of my sheets and my own breathing.
Although the smell of him is still lingering in the air, he’s not wrapped up in the duvet next to me anymore.
My stomach sinks in disappointment and confusion.
But instead of letting myself sit and overthink it, I throw the covers off my body, shuddering as the cold air meets the bare skin of my legs. I wrap my arms around myself as I get out of bed and pad on bare feet across the floor in the dark.
I need my morning pee.
However, I’m stopped in my tracks when I spot the post-it note stuck to my bathroom mirror just after I close the door behind me.
Nearly tripping over my feet, I snatch the yellow paper off the reflective surface, squinting my tired eyes as I make out the words written in messy handwriting.
Morning, sleepy head. Sorry to run out on you like this. Let me make it up to you? I’ll call you after you get home today.
Love, H
-
3 weeks later
I’ve never really been the type of girl who gets attached.
Never in my twenty-four years of life have I walked around and waited for a boy to call me back. Reaching for my phone the second the screen lights up with a notification only to have my heart drop to my stomach when I once again discover that it’s not who I hoped it was.
“No, Bon. It wasn’t just sex. I really liked him. And I thought he likes me too.”, I sigh, already prepared for the lecture sitting at the tip of her tongue.
And she gives it. “You know I love you, but I think maybe you should let this go. I don’t know him, but I do know you. Babe, you haven’t opened up to a guy ever since Dan. We both know what happened there and I just don’t think that having the first man you let in should be someone who will just ghost you for three weeks- What I mean is that you deserve someone who doesn’t hurt you like he’s obviously doing.”
“I’m not saying that you should just forget about Harry. Because you obviously feel something for him if you’re telling me about his eyelashes.” I laugh at that because she’s right. “I just don’t want you to take another six years to open your heart up again if he breaks it.”
“He said he would call me.” I cringe at how pathetic I sound.
Bonnie sighs, “I know. I wish I was there so I could kick his ass.” “You wouldn’t.”
“Get me a plane ticket and I’ll prove it to you.” I nearly drop the lid of my coffee cup to the floor from how aggressive she sounds. If it weren’t for the fact that I know that Bonnie is the sweetest person on this planet and would never hurt a fly, I would have believed her. “I’m sure you would.”
“Don’t you have to go now?”, she asks, effectively changing the topic. And looking at the time, she is again, absolutely right. I should’ve been out the door three minutes ago.
“Shit!”, I curse. “Ok, bye Bon. I love you.” I blow her a kiss and press the red hang-up button once she’s said goodbye too.
Practically ripping my coat off the hook, I stuff my feet into my black converse, figuring I’ll tie them later as the bottom of my black, mom jeans cover the tops of the shoes. Sliding my purse over my shoulder, coat folded over my forearm and tucked to my stomach as I close the door to my apartment behind me.
Once I’m sure the door is locked, checking the handle two times, I jog down the dark, dirty green carpeted floor of the hallway where the same carpet covers the steps of the staircase the next two floors down.
The chilly, autumn wind hits my face, and hands the seconds I push open the tired, wooden front door to my apartment complex. The wind even seeps through the thin material of the white cotton shirt I put on under my favourite chocolate brown and beige sweater vest.
Thankfully, my car is parked just on the other side of the road.
I had hoped that the twenty-minute drive to the school would give me enough time to get my head sorted and a certain someone out of it. And it worked until one of his fucking songs started playing.
It had completely slipped my mind that they were on the playlist I was listening to.
The urge I’d had to cry the second his voice seeped into my ears and made every cell in my body vibrate with the allure and grace he sang with isn’t ok. It’s like he put his own special kind of magic into every single note. Every lyric.
The same kind of magic that laced every kiss and every touch he laid on my skin.
It’s that magic that’s been haunting me.
This whole day, I haven’t been able to think about anything else. My mind hasn’t been on my pupils like it should, but on him and the magic he made me feel.
Thank God, they were all angels today and worked on their essays like they were supposed to and talked quietly amongst themselves.
During fourth period I found myself wondering what kind of student Harry was.
Was he the quiet, studious type who kept to himself or was he the one who always raised his hand? Maybe he was the kid that would always try to make everyone laugh. Did he get good grades or was he barely scraping by? The only thing I’m sure about is that there is no way he was a bully.
The possibility of that is as big as the possibility of me becoming a mega-rich actress tomorrow. Less than one percent.
I don’t know if it’s the fact that Harry is the first man I’ve been with who has been truly good that has me in such a twist over him. But it could definitely be a factor in my current struggle.
As I twist the key in the ignition, turning the car on after finishing up everything I needed to do at school, I wonder whether I hate it or just strongly dislike it.
I’m going to need longer than twenty minutes to figure that out.
Harry
“I think I fucked up, mate.”
Sprawled on top of my unmade bed with my eyes trained on the white ceiling and my phone by my ear, I wait for the ‘No you didn’t, don’t be stupid.’ But it doesn’t come.
“Um.”, Mitch starts. “Fucked up what?”
Right. I’ve only walked around thinking about it constantly like a psychopath for three weeks without saying a word about it to anyone.
That would have defeated the purpose of this whole thing.
But now I’m at the point where I can’t even remember why I decided to do this in the first place.
“Remember that girl I told you about?”, I ask, chewing on the inside of my cheek.
“The one from the plane? Amber, was it?”
I shouldn’t automatically smile at the mention of her name. But there is no denying that she has a beautiful one. Nowhere near as beautiful as she is, but beautiful nonetheless. “Yeah, that’s her.”
“What did you do now?” I haven’t even told him what I think I fucked up, and he sounds done with me already.
Before I open my mouth, I take a second to gather my thoughts. “I don’t even know why I did it anymore. It was going really well. She was everything I ever fucking dreamed of. Man, her laugh did things to me. And just the way she spoke about her students. You can tell that she truly cares about those kids.”
I remember when I’d asked her about her job, she had spoken so passionately about it. But the thing that stood out to me was that she the first thing she spoke about wasn’t what she got out of it or why she loved it specifically. No. She went on about how bright the kids truly are and went into detail about them individually. I’m not even sure how long I listened to her talk about these kids I hadn’t even met. But I would have happily done it for hours just to see the way her eyes shone.
But for Mitch’s sake, I skip over all of that and get to the part where I probably blew it.
“Like, three weeks ago. I fell asleep at her place even though I knew I was going to the studio early the next morning. I stayed as long as I could. Then left a note saying I would call her. And I was going to.”
I pause and my stomach twists painfully with guilt. Now that I’m about to admit it out loud, makes me truly realize how fucking shitty this was.
“You didn’t call her, did you?” Mitch guesses, tone neutral. Even though I don’t deserve it, I’m thankful that he isn’t judging me.
“I didn’t.”
It’s nothing more than a whisper, but he still hears it. “Harry.”
“I know. I’m a fucking dick.”, I mutter, hiding my face in my hands as if that’s going to make it better. It doesn’t.
“Ok, H.”, Mitch starts. “Whether you take my advice or not is up to you.”
I hum in agreement; the sound muffled my hands.
“You’re being fucking stupid. I know you’re crazy about her. You know it even if you don’t want to admit it. Amber sounds like a great person. Do you really want to let her slip away before you’ve given it a real shot because of what? You’re scared?”
He hit the nail on the head.
“Because I don’t think you do. And it’s not like you to not do something because you’re scared of the consequences.”
“What if she doesn’t want to?” For a second, I’m not even sure if he heard me and I am fighting the urge to hang up and never leave my house and talk to another soul for the rest of my life.
“Then it’s going to hurt. But at least you’ll know. And you won’t have to wonder for the rest of your life.”
“I should have called you earlier.”, I laugh, mentally slapping myself for having been so stupid.
Mitch snorts, “Yeah you should have. Now if you don’t go try and make it right, I will personally beat your ass black and blue. Understood?”
Unable to tell whether he is being serious or not, I sit up straight, saluting even though he can’t see me. “Yes sir.”
I don’t think I’ve ever been as nervous as I am right now.
Sitting on the hard, green carpet with my back against the wall and my knees tucked to my chest. Arms around them and my head tilted back as I study the different patterns in the wooden door in front of me to keep my mind occupied.
I’m worried if I think too hard about what I’m about to do, I will chicken out and drive right back home.
My palms are clammy, and I swear I haven’t been able to take a full breath since I put on my shoes almost three hours ago.
In an attempt to not seem like a stalker, I had left the house so I would be here at half past five. And I was. Amber is usually finished with work and safe home by five.
Apparently not today.
I started on the steps outside. Then it got a bit too cold and I rang the bell of a random person and said I was pizza delivery so they would buzz me in. It worked on the fourth try. Since then I’ve switched between pacing the length of the hallway and sitting just like I am right now.
This might have been one of the worst ideas I’ve ever had.
Not counting the one that put me in this position in the first place.
Just thinking back to it makes me want to rip my own hair out now that I’ve realized just how fucking idiotic I was.
Who in their right mind finds that one person it feels like you’ve known your whole life, and when the realization dawns on them, they ghost them for three weeks? And for what? Fear of that person maybe not feeling the same way? Falling too far too fast?
If I could do it all over, I would jump without a parachute for the chance that she might end up being the wings beneath my wings that make me fly.
Which is kind of what I’m trying to do right now.
“What are you doing here?”
I’m snapped out of my thoughts when I hear her voice. That voice I’ve replayed a thousand times over in my head as if it was my favourite record.
She’s standing right in front of me. I hadn’t even noticed she was there or that I had closed my eyes, too far in my own head.
Carefully, I open one eye followed by the other. And I swear the sight in front of me has my heart beating out of my chest with excitement and my throat going dry with dread.
Pulling a smile, I wave up at her. “Hi.”
Amber
Never underestimate what a nice, long drive and a bar of your favourite chocolate can do.
After leaving work, I’d decided that I would give myself one more day to think about him. Then I’d be done. I would put that behind me. Leave it in my rearview mirror. Harry would be a short chapter in my life. Wonderful and magical. But finished.
There were tears shed and another phone call made to Bonnie for some very badly needed encouragement and reminding that I don’t need a man to be happy.
I’m not even sure about how long I’ve been out, but it’s dark by the time I hear the sound of my car locking as I sling my purse over my shoulder. I can feel the fatigue settling in my bones from the day and I am so looking forward to cuddling up with my mountain of pillows and putting on some mindless show with ice cream until I fall asleep.
The second my eyes lock on the figure by my door, I’m suddenly wide awake again. The tiredness vanished like it was never even there as I’m stopping in my tracks.
I’d recognize him anywhere.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”, I mutter under my breath. This has got to be some fucking cosmic joke the universe is playing on me.
Of course, he would show up just when I decided that I was done. That I was going to let it be and move on with my life.
This is great.
Harry has his head on his knees, arms around his shins tucked to his torso. His hair is messy. Like he either hasn’t styled it today or ran his hand through it a billion times the way he does when he’s stressed or nervous.
His fingers are void of any of the usual rings that adorn them. From what I can tell, his nails are painted black now and he’s dressed in a pair of light-washed, ripped jeans and a mint green cardigan.
By the time it’s taken me to slowly make my way over to him, stopping right in front of him, he still hasn’t moved a muscle or done anything that shows that he’s aware of the fact that he’s not alone in the hallway anymore.
I find myself wondering how long he’s been sitting out here like this. Why he’s even here? I ask him the latter, hating how small I sound, “What are you doing here?”
Slowly, he drops his arms down to his side and cranes his head until our eyes meet and I can practically see the wheels in his head turning. It’s making the crease between his eyebrows deepen further in thought before he offers me a weak smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Hi.”
I’m not sure why, but that short hi makes me take a step back, a pang of hurt hitting my chest. But it also makes me extremely frustrated.
“Hi, Harry.”, I say, stepping around him to unlock my door, not even making an attempt to mask the anger I’m feeling right now. “You didn’t answer my question.”
He scrambles to get to his feet, stuffing his hands in his pockets with an unsure look on his face. “I just wanted to…”, he trails off, voice dying out as if he doesn’t know what comes next.
“Did you come back here just to lie to me again?” I hope he doesn’t notice the crack of emotion, my throat tight as I push open the front door to my apartment.
Taking a deep breath to ground myself, which is easier said than done since I can practically feel his eyes burning a hole into to side of my head. I turn to meet his eye, hoping that he can’t tell how much I want to cry from the look on my face right now as I ignore the look of distress on his. “If that’s the case, then please just leave.”
I fully expect him to turn on his heel and leave. Or maybe he realised he forgot some things here that he wants to pick up. And that’s why he came. Then he’ll leave right after he’s got it.
That’s more likely, to be honest.
To my surprise, Harry lets out a sudden, humourless laugh. One that I’ve never heard from him. Then he shimmies himself between my body and the doorframe and into my apartment.
The strong whiff of his smell that hits my nose almost has me dizzy for a second before I shake my head and follow him.
Confusion takes over when Harry plops down on the edge of the beige sofa after kicking off his shoes without saying a word, his right foot tapping rapidly against the rug as he fiddles with his fingers where his rings usually are.
So…he isn’t here to pick something up?
Observing him carefully, I hang up my coat and take off my shoes, placing them neatly in their designated spot as the anger and hurt dim with the confusion that’s taking their place.
My apartment might not be much, but I keep it tidy.
Harry’s silence and nervous fiddling are making me more and more nervous the longer it goes on and I wish he would just spit out what he so obviously has on his mind.
“Can you please sit?”, is the first thing he eventually says. And he says it so softly he doesn’t sound like himself.
I’d had no idea what he was going to open with, but it for sure wasn’t that. Still, I quietly pad across my living room, sitting down on the sofa with the space of one person between us. My hands stay folded in my lap as I pinch the skin of my clammy palm, looking anywhere but him.
This is not ice cream and Netflix, that’s for sure.
“How have you been?” “Fine.”, I reply automatically, “And you?”
“A dick.” He says it so matter-of-factly and quickly it catches me by surprise and I can’t stop myself from peeking over at him. He’s not wrong.
When I don’t say anything he continues, his eyes boring into mine “I told you I would call you. In that note I left you. And I swear I meant to. And then I didn’t. And I fully understand if you never want to see my face again.”
“Why? If you didn’t have time for me or didn’t want to keep seeing me, then sure. But why the fuck didn’t you just tell me to my face that you didn’t want anything to do with me? Or at least send a fucking text.” I’m breathing harder by the time I’m done talking. But I swear it feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders now that the question I’ve been wanting to ask him is finally out of my mouth.
Harry’s mouth opens and closes like a fish, looking like my words hit him like a ton of bricks. The way his shoulders deflated and the deep frown that settled on his face as his eyes glosses over.
And just like that the anger is back and I stand up suddenly, “You know what. I don’t want to know. Just please leave.” I point to my front door to further my point, ignoring the burning at the back of my eyes, keeping my face as hard as I possibly can. Somehow seeing him seeming so torn up over this makes it hurt all the more.
“No.”, Harry shakes his head firmly as he gets to his feet as well. That’s the first thing he’s done since I saw him today that hasn’t seemed riddled with nerves. “Let me explain.”
He takes my silence as an invitation to speak.
“I fully intended on calling you.” He takes a step forward, making me crane my neck slightly to maintain eye contact, searching his for any hint of untruthfulness. “And god did I want to. I wanted to hear that sweet fucking voice of yours more than you understand.”
“Then why didn’t you?”, I ask, hating how small I sound.
“Because I got fucking scared.” Harry takes another step, now so close that his cologne infiltrates my senses again.
I feel my jaw drop in surprise at his confession. But it doesn’t stay like that for long because Harry gently pushes it back up with his pointer finger on my chin. It’s like a jolt of electricity shoots out of his fingertip and travels through my whole body, making my heartbeat pick up and my breathing shallows at his touch.
Harry answers the question I had on the tip of my tongue before I get the chance to ask it, “I know this probably makes me more of a dick. But the way you make me feel, Ambs? It’s so exhilarating and wonderful and safe all at the same time. And that’s what makes it so damn terrifying.”
My eyes round in question as I tilt my head to the side, “Why didn’t you just tell me this instead of disappearing?”
“Because I was drowning when I met you. And I swear you took my hand and pulled me right up. I could finally breathe again. It felt like if my fears were true and you didn’t want me like I want you, I’d be thrown right off into the deep end again.”
Completely speechless at his honesty, my eyes flick between his as emotion builds in my throat again. My face is no doubt beet red. The only thing I manage to squeeze out is, “No wonder you write songs for a living.”
Harry laughs, eyebrows shooting up in surprise and I swear my heart jumps at the melodic sound. “I’m also a certified comedian.”
Now it’s my turn to laugh, turning my head to the side so I won’t snort straight into his face, my hand coming up to muffle the sound. There is no way in hell that’s true. Unless he paid someone to give him some paper that says he’s the funniest man in the business.
Immediately, Harry swats my hands away, turning my head right back with his hands now cupping both sides of my neck.
“Don’t hide from me.” It’s more of a demand than a request. I can’t even argue when he juts his bottom lip out in a pout, making his eyes round and big. His lashes are dark and long, contrasting with his pale green irises.
Tucking my bottom lip into my mouth, I fiddle with the button of his cardigan just below his chest absentmindedly.
My head tilts down, so I won’t have to look him in the eye. Now that I’m focusing on the individual stitches of his cardigan, I ask him nervously, “So you like me?”
When he doesn’t answer, I feel panic starting to bubble in my chest. My head screams that I fucked up and took everything he said the wrong way as I feel tears starting to form when he lets go of my neck. The puffs of air that fans over my forehead make my shame grow to the point where I wish for the ground to swallow me whole.
With embarrassment ringing in my ears, I go to take a step back so I’m out of his space, not even daring to look at his face. Too scared of what I’d find. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know what I-”
I’m cut off by his lips crashing against mine with a force I haven’t felt before, his hands right back where they were before, stopping me from even taking one step as my eyes widen in surprise. Then I’m melting into the kiss, wringing the soft material of his cardigan in my fists as I kiss him back.
Every single worry in my mind went silent the second he kissed me and now it’s calm. The same way the world quiets once your head is submerged in water and all you can hear is the serene sound of the water dancing beautifully around you.
If Harry is magic, then his kiss is a spell that I would let him cast over me for the rest of my days.
“Does that answer your question?”, he asks, lips brushing against mine as he talks while his thumbs stroking my cheeks.
Our noses bump when I nod and I feel him smile against my lips.
Neither of us says anything. else for I don’t know how long. I can feel my heartbeat underneath his hands as I keep my hold on his cardigan, his chest pushing against my knuckles every time it expands. Our breaths mix in the millimetres of space between us.
All I want to do is kiss him.
The more time passes the harder my heart beats and the more the need to feel his lips on mine again grows.
At the same time, after going for three weeks without as much as laying my eyes on him. So as torturous as being so close to, and not kissing him is, I still bask in his presence. His smell and his touch. The feeling of stardust still lingering on my lips that I so desperately want to mould with his.
“I like your cardigan.”, I whisper, flattening my hands against his firm chest.
Harry sucks in a quick breath before I feel him smile against my lips. He drops his left hand to where mine are, wrapping his fingers around my wrist as he presses my hand firmer against his chest. “It’s yours.”, he confesses, tilting his head so our foreheads are aligned.
My eyes fly open as I look at him with wide eyes, pulling my face away from his. “No way! You stole my cardigan?”
He grins so wide that his eyes crinkle, completely contradicting the nonchalant shrug he gives, “Doesn’t seem like you missed it too much if you didn’t even realise it was yours.”
“Oh, shut up.”, I roll my eyes, pushing at his chest.
Without budging, he drops his hand from my wrist to my waist pulling my body flush against his. He keeps me there, splaying both his hands over the small of my back, that same blinding smile lighting up the room. “I look good in it though, don’t I?”
My arms loop around his neck, back arching as I giggle, “So much better than me.”
His smile drops, looking downright offended. “No. Absolutely not.”
I open my mouth to protest, but he cuts me off before I get the chance to. “Don’t say that shit about yourself! You’re so fucking beautiful, baby. Just having you in my arms makes me the luckiest fucking man alive.”
At a loss for words, I blink rapidly before I grip his hair with my fingers as I stand up on my tiptoes to bring him into a kiss, hoping that understands.
Everything feels right the second his mouth is on mine.
Harry groans into the kiss, his hand sliding up my back as it arches more, a shiver travelling down my spine.
Keeping my body as close as possible to his, chest to chest, Harry doesn’t take long before he switches up in a way that makes my head spin.
The soft, tender kisses left behind as he slides his tongue over my bottom lip, asking for access. There was no need for coaxing. I grant it without question, feeling heat creeping through my body at the way he teases his tongue alone mine.
Dipping my own tongue into his mouth in return, running it along his teeth elicits a groan from his throat that has my thighs squeezing together.
That moment when he switches from kissing me softly to robbing my lungs of air with deep, hot kisses never fails to make me absolutely weak in the knees.
He drops his hand to my ass, squeezing the flesh in his palm as his mouth becomes hungrier, as do my own. I tug at his hair. Hard. Eliciting a groan from the back of his throat that has me smirking against his mouth at his reaction. I don’t get to gloat for long, because Harry suddenly turns around and sits down on the sofa, not disconnecting our mouths for a second. I follow him blindly. As if I would die if his lips weren’t on mine for one mere moment.
My thighs are on either side of his and all I can taste is his mouth on mine. All I can feel are his hands roaming my body and his soft, pillowy lips. All I can smell is his musky cologne and the warm scent of his shampoo. It’s all him. There isn’t one cell in my being that hasn’t been touched by him.
I’m not sure if I’m dizzy from the lack of oxygen or the way he is kissing me so deeply, but if I died right now, I would die a happy fucking woman.
As if he knew exactly what was going through my head, Harry gives my lips one final peck before he’s nudging me to tilt my head up and to the side with his nose for better access. He leaves hot, open-mouthed kisses along my jaw until he reaches the spot on my neck that’s just below it.
I can’t help the loud gasp I let out at the sensation when he alternated between sucking, licking and nipping at the skin of my neck and throat. He keeps at it until I’m squirming in his lap, throbbing with need.
Right now, I can’t even find it in me to care that my neck is most likely going to be littered with love bites in the morning.
Harry drops his hands to my hips, dragging them forward so I’m sitting right on top of his bulge, both of us gasping at the contact. I can feel him hardening through the material of our clothes, and it’s making a new wave of desire fly through my nervous system.
His head falls to my chest when I roll my hips forward experimentally. The whimper he lets out spurs me to keep doing it.
“Can I take off your shirt?”, he asks, his cheeks flush with red as he looks up at me. His hair messily lays over his forehead. The sweat that’s started accumulating on his skin makes it stick to his temples.
In this moment, Harry could ask me to jump off a roof and I’d ask if he wanted me to do a flip too.
“Please.”, I practically whine, brushing his hair out of his face before laying a tender kiss to the space between his eyebrows. His eyes flutter close for a second at the affection and I swear I could scream from the butterflies in my tummy.
Harry kisses the tip of my nose just as he drags both my sweater vest and shirt up my body. I lift my arms to help, left in only my bra as he discards my clothes somewhere. Eyes locked with mine, his fingers drag down my sides slowly in a way that has a shiver going down my spine.
When he does let his eyes wander, I don’t feel a hint of uncertainty or insecurity. All because of what Harry says under his breath; “Jesus fuck, you’ll be the death of me.”
“Maybe I should cover up then.”, I sing song, pretending like I’m about to go looking for my shirt again. But Harry is having none of that, gripping my hips and planting me right back down in his lap. “Fuck no.”, he says, guiding my hips to grind against his again, “I’d drop dead right now as long as I got to feel you.”
My breath quickens with the stimulation I’m getting from the way he drags my core against his solid erection. “it’s not really fair that I’m the only one topless, now, is it?”
The faintest smirk spreads on his face when I undo the two buttons on his cardigan, the simple white t-shirt he is wearing underneath revealing itself as he shrugs the cardigan off, throwing it over his shoulder. And God does that t-shirt look good on him.
It hugs him in all the right places, tight around his biceps and just sheer enough to be able to see the silhouettes of his tattoos through it.
Harry lets me take my time admiring him with his t-shirt on before I decide it’s time to rid him of that too, lifting his arms to help me get it off. “You feel better now?”, he asks with a laugh.
I just nod, unable to take my eyes off the artwork that is his body. It doesn’t matter that I’ve seen him before. His soft, golden skin stretches across his toned, defined muscles. Dark ink decorates his skin so perfectly. Soft hairs scattered over his broad chest so deliciously. The ferns tattoos that are partly hidden by his jeans have my mouth watering. Every dip and curve of his body is perfection and I have the urge to pinch myself to make sure I’m not dreaming.
I don’t realise that I’ve just been frozen, staring at him until I feel Harry pinch my side lightly, amusement evident in his voice, “Are you ok, baby?”
“Mhm.”, I hum, sliding my hand tantalisingly down the front of his body, his stomach sucking in with the sharp breath he takes. “Wanna know what would make it even better?”
“What?”
Harry swallows hard when I dip my finger just underneath the waistband of his jeans, leaning forward so the side of my face is aligned with his, his hands tightening on my hips when I tilt my head, lightly kissing and nipping at his earlobe.
“Your cock down my throat.”, I whisper in his ear as if I was telling him my darkest secret, gracing my fingertips over the bulge in his jeans.
He drops his forehead to my shoulder with a groan sounding so wound up I can’t help but laugh, earning myself a smack on the ass. “It’s not funny.”, Harry grumbles.
“Do you want to whine about that, or do you want me to give you head?”, I ask after placing a kiss on the top of his head.
It’s almost comical how fast he straightens up, his eyes darting between mine. “Please.”
Shocked at how fast he got to the state of saying, please, I still decide to not make it too easy on him. “Please what?”, I ask as I start leaving open-mouthed, hot kisses down his jaw, latching onto the sensitive spot just below his jaw while palming him through his jeans.
Harry tilts his head, his chest rising faster than before. “Please touch me.”
“Now that wasn’t, so hard, was it?” I pull away from his neck with a pleased smirk on my face, I brush the pad of my thumb across his bottom lip, nearly losing my composure when Harry wraps his lips around my finger, holding it in place with his teeth as he sucks on it.
But I regain it fast enough, patting his cheek when he releases my thumb with a pop. I can tell that he has something to say, but he bites his tongue. Probably so I will give him what he needs. Which is exactly what I’m gonna do.
Sliding off his lap and settling myself on my knees between his spread thighs. I leave a trail of wet, open-mouthed kisses all the way from the base of his throat to the fern tattoos that lead right where he needs me the most.
Glancing up at him, the look on his face gives me a large confidence boost. Swollen, red lips and his delicate features hardened with lust and impatience. The way his chin is tucked against his chest, his eyes locked on me as if he would doesn’t want to miss a single move I make. His breath falters when I begin unbuckling his belt, licking his lips in anticipation.
If it weren’t for the fact that I don’t have a shred of patience left in my body, I would’ve dragged this out much longer.
Harry lifts his hips to help me get off both his jeans and his underwear in one go, his body sagging with relief once he springs free. I scoot a little bit away to allow him to kick them and his socks off his feet before I shuffle back, sitting on the back of my heels.
And God does he look heavenly. Love bites are already starting to form in the path I took down his body. His hair a mess and his bottom lip tucked under his teeth. His cock is resting against his stomach. Fully hard, almost to the point where it looks painful.
My mouth waters at the sight of him.
I look back up at him, about to open my mouth. But he seems to have read my mind, “Just touch me? I’m dying. Please.”
He doesn’t have to ask twice.
I spit in my hand before I wrap it around him, using my spit as lubrication as I teasingly pump his solid length. The second I touch him his abdominal muscles tense and his hands curl into fists. It’s when I twist my hand around the head of his cock that his mouth parts, “Fuck that feels good.”
Without stopping what I’m doing with my hand, I kiss the soft skin of his inner thighs, the muscles tensing in response when I leave a love bite on the sensitive skin. Harry tucks my hair behind my ear, directing my attention back to his face where he’s got a dazed look in his eyes.
Like I did to him, he traces my lips with his fingers, eyes hooded as he twitches in my hand.
Leaning forward, I take his tip into my mouth, giving it a gentle suck after tracing the prominent vein with my tongue. Harry moans a praise when I take more of him into my mouth, hollowing out my cheeks as I work the head of his cock with my mouth and tongue.
Pulling back momentarily, I gather my spit in the front of my mouth before I let it drop the short distance. He hisses as the glob of saliva makes contact with his sensitive tip before we both watch it drip down the side of his length, leaving a shiny trail in its wake.
“You’re gonna be the fucking death of me.”, Harry breathes out when I take him in my mouth again, this time going further. I hum, the vibrations from it have his jaw going slack as his muscles tense. His hands pull my hair out of my face, gathering it in a ponytail as I bob my head up and down his dick. I use my hand to jerk off what I don’t have in my mouth, his velvety skin wet with my spit.
When Harry’s hips start to thrust up to meet my mouth on their own accord, the broken moans spilling from him, I take a second to prepare myself before I take him all the way, my eyes watering as he curves down my throat and my nose brushes against his pelvis. “Oh, fuck.”, he curses, fingers tightening in my hair making me whine at the sting. “That’s it. Such a good girl, oh my god.”
I let him take the lead, moving my head with the grip on my hair to meet his thrusts as he fucks my mouth just how he wants. The head of his cock hits the back of my throat each time, spit dribbling down my chin.
Looking up at him through my lashes. I would happily die like this if it meant I’d go out being the reason for his pleasure.
The sweat glistening and reflecting the light has him looking otherworldly. His face and neck are flush with colour. Ragged breaths, whimpers and moans escape his strained throat as he gets closer and closer to reaching his orgasm.
Locking eyes with him, the corners of his lips quirk up in a blissed-out smile that’s quickly wiped off when I swallow around him, his head falling back and his abs quiver. “I’m gonna cum. Fuck. If you don’t want-”
I cut off his warning, bobbing my head without his prompt to tell him that I want him to. After that, it doesn’t take long for him to reach his climax.
And when he does, it’s with a shout of my name on his tongue.
His thighs and abdominal muscles shake, moans and whimpers spilling from him like I’ve never heard before. Spurts of hot, salty cum shoot from his dick and I swallow everything, helping him through his high.
Harry is panting slightly when he comes down, eyes still hazy. “You feeling ok, baby?”, I check as I get off my now sore knees and sit down next to him, body facing his.
“I’m fucking great.” A lazy grin graces his beautiful face. His kind, eyes twinkle as they meet mine. “You’re bloody amazing. You know that?”
I raise an eyebrow but can’t help but match his smile, “Am I amazing or are you just in another world right now?”
“Why can’t it be both?”, he shrugs, laying a kiss on my bare shoulder.
Giggling, I press my lips to the top of his head, “You’re something else, aren’t you?”
“You say that as if it’s a bad thing.”, Harry pouts as he looks up at me, his face still holding an ethereal glow that has me wanting to smother every inch of it in kisses and affection.
I twirl a longer strand of his hair around my finger before tucking it behind his hair. “It’s quite the opposite. I love that you’re yourself so unapologetically.”
When I notice Harry’s eyes gloss over momentarily, I worry that I said something wrong. But before I get to ask what’s wrong, he grabs my face in his hands and kisses me. Long and hard, his nose squishing against my cheek before he pulls away momentarily. He then moulds our lips together softly one, two three times. So tenderly and delicately I almost can’t bear it.
Brushing his nose with mine, Harry whispers against my lips, “I wanna make you feel good.” If my heart wasn’t beating fast before, it definitely is now.
“Will you let me?” He kisses the corner of my mouth and I feel his hand move to my thigh. His other hand hovers just over the clasp of my bra as he makes his mouth busy kissing down my jaw.
“Yes, please.”, I say, nodding feverishly not even caring how desperate I probably sound.
He laughs fondly, pressing a kiss to my nose as he undoes my bra with expertise. “Tell me what you want, and you’ve got it, my eager girl.”
Trailing my finger up his back, I bite my lip to keep my smile at bay. “Anything?”
Harry carelessly throws my bra to the side, placing a kiss between my breasts. “Anything.” Hand creeping further up my thigh, my legs spreading on their own. “Do you want my hands?”
“Yes.” If he doesn’t touch me soon, I feel like I might die from the burning ache between my legs. And it only gets worse and better all at the same time when he wraps his lips around my sensitive nipple, his warm, wet tongue flicking over it. I can’t help but throw my head back with a whine.
Snaking his hand from my back, gracing the underside of my boob. It has my spine curving, chest pushed out further and Harry hums, seeming pleased with my reaction. He switches to suck on my other nipple, leaving a trail of affection between the two.
The attention to my breasts only has the need to feel himself somewhere else growing by the second.
And does he fucking know it.
Harry looks up at me, his eyes narrowing as he smiles at me in satisfaction. “Do you want my mouth?”, he asks, batting his eyelashes at me as if he were innocent. He is anything but. “Maybe both?”
Cupping his face, I say in the most serious tone I can muster at the moment; “If you don’t stop teasing, I’m gonna fucking do it myself.”
“Oh well, then.”, Harry chuckles, getting down on his knees before me, undoing my jeans before tapping my hips. “Let’s take these off, shall we?” Not wasting a moment, I lift my hips as I help him wiggle them off along with my panties, leaving me fully naked and exposed.
“So fucking beautiful.” Harry drags his eyes over my body, seeming to take in every curve and dip like he’s admiring his favourite view. The crushing vulnerability and lack of uncertainty he seems to instil in me in moments like these can only be described as intoxicating. Leaving me with a mind centred around him and him alone.
Gentle touches and kisses that are meant to be of adoration, but they have the pit of desire and arousal in my stomach near unbearable.
Wrapping his arms around the backs of my thighs, Harry drapes my legs over his shoulders, making my body slide further down on the sofa. I can feel his breath fanning over my soaked cunt and it’s sending shivers down my spine.
Catching his eye, Harry maintains eye contact as he drags his tongue through my folds, painfully slow. The vibration of his hum has my breath caught in my throat as I lace my fingers through his locks.
When he teasingly licks at my clit, a whine leaves my lips. A whine that turns into a moan when he suddenly sucks the bundle of nerves into his warm mouth, caressing it with his tongue at the same time.
The way he is alternating between licks and kisses that are barely there and the eye-crossing, powerful motions has reduced me to a panting, moaning mess before I even know it. My skin feels like it’s on fire, sweat making my hair stick to the side of my face and neck. Sounds of pleasure come out with no care.
It’s like the rest of the world has faded away and I’m hyperaware of every touch from Harry.
His strong, muscled arms wrapped around my thighs. The way they squeeze around my upper thigh. One hand on my thigh and the other on my hip. How warm his palms are and the way the hand on my hip is inching closer and closer to my pussy where he is eating me out like he’s a starving man. The slight stubble on his face brings that slight sting along with the little nibbles from his teeth that only make that feeling of ecstasy grow stronger and more powerful.
Deep moans and hums against my nerves that have me throwing my head back, my own fingers pulling his soft, damp curls tighter. That same head of hair brushes against the skin of my inner thighs.
Mindless praises fly from my mouth, messy and intelligible. Not that he seems to mind. With each choked word of encouragement, he gets just a little bit more eager.
I force myself to peel my eyes open, needing to see him.
There is something about taking in the man on his knees between my legs. So attentive to my reaction to everything he does. His pinkie finger barely brushes the fleshy skin of my hip and he doesn’t seem like he would rather be anywhere in the world but right where he is. And even though he is literally eating me out like a thirsting man, I realise it’s not close enough.
I can’t keep the tears from falling when I do from the pleasure and the surge of emotions that has a pathetic sob erupting from my chest. The second he hears it, his eyes fly open, and he stops immediately.
Concern laces his features as he takes in the tears rolling down my cheeks. “Darling, what’s wrong?” He lets go of my thighs, both sliding off his broad shoulders as he shuffles to get up from his knees.
The intense, overwhelming fire of pleasure fizzles out but I can’t even find it in me to care. All I want is him as close as humanly possible.
“Need you.”, is all I manage to croak out, nuzzling into his hand when he cradles my face. Harry swipes my tears away with the pads of his thumbs, only for more to fall as he tilts his head in confusion. “I’m right here, baby.”
Taking a deep breath in an attempt to calm myself down, I press a quick kiss to the inside of his wrist, my hand wrapped around his forearm to keep his just where they are. The smell of his skin filtering through my nostrils soothes me as his voice does. Enough to take a deep breath and allow my heart to slow down.
“I need you inside of me.”
“Oh.”, his mouth forms into a small o-shape before it morphs into a smile that matches the crinkles by his eyes. “Are you sure?”
I nod fervently, mirroring his grin.
“What my girl wants, she gets.” Harry pecks my lips, my eyes fluttering close as I hum against his lips, elongating the kiss with a hand switching to the back of his neck to keep him in place as I trace his bottom lip with my tongue.
The taste of myself on his lips makes my stomach twist in desire and need, gripping his hair tighter when Harry suddenly manoeuvres me around so my back hits the cushion of the sofa and my head falls into the throw pillows stacked at the corner. His lips are quick to find mine again, moulding together in lust and passion. His hips drop against mine and I cross my ankles against the back of his thighs. My left thigh is slightly squeezed between his body and the back of the sofa.
I gasp at the shock of pleasure that goes through my system when he shifts his hips, his rock-solid cock rubbing against my sensitive folds, no doubt soaked by my arousal. Needing to feel feeling again, I buck my hips up against his, jaw dropping when Harry meets my movement with a whine against my mouth.
“Baby, please.”, I beg again. It almost hurts to be so close to where I need to be but still not quite there.
With one last kiss to my lips, Harry shifts all his weight to his right elbow tilting his body to the side as he positions the head of his cock right at my entrance. “You ready?”, he asks, searching my eyes for any sign that I’m not.
The second he has the ok to, he pushes in slowly, eyes locked on my face the entire time as mine threaten to close. “Oh my- Fuck.”, I pant.
The overwhelming stretch of him followed by the pleasure that only grows the further he sinks inside me is a feeling I am never going to get tired of. Neither is the look of concentration and bliss etched on Harry’s face. His pretty lips parts with a soft moan as his eyebrows pinches together.
This is what I needed. To be as close to him as physically possible. My hot and sweaty skin ismflush against his. The way his grip on my thigh gets harder momentarily when I clench around him unintentionally. Our noses nearly touch from how close our faces are. Every single one of my senses centred around him.
Once he’s all the way in, tip nudged against my g-spot deliciously, his now glossy eyes dart between mine. I can practically see the wheels churning in his head as he lands on the words he utters so quietly it’s as if he’s telling me something sacred and just for us. “Missed you so much.”
My throat tightens with emotion, and I can once again feel my waterline overflow with salty tears as I tuck my bottom lip into my mouth. “I missed you too.”
I really, really did. But I don’t want to think about that right now.
He seems to catch on because instead of saying anything else, he draws his hips back until just the tip of him is left before he pushes in to the hilt again. He puts more and more force behind each thrust every time until he finds the one that has me clutching onto his shoulders, nails no doubt digging into his warm skin.
Moans fall freely from my lips as my eyes fall shut. Harry drops his forehead to mine when I move my hips to meet his. “Fuck me. You’re doing so fucking good for me.”, he pants.
Before long, I’m right back at the point I was before. A ball of tightknit pleasure in the pit of my stomach that makes my body tingle in anticipation. The wet sounds of mine and Harry’s arousal mixed with skin slapping against skin are filthy and only push me closer and closer to my high.
I can feel myself clenching and unclenching around Harry’s cock as he keeps his thrusts the same steady pace.
He connects his lips with mine again although neither of us can concentrate on keeping it anything but messy. One particularly well-angled thrust has my jaw nearly dropping to my chest and my eyebrows scrunching together in pleasure as it hits my g-spot perfectly.
“Right there.”, I gasp, burying the back of my head further into the pillows, tears leaking from the corners of my eyes and down the sides of my face. “I’m so fucking close.”
Harry keeps his thrusts exactly the same, murmuring praises and encouraging words in my ear. The warm air from his breath fans across my neck and when he latches onto the damp skin, suctioning it hard before he glides his tongue over it, it’s the final push I need before I’m finishing.
My eyes roll into the back of my head as ecstasy rushes through every nerve ending in my body. My heartbeat is pounding in my ears as I feel myself hold onto Harry like my life depends on it. And he doesn’t stop either.
He keeps working me through my high with increasingly sloppy strokes of his hips. His name is like a never-ending prayer as I finish out my trip to heaven. The sound of Harry’s moans like a distant symphony of angels.
At last, coming down from my climax, I’m having a weird sense of Deja-vu.
Weighed down entirely by Harry’s body like a big, warm blanket of safety and home. His arms are wrapped fully around my torso. His face tucked into the crook of my neck, hair sticking to our sweaty temples. A serene silence surrounds us and reflects in my own mind. Our hearts aligned both physically and metaphorically.
We’re in our own little bubble of post-orgasmic bliss and comfort.
Every so gently, I trace the shapes and dips of his back and shoulders with the tip of my fingers. Keeping my eyes closed I try to memorize this exact feeling. Mentally filling up bottle after bottle after bottle with it.
The delicate pucker of lips against the crook of my neck has my heart doing somersaults in my chest and a lazy grin spreading on my face.
“He’s alive.”, I whisper. “It’s a miracle.”
Soft melodic laughter reaches my ears shortly after I feel him laughing on top of me. Another kiss.
“Since when was I dead?” His voice is muffled but I can still understand him perfectly.
My hand drifts to the back of his neck, twirling his hair around my fingers. “One starts to wonder when you’re laying like the dead.”
Removing himself from my neck, he cranes his neck, making me tuck my chin down to look at his face.
Why does he look so good?
“You’re comfy and warm.”, he says matter-of-factly. Hair messy on his head and his face still has a flush of colour to it.
The instant pout his face adopts when I lightly pinch the flesh of his side is one I wish to frame and keep in my wallet. “Could say the same thing for you too.”
“Good.”, he smiles, seeming satisfied with my answer. He stuffs his face right back where it was, wiggling to get comfortable again.
The wiggle reminds me that he is still tucked inside of me, and I almost feel bad for what I’m about to do with how content Harry seems to just stay like this. “H, we gotta get up.” “Or we could just stay here.”, Harry hums, not moving a muscle.
“We’re gonna ruin my sofa if we do that.”, I explain, waiting patiently for him to connect the dots in that beautiful mind of his.
And when he does, he sighs. “I’m so tired.”
“We can take a bath, yeah?”, I suggest when he reluctantly lifts his head again, brushing back the hair that’s fallen over his forehead with my fingers. “Get all nice and clean. And if you want you can stay over?”
“That sounds nice.” He really does look tired.
Smiling softly, I place a short peck just where the faint shadow if his dimple is. “I’ll get it ready and you just relax, ok?”
“Yes ma’am.”, he grins, before pecking my cheek three times.
Unsticking his body from mine slowly but surely, he says sorry when as pulls out, kissing my shoulder apologetically at the same time. The sensitivity has me hissing through gritted teeth, but the second he’s out, I miss the feeling of being full of him.
Stupid, comfy sofa.
“I’ll be right back.”, I promise as he plops down on the sofa, pecking his cheek as I find both mine and his underwear on the floor where we discarded them earlier. Sliding my panties back on, I take the route behind the sofa on my way to the kitchen, dropping his next to him as I do.
I can feel his tired eyes on me as I shuffle around the kitchen, grabbing a large glass and filling it with water. I take a few sips of the cold, refreshing liquid before handing it to Harry.
He takes it with a grateful smile, “Thank you, baby.”
“You sure it tastes bad?”, Harry questions for the fourth time, the now lukewarm water splashing as he sticks his knee out of the water again. Shaking my head, I momentarily stop kneading his shoulders. “It’s soap, darling. Of course, it tastes bad.”
The top of his back is almost dry now from how long it’s been up from the water. A few droplets here and there drip from his hair down the nape of his neck before trailing down his strong back and into the water.
Why he is so insistent on knowing what my ‘fruit bowl’ body wash tastes like? I have no idea. But can’t say it isn’t nice to get this side of him again though.
Between the small talk we’ve made about everything and nothing and the body wash questions, my mind keeps drifting off to how only hours ago I thought I wouldn’t see any side of him again. Lavender oil and bath salts sadly aren’t a cure for worries and negative thoughts.
Worry that even though he said he regrets it, he is going to disappear again. That he’ll get spooked and be gone for good. It feels like right now is too good to be true.
It’s too good with him to be true.
I do believe that he meant it when he said that he likes me. I believe his reasoning for what happened. But I still can’t help the anxious pit in my stomach that he’ll be gone in the morning again like before. But I don’t want to drag down his good, relaxed mood and make it all serious and tense again.
For the time being I’m going to bask in the sunlight that is Harry. Regardless of the clouds thundering around inside my head.
I’m brought back to reality when Harry twists his upper body, the water splashing in small waves as he does. “It’s getting a bit cold.”
“It is.”, I agree. I honestly have no concept of just how long we’ve been submerged in water and lavender together. Harry makes it feel like time goes so fast while stopping at a standstill all at once.
But judging by the serious case of raisin hands we’re both sporting and the fact that I was half asleep at one point, I would say we’ve been here for long enough.
We rinse off in the shower wrapped up in each other’s arms while the bathtub drains. I have to physically take the fruit-scented body wash bottle from his hands as he kept saying he was going to squirt some in his mouth and swallow it.
We stand side by side, now wrapped in towels. Mine knotted over my chest and around my hair. His are low on his hips. Although he doesn’t really need it, he still chose to wrap his hair up in a towel claiming that I shouldn’t shame short-haired people when I asked him why he did it.
Harry looks how I feel right now. Like he could fall asleep standing upright.
Meeting his eyes in our reflection, I lean my tired body against his, smiling through my toothpaste when he slings his arm around my shoulders. “You feelin sleepy, Ambs?”
I nod, finishing up with my teeth so I can spit the toothpaste into the sink. After rolling water around in my mouth to rinse it out, I step aside to let harry do the same thing. He shouldn’t be able to make something so simple as rinsing the toothpaste out of his mouth look good.
An uncontainable, sleepy smile creeps up my face when he leans over me to reach the jar of moisturiser by the mirror. Something about how he unscrews the lid and scoops some out then applies it to his slightly tan face makes me all warm in my heart.
I didn’t realise I was just blankly staring at the side of his face until he suddenly twists his head, a shit-eating grin on his shiny face as he smears something chilly and moist across my forehead with the pad of his thumb. Humour and laughter in his tone as he says; “Simba.”
It takes me a few seconds to connect the dots. When I do, my head falls back in laughter.
“You fucking idiot.”, I shove at his chest, not even making Harry budge. My stomach is still tight with giggles and I know that my cheeks are making me look like a chipmunk from how wide my smile is.
Unphased by my insincere insult, Harry drags the product from my forehead down the bridge of my nose and across my cheeks with one finger before he switches to using both of his hands to massage the familiarly scented moisturiser into my skin. I let my eyes fall shut and enjoy the relaxing motions of his fingers, a blush spreading on my cheeks when he traces my lips. A whisper of “beautiful” reaches my ear as he does.
He is going to give me heart palpitations if he keeps going like this.
“What time do you think it is?”, I ask when I open my eyes, my heart beating a little bit faster when I catch his intense, moss-green eyes.
With his hands still holding my face, Harry kisses my forehead, making my heart skip a beat again before he says; “I think it’s time for us to go to bed.”
Nodding, I let my hands find his hips, smoothing my fingers over the supple skin. “I still have the clothes you left.”, I tell him, watching as his face softens entirely. “Oh. And you also left your guitar.”
“Surprised you didn’t burn them.”, Harry teases, his cheeks gaining a pink tint.
I shrug my shoulders. “If I burnt it, I couldn’t get rich selling everything on eBay, now could I?”
“is that all I am to you now, hm?”, he raises an eyebrow in question. “A way to make some easy money off my fans?” I can tell by the playful glint in his eye that he knows I’m not serious and is playing along.
Truth is that even if I never saw him again, I would probably keep the articles of clothing to myself to serve as a reminder that it was all real and not just a figment of my own imagination.
At least that’s what they’ve been over the past three weeks.
“I have a jar of your hair hidden in my closet.”, I add, relishing in the sunny glint in his eyes shining just as brightly as his smile. Harry shakes his head with a hearty laugh as he brushes up the tip of my nose with his finger. “Let’s get to bed, yeah?”
Agreeing, we make our way to the bedroom where I hand Harry the bag of his stuff that he’s left behind previously, landing a sweet kiss on his shoulder before I shuffle over to my closet.
Once I’ve slid a fresh pair of underwear up my legs, I grab the white beastie boys t-shirt I may or may not have adopted as my sleep shirt lately and pull it over my head. The fabric is soft and cool against my skin, ending just below my butt.
“Ok, I see how it is.”, I hear from behind me just before I feel a pair of arms snake around my waist from behind.
Leaning into the warmth of his body, my back against his front, I place my arms on top of his. “And how is that?” Harry hums in my ear, swaying us from side to side slowly and I can feel his heartbeat through the thin layer of cotton separating us.
“You give me grief about stealing your cardigan. Yet here you are in my clothes. Wanna explain that to me?”
“Are you sure you want me to?”, I ask, turning around in his arms. I loop mine around his neck, curving my spine so I can look at him. The half-smirk tugging at the left corner of his mouth has butterflies swarming my tummy.
When he nods confidently, I do just that. “Because it reminds me of you. And I realised I liked that. So why wouldn’t I wear it?”
Even in the dim lighting shining in from the hallway, I can see his cheeks turning a shade darker before moves his head closer. I can feel his breath against the shell of my ear as he speaks, “Can I tell you a secret?”
His voice is low and deep, so so close, and all I can do is nod my head once. My heart is beating hard against my ribs and I’m very aware of how his hands are locked at my lower back.
“I like it better on you.”
-
I really hope you guys liked this!!
if you did please do leave a comment, like or reblog. And feel free to let me know if there is something you want me to write.
#harry#harry smut#harry styles one shot#harry styles fanfiction#harry styles blurb#harry styles fluff#harry styles masterlist#harry styles imagine#harry styles x reader#harry styles smut#harry styles#one direction#fanfiction#masterlist
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But by the end of my five years [as a copy editor], I felt intellectually and psychologically worn down by the labor I logged on my biweekly timesheets. Whatever roller-rink of neurons helped me spot aberrations from convention had grown practiced and strong, and it was difficult to read any unconventional sentence without reflexively rearranging it into a more conventional form.
Something had shrunken and withered in me, for having directed so much of my attention away from the substance of the stories I read and into their surface. Few people in our office, let alone outside its walls, would notice the variation in line spacing, the fact that Jesus’ was lacking its last, hard “s,” or whatever other reason we were sending the proofs to be printed again—and if they did, who the fuck cared? [....]
I can’t help wondering, though, whether there wasn’t something insidious in the way we worked—some poison in our many rounds of minute changes, in our strained and often tense conversations about ligatures and line breaks, in our exertions of supposedly benign, even benevolent, power; if those polite conversations constituted a covert, foot-dragging protest against change, an insistence on the quiet conservatism of the liberal old guard, and if they were a distraction from the conversations that might have brought meaningful literary or linguistic change about. In fact, I sense myself enacting the same foot-dragging here.
It’s fun—it’s dangerously pleasing—to linger in the minutiae of my bygone copyediting days, even if, by the time I left that job to teach college writing full-time, I was convinced that “correcting” “errors” of convention most readers would never notice was the least meaningful work a person could possibly do. I’m writing this, however, to ask whether copyediting as it’s been practiced is worse than meaningless: if, in fact, it does harm.
*
Do we really need copyediting? I don’t mean the basic clean-up that reverses typos, reinstates skipped words, and otherwise ensures that spelling and punctuation marks are as an author intends. Such copyediting makes an unintentionally “messy” manuscript easier to read, sure.
But the argument that texts ought to read “easily” slips too readily into justification for insisting a text working outside dominant Englishes better reflect the English of a dominant-culture reader—the kind of reader who might mirror the majority of those at the helm of the publishing industry, but not the kind of reader who reflects a potential readership (or writership) at large.
A few years before leaving copyediting, I began teaching a scholarly article I still read with students today, Lee A. Tonouchi’s “Da State of Pidgin Address.” Written in Hawai’ian Creole English, or Pidgin, it asks whether what “dey say” is true: “dat da perception is dat da standard english talker is going automatically be perceive fo’ be mo’ intelligent than da Pidgin talker regardless wot dey talking, jus from HOW dey talking.” The article leaves many students questioning the assumptions they began reading it with: its effect is immediate, personal, and profound.
In another article I pair it with, “Should Writers Use They Own English,” Vershawn Ashanti Young answers Tonouchi’s implicit question, writing, “don’t nobody’s language, dialect, or style make them ‘vulnerable to prejudice.’ It’s ATTITUDES.” Racial difference and linguistic difference, Young reminds us, are intertwined, and “Black English dont make it own-self oppressed.”
It’s clear that copyediting as it’s typically practiced is a white supremacist project, that is, not only for the particular linguistic forms it favors and upholds, which belong to the cultures of whiteness and power, but for how it excludes or erases the voices and styles of those who don’t or won’t perform this culture. Beginning with an elementary school teacher’s red pen, and continuing with agents, publishers, and university faculty who on principle turn away work that arrives on their desk in unconventionally grammatical or imperfectly punctuated form, voices that don’t mimic dominance are muffled when they get to the page and also before they get there—as schools, publishers, and their henchmen entrench the idea that those writing outside convention are not writing “well,” and therefore ought not set their voices to paper at all. [...]
Like other emissaries of the powerful (see, e.g., the actual police), copy editors often wield what power they do have unpredictably, teetering between generous attention and brute, insistent force. You saw this in the way our tiny department got worked up over the stubbornness of an editor or author who had dug in their heels: their resistance was a threat, sometimes to our suspiciously moral-feeling attachment to “correctness,” sometimes to our aesthetics, and sometimes to our sense of ourselves. [...]
There’s a flip side, if it’s not already obvious, to the peculiar “respect” I received in that dusty closet office at twenty-two. A 2020 article in the Columbia Journalism Review refers casually to “fusspot grammarians and addled copy editors”; I’m not the only one who imagines the classic copy editor as uncreative, neurotic, and cold.
I want to say they’re the publishing professionals most likely, in the cultural imagination, to be female, but that doesn’t feel quite right: agents and full-on editors are female in busty, sexy ways, while copy editors are brittle, unsexed. Their labor nevertheless shares with other typically female labors a concern with the small and the surface, those aspects of experience many of us are conditioned to dismiss.
I’m willing to bet, too, that self-professed “grammar snobs” rarely come from power themselves—that there is a note of aspirational literariness in claiming the identity as such. [...]
It makes me wonder if, in renouncing my job when I left it—in calling copyediting the world’s least meaningful work—I might have been reenacting some of the literary scene’s most entrenched big-dick values: its insistence on story over surface (what John Gardner called the “fictional dream”), on anti-intellectualism but also the elitist cloak of it-can-never-be-taught. The grammar snob’s aspiration and my professor’s condescension bring to mind the same truism: that real power never needs to follow its own rules. [...]
Copyediting shares with poetry a romantic attention to detail, to the punctuation mark and the ordering of words. To treat someone else’s language with that fine a degree of attention can be an act of love. Could there be another way to practice copyediting—less attached to precedent, less perseverating, and more eagerly transgressive; a practice that, to distinguish itself from the quietly violent tradition from which it arises, might not be called “copyediting” at all; a practice that would not only “permit” but amplify the potential for linguistic invention and preservation in any written work?
--- Against Copyediting: Is It Time to Abolish the Department of Corrections? Helen Betya Rubinstein on Having Power Over More Than Just Commas
#linguistics#literature#copyediting#copyeditor#prescriptivism#grammar snobbery#editing#writing#publishing
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WIP Wednesday - Baldur's Gate Edition
I haven't shared a wip in god knows how long, and even though I've been working on my other fics in the background, I was bitten with the Bloodweave Bug and have been indulging myself a little bit here and there. So if it's your thing, have some... well. Have whatever this is shaping into:
[Context - Gale and Astarion attempt to get frisky after relentlessly flirting for two acts. NSFW warning: sexy and not-so-sexy postulating, but nothing too graphic. CW: descriptions of dissociation.]
--
“You really are a gorgeous creature,” Gale said, running his hand back down Astarion’s chest, across his stomach. “But I’m sure you already know that.”
“Never hurts to hear it again. And again.” He arched into Gale’s touch. “So, do go on.”
Gale finally tugged the shirt up and over Astarion’s head, tossing it to the floor before bending low to speak into his ear. “You’re gorgeous.”
“I know,” Astarion replied with a sigh as Gale placed kiss after kiss along his jawline before capturing his lips once more.
Their pants remained on and were becoming increasingly more uncomfortable. Gale licked his way between Astarion’s lips, sucking and nipping. For all his enthusiasm and verve, it was, unfortunately, a rather predictable escalation. Gale groaned into his mouth and Astarion felt himself begin to detach, eyes half-open, gaze drifting unfocused to the upper left hand side of the ceiling.
He wondered what kind of fuck Gale preferred. He seemed like the type to want to get Astarion off first before fucking him raw—the type to pride himself on getting his lover to cum before using their spent body for his own pleasure. Astarion knew the type. And there was something so incredibly wretched about having to pantomime pleasure for an unwanted orgasm–
“You still with me, ‘starion?”
“Hmm?” Astarion jerked his gaze from the ceiling to focus on Gale’s face. He couldn’t actually recall when they’d stopped kissing. “Sorry, I was just…” He paused, momentarily at a loss, then affected his best flirtatious smile, brow furrowing coyly. “I was just thinking of all the filthy things I want you to do to me.”
Gale sat back on his heels from where he knelt between Astarion’s legs, brow drawn. “Right… Listen, if you’d rather not–”
“Don’t be ridiculous, darling.” Astarion reached down and curled his fingers around the hem of Gale’s trousers. “Of course I want…” His gaze went unfocused once more, staring past the cut of Gale’s hip at the shimmer of the arcane lock on the door. “I want…” Whatever he’d intended to say, the words refused to surface, and his resolve was withering on the vine.
Gale slid his hands beneath Astarion’s, gently uncurling his fingers. “As I said, I consider myself to be an agreeable lover, which means recognizing when I’m not wanted.”
“But I want–” Astarion’s throat seized as the panic set in. This wasn’t how things were supposed to go. “I want you,” he finally managed to squeeze out. “I just don’t… I don’t want…” As his desire, his true desire, solidified, it felt so ridiculous that he wasn’t sure if he could utter it aloud.
“What don’t you want?”
“I don’t want to be touched. Like… that.” He covered his face with his hands and groaned. “Hells below. I’ve had sex more times than probably half of Baldur’s Gate combined. You’d think I’d be a little more articulate on the matter.” He sighed, letting his hands fall to rest against Gale’s knees. “But rarely did I want it, and even more rarely did I enjoy it. Now that I’m—well, now that I’m not compelled, I just…” He let out another heaving sigh, eyes trained on the ceiling, on the far corner, the window, the crack in the wall. Anywhere but on Gale. “I don’t know if I remember how it should be. How to… enjoy it.”
Gale made a noise of understanding, shifting to extricate himself from between Astarion’s legs. “Well,” he said, grunting with exertion as he lay down next to him on the bed. “It would be neither the first nor the last time I’ve had these kinds of activities halted abruptly. And, to be clear, I’d rather they be halted than to have you carry on as if I’m some…” He made a swirling gesture at the ceiling, as though attempting to conjure the word, but left the silence unfilled.
“It’s pathetic,” Astarion said. Hatred and misery roiled in his gut. “He ruined me.”
“He didn’t,” Gale assured, as if it were that simple a claim to dismiss. “Give it time.” He reached down between his own legs and palmed himself through his pants with a groan. “Besides, I’ve more than enough practice with my own hand to find satisfaction if I need it.”
Astarion felt something stir in his loins, something that overrode the simmering bitterness. He turned onto his side, propping his head against one palm. “What if… What if I watched you?”
Gale looked at him with a raised brow, still cupping himself. “Watched me have a wank?”
“I was thinking of it more in terms of ‘pleasuring yourself’, but sure. Be crude. Have a wank.”
“A titillating proposition,” Gale said with a breathy laugh, tipping his head back with a hiss as he squeezed himself. “Why not?”
#topsy writes#bloodweave#bg3#bg3 fanfiction#astarion#gale of waterdeep#astarion x gale#wip wednesday#writeblr#nsft#cw: suggestive#cw: dissociation
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How would sage react to reader refusing to get healed by her or Skye? Reader doesn’t want them wasting energy and much rather just patch themselves up and go (even if it’s a shit job).
How would Sage react to after countless times of reader turning down the healing and slowly recovering her finding out why they refused?
A/N: First of all, I love me some sage x reader so thank you for requesting this ;-;
Second- where are my dom!sage enjoyers?? I need to collect y'all so I can be surrounded by dom!sage content
This became a lot more wholesome than originally intended but yk what we chillin
Tags: Established relationship, fluff, GN!reader
"Let me help you love" Sage x Reader
You were not one to ask for help, or accept it when it was offered. As a child you were praised for this trait, people would tell you how strong or tough you were because of it. And while this wasn't done with any malicious intent it still had a negative affect on your life to this day.
You were a Radiant, with an ability you called "blood-bending." The name alone being fairly self explanatory you could manipulate the blood of yourself and other creatures. You tried not to use your own blood... though... you didn't always have other options.
Lately you haven't had other options.
You were dedicated to the protocol, already having accepted that each mission you took could very well be your last. This, along with your refusal for help led to a lot of.. well.. you refusing to accept the help of your fellow healers.
At first you were able to pass it off as needing easy access to your own blood, and most of the time it works, even if they don't like you exerting yourself like this.
It was another long mission, you were engaging enemies on a map dubbed Haven, it was a grueling mission and another instance where you'd been forced to use your own blood to fuel your abilities.
It was a long.. very long.. and very hard battle.
Though your victory was ever more satisfying.
Sage was checking in with everyone over the coms as you all headed back to the rendezvous point.
"(Y/N)..? you're awfully silent, are you okay?" Sage's voice rang through your earpiece and the deadly projectile you made of your own blood changed from a hard object to liquid as you released your focus from it; the blood splattering down onto the ground and making your uniform stain red.
"I'm..."
You struggled to speak through the dizziness in your head
"I'm fine Sage... really.."
Sage did not believe you and unbeknownst to you while she had the others make their way back onto the ship she went out to your location, meeting you half way to the pick up spot.
You'd wrapped a crude bandage around your arm where you'd drawn your own blood but it was hard to do even a half decent job when the pounding in your skull was all you could think about.
Sage's pace quickened as she spotted you
"Oh my darling.."
She cupped your cheek, worry flooding her tone
"I can patch you up, let's get back to the ship"
"It's okay.."
You heaved, each breath feeling like a task to complete
"I..- I can do it myself,, you look tired... don't waste your energy on me... I ca...."
Your voice faded, trialing off and you fought for consciousness.
"I can do it... do it...."
Your head was spinning, and the spinning soon morphed into darkness as blood loss and exhaustion took over.
Sage caught you in her arms, more worried now than ever before, she called for Sova to come help carry you--she knew she could carry you herself--however--not while trying to heal you at the same time.
Sova arrived quickly a concerned look on his face as he saw the state you were in
"Again...? It's getting bad Sage.. you must talk with them.."
Sage sighed, nodding a small nod. Sage was fixing the bandage on your arm and patching up the major cuts on your body before simply healing the smaller ones; cyan fog emitting from her hand as she used her gift to help you.
The next time you awoke it was in the infirmary of the Protocol's home base. Sage was by your side when consciousness finally returned to you,
"...mmph.."
You managed to pull yourself up into a sitting position, the sound of movement alerting Sage that you were awake
"..shit...I'm sorry Ling- you shouldn't have to-"
You were quickly cut off with a soft kiss from your lover, a quick and loving kiss, though one that did the job Ling needed it to.
"Don't ever apologize for needing help, it's okay my love.. let me help you, let Skye help you.. I could've lost you-"
Her voice began to break, as she cupped your face, tears pricking her eyes,
"You may be okay with death but It's my job to keep you alive. My love.. I need you.. and I need you alive.. please... why do you refuse my aid?"
The desperation in her tone.. in her eyes.. it was a look you couldn't stand to see and as the tears began to roll down her face you felt them in your eyes as well
"I just..- I.."
"I don't wanna burden you- waste your energy- it should go to anyone other than me... gods know I don't deserve it.."
You'd never admitted that to anyone before.. it felt.. nice... to get it off your chest.
Ling's expression shifted to one of grim determination,
"My love.. my darling, my starlight, you are far from a burden. You are my north star, my guide in the night, and you are anything but a burden. This ends, no more feeling like this, the next time you feel like this please tell me, we can work it out... it may not be easy but.. you must try... for me...?"
The tears rolled down your face and you pulled Ling closer to you in a warm and loving embrace,,
"oh'kay... for you.... thank you.."
"Anytime starlight"
#sage valorant#valorant sage#sage x reader#valorant x reader#valorant fic#valorant#valorant fluff#sage x you
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Be Silent, Sorcerer
Shang Tsung x Quan Chi
Masterlist
Summary - In the garden of Shang Tsung’s soul, where betrayal sews thorns, a delicate bud emerges. Its unexpected bloom opens a new door for his relationship with Quan Chi.
Word Count - 1,828
Warnings - mental breakdowns
A/N - Takes place after Shang Tsung and Quan Chi find out Damashi’s true identity. Also, thanks to my beta reader Eevee :)
“You are the victim of deceit, sorcerer.”
Even after an hour or so, the words keep ringing in his ears. Each time they repeat, they sting just a bit more. Shang sits in the remnants of his laboratory, a place that once represented his wit and cunning, now a burning reminder of his foolishness. Shang’s eyes are dull, his chest tight. His hands reach up to run through his hair, but only add to the frustration when they get caught in tangles. They then fall down, letting out a sound when they collide with his torso.
Shang had to hold his composure as best as he could. He wouldn’t dare to let Liu Kang and his minions witness a moment of weakness. Why give them more leverage than they already had? As soon as there was a moment of downtime, Shang ignored the faces that looked at him with disgust and ran to his lab. Its smell of death and despair was intense, the cries of prisoners enough to rupture the eardrum; neither managed to register in Shang’s mind.
He storms around the lab, finding himself unable to stay in one place. His mind is scattered across the room; attempts to find it are futile. Shang continues to race around the lab to find the last thing that keeps him together. Quills, scrolls, small miscellaneous items are thrown across the room during his search; no dice. The small items are followed by a chair, a lamp, even one of his examination tables. Shang’s face reddens as his hands tremble in grief and exertion. He inhales, exhales, but his breaths are too shaky to calm the frustration that begins to rise in his body.
A small light reflects in the corner of his eye. It’s one of the many beakers used in his tarkat experiments. Many restless nights were spent slaving over his desk, desperate to find a cure. Shang huffs in bitter amusement at the fact he stressed over this disease for, ultimately, no purpose. If only he could go back in time and tell his past self that he was being played. An invisible magnet draws him over to the object, and he gently picks it up. It’s chipped at the rim, presumably from being thrown to the ground. Dainty fingers spread across the beaker, cold and uncaring; they press against it as if he intended to bring harm. Shang’s breath hitches as his eyes close, imagining that his hands were wrapped around the throats of everyone who dared to conspire against him.
Shang is almost deafened by the sudden footsteps he hears. They aren’t too loud, but the reverb of his laboratory heightens his hearing. There is no need to turn and see who dared to interrupt him. He listens as the familiar legs clack against the ground until they stop in front of him.
“Quan Chi,” he simply states, voice laced with ire. Anger they both shared.
Quan Chi hums, seemingly pleased that he was recognised without Shang Tsung having to open his eyes. “I seek peace, solace from today’s events.”
“And you thought to find respite here,” Shang adds.
“Correct.”
Shang finally opens his eyes to fully drink in the image of his friend. Quan Chi stands tall, a few inches above him, and looks relaxed with his arms behind his back. Shang opens his mouth to say something, but the words are lost on him. He decides to not pollute the air with pointless rambling so the two could share a comfortable silence. Shang watches as Quan Chi walks over to a chair he threw earlier. The sorcerer picks it up and sets it upright before sitting down, sighing in relief after being on his feet all day. Shang takes a few steps back, the added distance giving him the courage to speak.
“I pride myself on my keen foresight, yet I was unable to realize we were just pawns.” Shang’s face twists into a disgusting scowl. It’s an expression that is foreign to his normally smug face.
“The wool was pulled over both our eyes, Shang Tsung.”
Shang shakes his head in anger, the emotions from earlier seeping out of his body. His fists clench and he takes a deep breath.
“Liu Kang will pay for the life he cursed me with. He will regret blessing me with mercy.”
Shang looks over at Quan Chi. His friend’s eyes are laced with an unknown emotion. He silently pleads for a response that would give context to Quan Chi’s facial expression but receives nothing. The two men continue to stare at each other, and Shang can only understand the emotion as pity. Whether Quan Chi truly pities him or not is unknown, but it’s the answer Shang decides to create.
One could almost feel the heat rising from Shang’s shoulders. Its smoke pollutes the air, making it thick and hazy. It suffocates, but Quan Chi is used to poor conditions like this; he doesn’t move at all.
“Shang Tsung,” Quan Chi begins. Shang doesn’t react at all – his eyes are too busy burning holes in the ground in front of him.
No response. The air gets thicker and thicker; it would surely kill anyone who walked in. Quan Chi can see Shang’s nails dyed with blood, a result of digging his nails into his palms. Quan Chi stands and eventually makes his way toward his friend. His efforts to grasp Shang’s attention are in vain, it appears as though there is a compelling force redirecting his attention away from Quan Chi.
Curious, Quan Chi grabs Shang’s chin and forces eye contact.
“Not once have I seen you lose control of yourself,” Quan Chi didn’t mean to offend with his observation, but Shang’s jaw tightens as he feels insulted.
“We were promised the world; instead we received humiliation.” Shang’s voice, once strong and confident, sounds weak and sad. “My wish was to share them with you; rule them as one.”
“And I, you,” comes Quan Chi's soft voice, comforting his companion immediately. Whatever emotion Shang felt in Quan Chi’s eyes is gone; it’s replaced with kinder, softer ones. “We – you deserve much more, Shang Tsung.”
Shang tries to look down but a strong hand keeps his head tilted up. Emotions begin to flood the damaged well of his heart. If Quan Chi wasn’t paying attention, he’d miss the signs of the tears’ arrival: fingers gently shaking, blotches of red attacking his pale cheeks, and torment clawing its way out of his chest. Quan Chi doesn’t know what to do, there’s not much he can do; emotions were never his strong suit. Shang pulls away and starts to pace the room. His hands shake more, and eventually a vase that survived his earlier breakdown is thrown against the wall, breaking and falling in sync with fresh tears. Shang chokes back violent sobs as a table is flipped, a window is broken, and a wall is punched. His poised self is well out the broken window, replaced by a man whose eyes are so bloodshot he looks like a beast.
Quan Chi is silent once again. He doesn’t know if he should calm the man who is now pulling at his hair, or allow him to feel his emotions. Shang’s breathing is rapid; one could almost hear his heart beating out of his chest. Quan Chi didn’t think it possible for Shang to hurt this much. He slowly extends his arms out for a hug, not knowing what else to do. Shang rushes over to Quan Chi and collapses in his arms, the sheer force of his weight knocking them both to the ground. He sobs, almost screams into Quan Chi’s shoulder. Shang’s arms hold the man tight; his fingers digging into his companion’s skin. Both are sure that Shang drew blood, but neither cared.
“I am not sure what to do next,” Shang chokes out, burying his face in his friend’s neck. He feels his stomach twisting. He brushes it off as a symptom of his overwhelming emotions, but knows it’s due to being in such close proximity to Quan Chi. He felt his feelings grow for his fellow sorcerer over the last few months but was quick to bury them. It only makes sense that his desire for the man would return with the rest of his emotions.
Quan Chi lets out a deep sigh of agreement. “Neither do I, my friend.” Friend, that word burns Shang’s chest. “But, hear me, Shang Tsung, when I say I shall face any adversary at your side. Forever.”
Shang slowly raises his head to look at Quan Chi. Shang’s face is wet, but the tears are slowing to a stop. Quan Chi’s hand moves to dry his face and huffs in amusement when Shang replaces the tears he dried with fresh ones. The air becomes charged with an unspoken tension as the two find themselves relaxing in each other’s presence. Their breathing, unbeknownst to them, slowly syncs, creating a harmonious rhythm that resonates with the quiet intensity of the moment. There wasn’t much either man could do other than stare into each other’s eyes. They had always been masters of restraint, keeping their feelings guarded like closely held secrets. Tonight, however, something was different.
As they sit in the laboratory, the echoes of Shang’s anger from earlier in the day linger in the air. The conversation since had flowed effortlessly, each word a bridge leading them closer to a place neither had ventured before. Shang can feel his heart beating a little faster, his palms slightly damp as he tries to navigate the uncharted territory of vulnerability.
Quan Chi, usually composed and self-assured, seems equally affected. His eyes start to hold longing, mirroring the emotions Shang had been suppressing for far too long. The unspoken tension simmers beneath the surface, the magnetic pull between them growing stronger with every passing moment.
A gentle breeze sweeps through a broken window, carrying with it a subtle scent of blooming flowers and the promise of change. The atmosphere seems to conspire, urging them to break free from the shackles of their own inhibitions. The ambient noise of the laboratory fades away as they move closer, the space between them diminishing with each heartbeat. Quan Chi could smell a faint hint of sweat on Shang’s body.
His hand stays on Shang’s face, guiding Quan Chi as he goes in to kiss Shang, the latter slightly gasping in surprise at the movement. The kiss was nothing special; clumsy, unsure lips moving against each other, showing that neither man had much experience in the love department. Their sloppy rhythm slows to a stop as they both pull away. Shang feels dazed. The feeling is welcomed after an hour of rage.
“A friend,” he starts, and Quan Chi listens intently. “You call me a friend, but your actions say otherwise.” Shang grins, “I fear you do not understand what a friendship is.”
“Be silent, sorcerer.”
#mortal kombat fanfiction#mortal kombat fanfic#shang tsung x quan chi#please don’t let this one flop i’m counting on you all
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A New Home
TW: Medical fatphobia and discussion of health issues, sadistic caregiver, immobility
I catch myself nervously fingering the sides of my belly, at the far extent of my reach, wishing I could be anywhere but here. Anywhere but having this skinny doctor, standing at the foot of my bed — one of those reinforced bariatric jobs, which I couldn’t leave without the help of a couple of strong orderlies, even if I could muster the will to try — very clearly disgusted by the sight of me, and lecturing me about what I would have to do if I wanted to salvage my health.
“You realize you’ve gotten yourself into a very dangerous situation, don’t you?” he says, palpating the flesh bulging from my thighs and underbelly, studying the darkening skin spreading from the folds. “You have allowed yourself to become extremely morbidly obese. I can see from the notes on your chart yesterday that you’re not able to lift yourself, not able to reposition yourself without assistance, you become very short of breath from any movement. And your lab numbers are very bad. Your cholesterol is very high, your blood pressure is consistently in the danger zone, and you’re ridiculously diabetic. That’s a very big hole you’re going to have to dig yourself out of.”
I had to scrutinize his expression to see if the double-meaning was intended — no sign of a smirk on that businesslike face, looking at the notes he was jotting on his tablet — but even so, I knew there was more truth in it than just what he meant. Just thinking about my situation was enough to make my blood run cold.
Today is the first day I’ve gotten to rest since I had to leave home. I say “had to,” when what I really mean is that I was made to. The power of attorney my feeder had made me sign — along with the gaining contract, the life insurance policy, and a bunch of other paperwork — had seemed so thrilling at the time, when we were just starting to fatten me up. Now, I wish I’d thought a little more carefully about it. Once I’d passed the half-ton mark, and my feeder had to start spending more time sponging my rolls than getting off to them, my days at home were numbered. I’m surprised he made it almost the full year. But he was well over it by then, and that little piece of paper was all he needed to sign me up for a one-way ambulance ride to this nursing home hellhole, and my bare room with a scenic view of the parking lot.
The ambulance was backed up to our house first thing in the morning two days ago. The first I knew about it was my feeder shaking my belly to wake me up, moments before two burly men in scrubs marched in and pulled off my bedsheets, one of them giving an involuntary whistle at the sight of my body filling the mattress before he recollected himself. I was still out of it, disoriented, and my oxygen wasn’t on yet, but I remember my feeder whispering in my ear that these men were here to help him, that I was going somewhere they could take better care of me, and that he was going to be right behind them. I didn’t even have a chance to protest before they started rolling me around, trying to maneuver some kind of tarp under me and strap a series of harnesses around my body. My bones and joints were sore and aching, and I was winded and out of breath just from the movement of all my weight, by the time they finished with me, trussed up like a Christmas turkey and totally unable to move.
Then a troupe of even more men joined them, the group having to exert all their effort just to slide me a couple of inches at a time, slowly working me closer and closer to the front door, with a heave and a plop each time. The whole thing was mortifying — I knew I was big, of course, but I had no idea I was so heavy that I could barely be moved by a half-dozen men exerting all their effort. I’ve never wanted to disappear more than when one young fireman, red-faced and muscles dewy with perspiration, let out a “Goddamn, that’s heavy” on the sixth or seventh heave through the living room. Nobody had to say it, but I knew they were all thinking about me that way, the person not much older than him who’d gorged themselves up to a quadruple-digit weight and beyond like it was their job.
Which it was; but they didn’t know that, and my feeder was doing his best impression of the dutiful but overwhelmed caretaker to leave them none the wiser. I was big when we met, he said, but not this big; he’d always tried to keep me to a healthy diet; I always found ways to fall off the wagon; eventually he had to give in and just help manage the fallout; I’d finally eaten myself too big for him to take care of me anymore, and he just didn’t know what he’d do without outside help. The lead paramedic was nodding sympathetically, saying obesity cases like mine happen more often than you’d think, eating up the entire sob story. If only he could have seen my feeder literally cramming eclairs down my throat the night before. The hypocrite.
It took the better part of the day getting me hauled out of the house, hoisted onto a reinforced gurney, maneuvered into the back of the ambulance, driven several cities over, rolled out at the nursing home, and hoisted onto my permanent bed. At one point, before the drive, they left me laying just outside the front door, having to watch the crowd of neighbors and other onlookers gawking at me, over 1,300 pounds of helpless flab, all bundled up for transport and barely able to wriggle my hands around. The embarrassment would have been obvious on my face if I wasn’t already beet red from just trying to keep my body from jiggling too wildly every time the team tried to move me. By the time I was settled in and able to catch my breath, it was already close to dusk.
The next day was no less hectic, but this time it was a series of doctors’ visits and tests to measure just how fat and out of shape I was. It took the nurse longer than I care to admit to find a vein he could use for blood testing, giving up on my flabby excuse for an elbow before struggling almost as badly on my fat-puffed hands. A seemingly endless rotation of doctors and nurses came to poke and prod me, doing nerve conduction tests on my feet and hands, taking more blood sugar readings, lifting every roll and checking every crevice for signs of lymphedema or other skin ailments. By the afternoon, I was ready to pass out from the combination of activity, the relentless nagging about needing to take better care of myself, and the (for me) complete lack of food their three conventionally-sized meals constituted.
After everyone left, I could hear the nurses talking about me in the hall, although they didn’t realize it.
“…chill for a couple minutes before we go turn them? Even with the winch, they’re heavy as fuck.”
“You get a feel for it after a while. How to maneuver around and everything.”
“How often do they actually get, you know, the really big ones back walking again? ‘Cause they have to lose, like, hundreds and hundreds of pounds to even get there, right?”
“I haven’t known but a couple who actually lost enough weight to discharge them. At least, not here. Most of the time, they can’t get over the food addiction. Like, you wouldn’t think someone the size of a house who can’t get out of bed could find a way to get food in here, but they always do.”
“Jeez. Really?”
“Yeah. It used to take a little bit of effort, before they could order whatever they want from their phones. But now a lot of them’ll just keep getting garbage delivered and putting it away until they have the big one.”
“Damn. Why doesn’t anyone stop them?”
“Do you have time to check everyone who walks through here, when two people don’t show for their shifts and you’ve got fifty beds to do? Bitch, please. Come on, I want a smoke before we go in.”
It was then that my feeder made his appearance. I saw him slip something to the nurse who showed him to my room. He looked at whatever it was in his palm and smiled before pocketing it, leaving the room, and locking the door behind him. Then I felt something warm land on my bare chest: a huge paper bag — heavy, stained with grease, and bearing the logo of my favorite fast food stop. From its weight, I knew it must contain almost a day’s worth of junk; and from the gleam in my feeder’s eye, I knew every bit of that junk would be going down my throat as quickly as my feeder could get it into my mouth.
“You must be starving, sweetheart, after having nothing but hospital fare for the last day or so. I hope you didn’t think I was actually going to make you start slimming down?” he said with a mocking solicitude. “No, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure you keep gaining, no matter what your doctors may do to try to rehabilitate you. You’re mine, my half-ton prize pig, and I’m making sure you stay that way until the very end.”
It took him the better part of two hours, but he made sure I ate every bite of food I’d usually eat in a full day, accepting no complaints and giving no comfort. He stared gleefully into my eyes as he gently but relentlessly pressed bite after bite into my overworked mouth. After my feeding was over and he’d cleaned the grease and crumbs off my face, I was panting and sweating, barely able to breathe even with oxygen from the pressure of all the food. It was then that he unlocked the door and summoned the two nurses who were outside earlier, telling them I looked really uncomfortable and asking if they could reposition me. He stood in the corner as they rigged up the bariatric hoist, sneaking videos and watching them work my wobbling body, overwhelmed by blubber, into the harness so it could slowly rotate me onto my belly. I could tell he was enjoying every second of seeing me manhandled, moved around more like some particularly bulky freight or livestock than a person. When the nurses finally finished after what seemed like an eternity and left the room, he followed, taking a handful of my chubby jowl and giving it a squeeze. “Same time tomorrow, slim? I guess I know where to find you, haha.”
I was left alone with my thoughts for what was really the first time since the move. I could feel my cheeks burning with shame, a pit of anxiety and embarrassment growing into a widening chasm in my overfull belly. Getting this fat had always been the goal; needing bariatric care was the apex for every extreme gainer and every encourager who tracked their progress. But now that I was here, and it was an actual fact — now that I really was too fat to move on my own, and had no choice but to submit to strangers for even the simplest tasks, no matter how private — the reality was horrifying. I had wrecked my body beyond the point of no return because my feeder and a bunch of random people on the internet that I would never meet found it hot. I had been proud of my gains, greedy for more, and I never really considered the ramifications of the end game. Now my body was choked with fat, pinned to this reinforced bed, with no hope of slimming down and every prospect of being made to balloon even more, all because some strangers wanted to get off. How could they do this to a person? To me?
“But you’re letting yourself off the hook by blaming them,” my conscience chimed in. “You wanted an easy life just as much as they wanted you to gain, if not more. You wanted to be able to graze and gorge, and to have nothing more to think about than your next meal. And you got exactly what you asked for; you got to kick back and compress a lifetime worth of calories into a few short years. It’s nobody’s fault but your own that you only get to enjoy that life for a couple more years, at the outside. Deal with it, fatass.”
And today here I am, getting harangued by an utterly unsympathetic doctor. Being run through the parade of horribles that will happen if I don’t commit to an ordinary diet, apply myself to an exercise routine designed to recover my mobility, attend to a medication regimen. In the back of my mind, I know this is all a waste of time. That I’m going to be pumped full of greasy burgers and fattening pastas and melted ice cream every day while the nurses are turning a blind eye. That my bloated legs and fat-laden arms and belly the size of a mattress aren’t going anywhere. That I’m ending my days here, probably at a weight closer to a ton than not, depending on how long I can hold out.
The fluorescent lights buzz incessantly above me. I can feel the waves of chilling air driven by the ceiling fan wafting across the expanse of my flab. My body wobbles slowly back and forth with each breath, machines trying to drive enough oxygen into me to keep me going. Outside, I can see one of the elderly residents shuffling by, braced against a tennis ball-bedecked metal walker. Slow. Ancient. And far more mobile than my youthful, three-quarter-ton blob body ever will be again. I fucked up big time. I’m too fat to fix it, and my feeder’s going to make sure I stay that way.
I’m never getting out of here.
Thanks to @gaining-at-all-times for suggesting the idea for this one, and providing a lot of the source material
#feeder fiction#gainerfiction#gaining#ssbhm#weight gain fiction#wg fiction#extreme weight gain#wg story#weight gain story#gainer stories
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TEASER: To Own the Libs, chapter seven
Hello hi hello! This is chapter seven of my next novel, To Own the Libs, which will be released on September 1st! Like I did with chapter one a week ago, I'm releasing this chapter as a preview to hopefully hype the release up a little bit :3
The book can be preordered from Amazon and other online stores; the itch version and the paperback will be added on the date of release (I can't set up preorders for them).
The teaser chapter (content warning: dysphoria) can be downloaded from itch by clicking the link above 👆 and is available over there as EPUB and PDF; a small part can also be found behind the readmore cut right here 👇 if you don't wanna leave Tumblr ;)
Slowly, deliberately, I went about my night-time routine: I brushed my teeth and changed into my pajamas. It took me longer than usual, since I was concentrating on every movement, taking as long as I reasonably could.
Then, instead of going to bed, I sat down at my desk, and stared at the boxes.
Cyproterone acetate and estradiol valerate.
The two boxes were small. Innocuous. But the more I looked at them, the more menacing they seemed: after all, the chemicals they contained were able to change a person.
Well, not literally change a person. The person was the same. But their outward appearance changed radically. I knew it. I’d seen the timelines people had posted online – all part of my research, of course – and the results were incredible. Night and day. The people depicted in the “before” and “after” pictures looked very similar, yes, but like siblings or cousins: not even remotely the same person, at all.
What if…?
I got up from my desk, walked over to my wardrobe, and opened it; then, with a supreme exertion of will, I forced myself to look up, and stare at my reflection.
Ugh.
No matter how many times I saw my face, I still didn’t like it. I never had, not since I’d been thirteen or fourteen, at the very least. I ran a finger over my forehead and traced down to the tip of my nose; I brushed the back of my hand against my cheek, felt the stubble, and frowned. My electric razor didn’t give me nearly as close a shave as I would’ve liked, an actual razor would’ve been better: but I couldn’t use that without looking in the mirror.
Cute, Nora had called me. One of the cutest girls on campus.
I really didn’t see it.
I wonder what effect the hormones would have on me.
I blinked. That thought had passed, unbidden, through my mind.
Where the hell had it come from?
This whole thing was really starting to get to me. I should probably get to bed: I had no idea how long I’d spent thinking about the hormones, but it was probably already well past midnight.
I took one last look at my face in the mirror, grimaced, and closed the wardrobe door, fully intending to turn right around and get to sleep right away; and yet, despite my best intentions, I found myself sitting down at my desk and looking at the boxes again. Staring at the boxes again.
I stared hard. For a long time. I stared, refusing to avert my eyes, willing myself not to blink, until my eyes started watering. Then I blinked, and stared again.
I wonder what effect the hormones would have on me.
There. That thought again, there it went. What was up with that?
It was a bad thought. It was a terrible thought. It was a thought I shouldn’t have had. It was a thought I wasn’t supposed to have had. Not in a million years.
But somehow, it was a thought I could not manage to avert my mind’s eye from.
I couldn’t help but be curious. What effect would the hormones have on me?
I’d looked up the list: softer skin. Redistribution of fat. Some hair regrowth, maybe? That one, I had to admit, would’ve been nice – I was already starting to thin out a bit on top, which was weird since my dad still had a full head of hair.
But I was sure the results wouldn’t be that great. I’d seen the timelines, sure, but most of those people were already starting from a good place. They already looked feminine, even before HRT.
What effect would the hormones have on someone who looked like me? A person so terribly masculine, so incredibly male that you couldn’t mistake them for anything else?
“Two of those, morning and evening,” I whispered, almost mesmerised. “So one right now. And half of one of those per day, evenings are better.”
Without thinking, I opened the boxes; I popped two pills out of their blisters, then broke one in half and put one half carefully back where it had come from.
I looked down at the pill-and-a-half, cupped in the palm of my hand. Estradiol and cyproterone. Light blue and white. Small. Innocuous.
Menacing.
Why shouldn’t I try it?
Just for a while, to see how it felt.
After all, what was that if not more gathering material for the article I was planning to write? Real life experience: can’t beat that.
I could stop any time I wanted anyway. I’d done the research: it would take several months before the effects mounted up to the point that they weren’t easily reversible. So taking estradiol and cyproterone for a couple weeks – or a couple months – was no big deal.
I chuckled to myself, remembering how startled I’d been to learn The Matrix had been written by two trans women. Later on my friends had explained to me that the red pill was a stand-in for Premarin, which had been the estrogen of choice at the time the movie had been made. It was quite ironic: all those idiots on the Internet, who proudly declared themselves to be “redpilled,” none of them probably knew what that really meant.
I looked down at the pills again: cyproterone and estradiol.
White and light blue.
The instrument of many a trans person’s change.
Could they be the instrument of my change, too?
You take the blue pill, and I show you just how deep the rabbit-hole goes.
...Was there a reason to not take them?
Let’s think about this carefully, Lily. You’ve always been a logical person, put the two things on the scale and see how they balance out.
Pros of taking the pills: I would get first-hand experience of what that feels like.
Cons of taking the pills: my body might change a bit; the changes, however, wouldn’t be permanent until several months in. I might become a bit cuter, maybe.
Probably not, given the starting material.
(Ugh.)
But possibly? Well, whatever.
Why would I want to become cuter anyway?
For whatever reason, my mind flashed to Nora for a moment.
No, don’t get distracted. Keep going.
Pros of not taking the pills… None that I could think of, really.
Cons of not taking the pills: having to explain to my queer friends exactly why I wasn’t taking them. And it’s not like “I don’t feel it’s the right moment for me” was going to cut it – all trans people want to get on hormones as soon as possible, after all, so me not doing it would be weird. It might arouse some suspicion. They might even discover that I was just pretending to be trans. And then I would have to stop.
So, yeah. Summing everything up, I had a clear picture in my mind.
Taking the pills: one big pro, and one small con. Not taking the pills: no pros, one big con.
Once again, I looked down at the hormones in my hand.
My other hand moved, almost without me thinking about it. Almost automatically. I grabbed the water bottle that was on my desk.
I quickly popped the pills into my mouth, and chased them down with a big swig of water. Then another one. And another one, until the half-litre bottle had been completely drained.
Then, before I could think about what I’d just done, I tucked myself into bed and turned off the light.
Sleep didn’t come easy to me that night.
#my writing#trans#trans positivity#trans writers#transgender#tumblr writers#writerblr#writers on tumblr#books#fiction
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I often find myself having mixed feelings about my relationship with christianity. I love who god and jesus are and what the bible stands for and its teachings, but I feel guilty for not fitting in at church (I’ve been to multiple churches growing up, and even now at my family’s current one I still feel like an outcast- which is funny considering that’s who churches are for). I want it to be enough for me to just love god but I feel I can’t do that, especially since my current church teaches that you can’t have a relationship with christ if you don’t go to church. I see god’s people in church and I feel so disconnected with them, and I wonder if I’m doing something wrong and if I really *can’t* have a relationship with him if I’m not like them
churches have evolved to be about power. post-reformational, enlightenment developments in the church as an ecumenical body, on one side, opened more readily to the laity the mysteries of church, scripture, and sacrament. but this opening was simultaneously inoculated against any revolutionary impulse that might be ignited by the idea of a personal relationship with God by the institution– one which is about power, which is patriarchal and authoritative. it instituted an anesthetizing repression in which the personal and private element of faith that had once been part of devotion for clergy was not opened up to the laity but dissolved entirely. this element of personal faith constituted an unusualness, an autonomy, of erotic impulse too dangerous to allowed to proliferate in civilization at large unless it could be commodified, unless it was exploitable, made people submissive and easily persuaded. an example of this is the slave bible, which removed passages about equality and freedom from bondage in bibles intended for use by enslaved africans in the british west indies, in order to prevent them from having any idea that God, not man, was the ultimate authority: that anyone could have a relationship with God that was personal, private, empowering, and ultimately revolutionary.
conservative christianity, both protestant and catholic, responds to independent and personal faith as a kind of fetish rather than as a legitimate religious expression. i'm not saying the church you attend is conservative, but this is a fairly universal tack in all churches, because all churches are built on hierarchical authorities and require human forms of submission to that authority to remain vital and exert control. i do not hate the church, i love it, but i also recognize that it often stands more as an impediment for people gaining a closeness with God more than it acts as a means of bringing them closer to him.
in matthew 18:6, jesus says:
if any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea.
in this passage, christ is specifically talking about children. but spiritually, we are all and are always children. i approach primarily theology through psychoanalysis, and one thing about children is that in their development they are disposed to see themselves and their mother- their nurturer- as part of them. separation is learned. maturation is learning how to be a part of and connect to the world while neither consuming it wholly for oneself nor being absolutely consumed by it. as simone weil says, to eat without being eaten. our spirituality, our connection to God, is similar: we recognize that we are made in God's image a priori, we may recognize our communion with him as private and beautiful, and separation is learned. we are made in God's image and our separation from him comes after: it is a human institution. all separations, not only in terms of personal relationships but in terms of christian conservatism, militancy, and nationalism. all separations are learned and human.
but simone weil also says: every separation is a link. our separation from God is our link to him, because we are separated from God but God is also separated from us. and our separation from other people is their separation from us. our innate state of being, our longing as human beings, is a longing for connection. but it is precisely this separation that is our communion. maybe the church you currently attend is not a good spiritual home for you, but that does not mean that you don't have a spiritual home. christ spent much time alone: he spent forty days in the desert, but a day is a thousand years to God: he has spent an eternity away from his creation, made in his image, whom he looked at and saw was good as he is good. the hebrew bible says tov, not only good as in physically good and beautiful to look at, or good as in virtuous, but good as in a fertile land, as in good gold. intrinsically good. creatively good. the first thing God asks of man is a question of companionship: humanity is capable of creating communion because that is what God does. but first, humanity- and God- were lonely.
your loneliness, your sense that you do not belong, is as profoundly a part of God as you are, as goodness is. don't be afraid of it and don't let how others behave convince you that you deserve loneliness. (God did not accept loneliness nor think we deserved it: that is the story of christ.) you will find a place meant for you. for now, lean on God: he is leaning on you. you will find your place, your heart, your love. christ also felt disconnected from his own community: a prophet is never recognized in his own town. you'll find your way. i love you.
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Tumblr generated prompt number 9 actually landed on a free space, so I got to pick a prompt myself! I decided to take inspiration from this idea of @halogenrobotics's, which has Vanessa quitting her job at the pizzaplex because Vanny was in control the whole time, and Vanessa thus never actually learned how to do her job, lol. I went my own way from there, inspired by the game Firewatch.
Learning to Live Again
The strain of physical exertion, of her body moving, was wonderful. The sounds of nature—birds chirping and rustling leaves and a bubbling stream—were amazing. The sun on her face and the wind in her hair—newly short, cut an inch or so above her shoulders—felt incredible.
Vanessa paused on a flat bit of trail and just breathed.
No more dark hallways and dusty basements for her. Before, she wouldn’t have described herself as a very nature-y person, but after so long locked up in her own head and subject to the whims of a remorseless murderer, even the most cavernous of rooms felt claustrophobic.
This—the great outdoors, miles and miles from the nearest small town—was about as big of a change as she could get. It was everything she needed; it was a fresh start.
Besides that, she mused as she continued onward, it was kind of a necessary one. Even after Vanny was purged from her, to say things were difficult was an understatement. She’d missed literal years of her life, and half of Vanny’s memories were either inaccessible or useless to her. The world had moved on without Vanessa Anderson, and it wasn’t willing to wait for her to catch up.
Because Vanny had been the night guard. No, really. Vanny went through the training, not Vanessa. Vanny learned the security systems. Vanny knew the protocols. Vanny had the experience.
The routine of getting ready for and going to work had been muscle memory, right up until she stepped inside the pizzaplex (ignoring the way just being there made her feel sick) and realized she had no idea how to do her job.
She didn’t have a single memory of actually being a night guard. And she was pretty sure it was an intentional move on Vanny’s part—a final middle finger before she was destroyed—because she had other memories from those years. Blurry and vague ones, sure, but only the details of her job were a great big blank.
It… hadn’t actually stressed her out as much as Vanny probably intended.
She wrote out her two-weeks’ notice that very night and sent the email as her shift ended. And now she was here, in the middle of a national forest, on her way to start her new job as a fire watch.
And she was excited for it. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been excited for something.
The hike to her new part-home, part-office—a watchtower—took about two days, and by the time she arrived, she was all tuckered out.
The stairs to the lookout tower seemed to stretch on forever, and Vanessa kept the promise of a bed at the top in mind, like a dangling carrot. Mm. No. Not carrot. A dangling cherry. Those were much tastier and had nothing nada zilch to do with bunnies.
Upon reaching the top, she leaned on the white wooden railing to catch her breath. The climb was worth it, she decided, not just for the bed, but for the sunset. The golden light was stretching over the forest below, dipping in and out of valleys and around the surrounding mountains. Red and amber haloed the sun, lighting the clouds on fire with a gentle pink and yellow glow.
It was gorgeous.
It was probably also perfectly visible from her bed, given the one-room cabin at the top of the tower was window all the way around. She fumbled with the key and didn’t even bother turning on the lights when she made it inside. Just collapsed onto the unmade bed and leaned against the pleasantly cool glass to finish watching the sun set.
When her legs had regained some feeling in them, Vanessa pushed herself up with a groan and flipped on the lights to take in her new home. Small, but cozy. And it didn’t feel claustrophobic at all, thanks to the panoramic windows. She could get used to this.
She had just begun unpacking her essentials—anything more than that could wait until tomorrow—when a staticky sound made her jump. Dropping her toiletry bag, she zeroed in on a walkie-talkie settled in its charging station on the desk.
“Helloooo?” a woman’s voice came through the speaker, sounding bright and cheery. “You there, newbie? Aw, I know you are—I can see your lights on!”
Huffing a chuckle, amused despite herself, Vanessa went and grabbed the walkie-talkie. “Hi,” she said.
“Greetings—” the woman immediately responded. Her smile was audible— “from the other side of the valley! I’m your supervisor on this beautiful evening, and all the ones after it.”
Vanessa leaned back against the desk, something warm taking root in her heart. It’d been so long she’d had a friend, and she couldn’t help but hope this woman, who didn’t sound much older than her at all, might become one. She thought she’d like that.
“Vanessa, right?” her supervisor continued. “Welcome aboard!”
“Best welcome I’ve ever gotten at a new job,” she said honestly. “Yeah, I’m Vanessa. Ness is fine too.”
“We here at the Wyoming Fire Watch are all about warm welcomes.”
Laughter—real, unforced laughter—shook Vanessa’s body, and her eyes welled up a little just from the relief of it. That she was still alive despite her battered mind and borrowed body. She let the woman hear it in silent thanks, pressed the talk button on her walkie-talkie so she would know her joke had been well-received.
“I’ll have to think up some fire puns of my own,” Vanessa said, swiping at her eyes.
“That’s the spirit! I’ve heard a lot, though, so I might be tough to impress.”
“I like a challenge,” she said, interrupted halfway by a yawn.
“That’s good,” the woman said, earnest. “This job isn’t for the faint of heart. But don’t worry about that now, Vanessa. Get your bed set up and conk out for as long as you like. We all take a day or two to recover from that hike, even us pros.”
“The bed is calling to me,” she admitted with a grin. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow, right?”
“Right. And I’m always only a walkie-talkie away if you need anything.”
“I appreciate that. Thank you, uh…”
Smile audible once more, the woman replied, “The name’s Annie. It’s nice to meet you, Ness.”
Holding the walkie-talkie close, Vanessa closed her eyes, at peace. “It’s nice to meet you too, Annie.”
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wip wednesday, sorta - the story i've been noodling with has hit i think a pause point in that an idea emerged in drafting that i think might call for some major revamping, and i gotta marinate on it for a while before committing, which is sort of annoying but also sort of a relief since i do actually also really want to be able to turn my focus back to the fic i was in the middle of, lol. but here's a little of the non-fic thing i've been writing:
After the funeral, I came home. Each sound seemed perversely amplified: the tectonic friction of the key in the lock, the batwing smack of my purse against the wall, the strangled thunder of my boots on the wooden floor. The apartment felt insurmountably empty. I could not imagine how I would live here alone.
I hadn’t washed the sheets since the accident. It occurred to me—truthfully for the first time—that this could not go on forever. That one day I would have to fall asleep in a bed that no longer smelled like David. That there were little pieces of him here with me, clusters of dead cells that had once been his, and I would be the one to cast them out. I fell into bed with my shoes on and cried myself nauseous, howling to wake the dead until my body gave out.
When I woke up, it was dark out and there was a glass of water on my nightstand that I couldn’t remember getting. I sat up to drink it, confused and half-asleep still, with a headache from crying.
David was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching me with a sheepish smile. He wiggled his fingers in a goofy wave. Hey, babe.
I screamed.
-
So it’s definitely been an adjustment. I don’t want to undersell that. What he’s doing, it’s not the same as coming back from the dead. Death is death—you can’t turn back the clock. It’s just a little more permeable sometimes than I had assumed. That’s a lot to process, in and of itself. I still wake up alone, just like I would have if he’d stayed; manifesting takes a lot of energy, so he usually doesn’t bother when I’m asleep. The whole corporeality thing is kind of touch-and-go, too—pun intended, forgive me, because it’s been a rough couple months and sometimes you have to make your own fun.
And David—it changes you, dying. It would be stupid to expect it not to. Yes, he’s a little more subdued than he was before. A little less adventurous, a little more unreliable. But he’s not even sure he can leave the apartment. And our spreadsheets have yet to evince any kind of pattern to what we’ve taken to calling his signal. (Even that is a simplification: sometimes it acts like cell service, flickering in and out for its own inscrutable reasons, and other times it’s more like a battery, drained by exertion and taking time to restore.) More importantly, he’s still David. He’s still curious and kind; he still loves Leonard Cohen and heist movies. He still plugs in my heating pad when I’m doubled over from cramps, and he still makes me laugh. It’s not nothing, to live through the worst of all possible things and still come home to someone who makes you laugh.
In some ways it reminds me of that first pandemic year. I’m still going to work this time, but of course he’s not, so whenever I’m home, there he is. We hadn’t lived together long when it hit; those strange, sad, death-suffused months were what turned our fourth-story walk-up into a place that meant each other. It’s not so different now. We’re learning the new shape of ourselves in a state of close proximity and existential upheaval. My friend Laura and her husband just had their first baby. From what she tells me, our situation isn’t so different from that, either.
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This is my first ever attempt at fan fiction so please be kind but also I am open to constructive criticism. It is not complete but I intend to complete it soon. Please let me know if this interests you at all or if you have any ideas for how things should move forward 😁 till then I hope you enjoy!
Zoro x afab reader. SFW (for now)
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You don’t know when it started. That tightness in your chest when he walks by or glances your way. But it’s undeniable now. Maybe it started the day you joined the crew, a memory backdropped with the sound of cannon fire and the vague smell of blood.
I mean, he did save you after all, and that type of heroism tends to stick with people...right? But it feels like more than just gratitude and admiration. You can hear your pulse in your ears when you spar with the swordsman and it’s not from physical exertion.
The feeling scares you so much that you’ve been finding excuses to skip training sessions.
you find yourself reading alongside Robin frequently, mostly in silence but with the occasional lighthearted laugh when someone on the crew (usually Luffy) does something goofy, or a kind “Thank you” when Sanji brings refreshments and sweets.
This gives you time to think and attempt to calm the butterflies that have nested in the depths of your insides…. But also, an all too good vantage point of Zoro’s seemingly never-ending workouts.
Does he have to train right THERE? You swear he is doing it on purpose! No shirt to hide the sweat as it trails down his concentrated face and muscular form. You force yourself to focus on the book in your lap, sneaking the occasional glance hoping no one notices.
Well, it’s not on purpose you rationalize with yourself. Although he has been noticeably distant the last few weeks (around the same time you started “expanding your horizons” and “exploring other forms of training” as you told him). The proximity was clouding your brain and you can’t afford to get too distracted in the Grand Line.
Was training the only connection we had? Were the late-night drinks and conversations under the stars part of the Zoro training Regime? He even seems to be sitting further during meals…READ THE BOOK DAMMIT FOCUS.
“Maybe I’m looking too far into it….” You accidentally mumble out loud granting a curious glance from Robin who didn’t press further. You hope she assumed it was about the novel in your hands rather than your inner ramblings about a certain green-haired man in view.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It’s another calm day on the thousand Sunny. Just enough clouds to break up the brutality of the sun but still allow for its warmth to caress your skin. Everyone is outside enjoying the weather in their own ways. Nami is sunbathing with Robin on the deck, Luffy and Usopp are fishing and filling the air with the sound of laughter. Chopper is playfully fighting with Zoro, a scene you find myself watching with a smile. The smell of a fresh meal coming from the open door of the kitchen where Sanji prepares dinner and is peacefully whistling to himself. Franky is up in the crow’s nest repairing something you didn’t quite catch what for if you’re honest.
You make a mental note to show more interest in the kind shipwright’s work later.
The sun slowly begins to set, and everyone gathers around for dinner. Sanji absolutely outdoing himself as always with a feast fit for kings.
Zoro and you are the last in and sit across from each other in the last free seats, you can instantly feel your heart in your throat. You reach for the last spring roll at the same time as Luffy, his stretchy arms would have beat you to it if Zoro didn’t smack his hand away with an almost comedic thud and a pout from the culprit.
“Oi! Don’t be selfish you already ate half the food!” the green haired man shouts across the table before turning back to the meal in front of him, seemingly unaware that such a small act in your defense has left you flushed. you do the same, looking down at the plate to hide the pink in your cheeks.
Unknown to you, the swordsman did notice the blush across your cheeks. Although unaware of its true cause he can’t help but save the image in his head. Whatever the reason for it, he thought it looked good on you and wondered, first, about how to see it more and then, about why you’ve been avoiding him. Did he smell? Was he pushing you too hard during training? Is that why you’ve traded your time with him to spend it lounging? He suddenly felt guilty, like he had hurt you and was too stupid to remember how.
He gets up from the rowdy table, grabs a bottle of sake, and silently disappears.
You watch the doorway he vanished from for a little too long before shaking your head to try and rid yourself of the nonsensical thoughts and returning your attention to the rest of the crew who are now playfully arguing over who has eaten the worst things. Luffy is talking about some cherry pie (a mystery to you of how Luffy could not like any food) and Usopp is claiming to have eaten a rotten melon the size of a small house.
At some point you find yourself quietly leaving and wandering the deck. The cool night air is a much-needed relief on your hot skin. Being so close to everyone while also laughing and yelling over each other has left you more than a little flushed.
Zoro heard you coming up the ladder before he saw you reach the top. He was sitting with his back against the wall enjoying the stars and sake, lost in his own thoughts about a certain “new” crew member.
“Drink?” he asks offering you the bottle of sake as you situate yourself next to him…but not too close.
“Thanks, you alright?” you try and ask as casually as possible while taking a large swig of grog.
“Yeah.” His response is short, simple, and very mildly slurred.
He’s drunk! Not sure why you are surprised, you help yourself to another big drink before handing it back.
The mild pink hue on his cheeks confirms his current state.
“I hurt you?” he asks suddenly, catching you severely off guard and very confused.
“Hurt me?”
“Wont train with me anymore n thought I might of hurt ya or sum” sake slurs his words as they come out as almost a mumble.
Is he pouting????
You take the bottle back deciding he doesn’t need it anymore but that you might. After a few gulps, that you hope he doesn’t think anything of, you respond.
“No, you’ve never hurt me. At least no more than the training demands” you chuckle a bit trying to lighten the seemingly heavy mood and take another sip.
“good” followed by some more silence.
He stands, looking down on you with his good eye and offers a small smile. “You know where to find me if you decide to stop being a big baby and fight me again, I’m still undefeated” a drunken smirk that sends fire through your body and settles between your legs, makes its way across his face before he disappears down the ladder for the night.
To be continued…..?
#one piece#fanfic#zoro roronoa x you#pirate hunter zoro#romance#monkey d. luffy#vinsmoke sanji#nico robin#straw hat nami#franky#new writer#smut#zoro smut#one piece smut
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The Devil Next Door Part 11
Words: 2.5k
Tensions are mounting… ❤️🔥
The Devil Next Door Masterlist Main Masterlist
❤️🔥 Y/N’s POV ❤️🔥
They say exercise releases endorphins and you could certainly do with the boost to your mood this morning so you double your efforts, feet pounding hard on the pavement as you pick up your pace, chasing that natural high. You've got your EarPods in, your upbeat exercise playlist blasting, the hazy autumn early morning sunshine bathing you in liquid gold.
You should be in the zone right now. Running usually completely clears your mind, obliterating any unwanted negativity and putting you in a positive mindset to start the day, but for some reason it's just not working today. As you round the corner by the park and clock up mile number three you're still plagued with thoughts of Van and his sneakiness. But even worse than that, other thoughts start intruding. Rather than just fuming about what he'd done, your mind starts exploring why he'd actually gone to the lengths to do what he did. You've been so preoccupied with thinking that he was intent on sabotaging you for purely spiteful reasons, but the more you think about it the more that explanation seems flawed. If he'd wanted to ruin your night there were a hundred other ways he could have done it to really piss you off and cause as much chaos as possible, but no real damage had been done after all if you were being completely honest with yourself. In fact, in reality the person who came off worst out of the whole situation was Van himself. Fair enough he'd been devious and he'd lied, but his intended goal seemed to be simply to spend more time alone with you.
It's actually quite romantic in an absurdly chaotic kind of way...
Stop it Y/N! Don't make excuses for him! He's a creep and he can't bear to see you happy with Tom!
But he hates seeing you with Tom for one reason and one reason only... he's obviously jealous and wants you all to himself...
But that doesn't give him the right to interfere! Just steer clear of him, he's bad news... and you don't want him anyway!
You groan internally as your inner-self wrestles with how you should feel, your flighty heart and your rational brain totally disagreeing. It's pretty obvious that no amount of physical exercise is going to unburden your mind and stop you from agonising over this now, so you make a sharp turn down the path that cuts through the park, intending to go home and shower off the exertions of your run. Maybe you should just go into work early and see if you can pick up a morning shift after all. The ward's always busier first thing in the morning and you know they've been short-staffed lately.
❤️🔥 Van's POV ❤️🔥
I cup my hand against the breeze to shield the flame from my lighter, sucking in a lungful of acrid smoke and letting it linger in my lungs until they're burning. My hankering for a morning smoke had taken a turn when I'd noted the little bag of weed and rolling papers that Bondy had dumped on the kitchen counter, so I'd decided to roll a spliff and start my morning off the way I intended the rest of my day to pan out. Getting buzzed and taking it easy.
There was no point stewing over the situation with Y/N like I had been since I'd woken from my restless sleep. There was no way on this earth that anything was going to happen between us now after last night so I needed to just let it go and concentrate my efforts on things that were actually worth my time and effort. Song-writing for example... and the band... and getting some more gigs lined up. But all that could wait. I'd been working hard and doggedly enough that I could easily afford to put it all on the back burner and just let loose for one day. The fame and fortune I craved wasn't going to escape my clutches if I let my foot off the gas for a little while and indulged in a little 'me' time. It's therapeutic after all.
"All work and no play makes Van a dull boy!" I chuckle to myself, tipping my head back to blow lazy trails of smoke into the morning air, watching the scattered clouds scudding across the sky. For saying it's late October it's actually a beautiful morning and unseasonably warm. The heat of the sun's rays kiss the bare skin of my chest as I lean against the door frame, basking in it, soaking up the warmth and enjoying the pleasant fuzziness that's starting to haze my brain.
"For fucks sake, that's not weed you're smoking is it? At this time in the morning?"
I jolt like I've been shocked, sucking the smoke from another inhale too far into my lungs where it scorches, forcing me to cough and splutter.
"Jesus! Where did you spring from?" I gape, instinctively tucking the hand holding the spliff behind my back even though it's plainly obvious what I'm smoking from the distinctive odour.
It's Y/N, hair scraped back off her pretty face into a pony tail, the flush high on her cheeks and dressed head to toe in Lycra running gear. She looks radiant in the early morning sunshine. Even though she's blinking up at me with accusing eyes and her lips are pulled into a sneer she still manages to look gorgeous, like she's just rolled right out of a dream. My wet dream to be precise I think to myself, my cheeks warming as I think about what I was doing in tune to thoughts of her in the shower just ten minutes ago.
"It is isn't it?" She grimaces, coming to a stop right in front of me, nose creased up in distaste. "That what passes for breakfast in your household then, is it?"
I consider lying, telling her that it's just a roll up, some fancy new baccy my mate's picked up for me from holiday, but I reason with myself that there's little point. Y/N already hates me after last night. She thinks I'm a liar and I'm pretty sure telling fibs is a bigger misdemeanour in her book than getting stoned on a random weekday before 9am.
"Maybe it is," I counter. "Don't see that it's any of your business anyway."
I bring the spliff back to my lips and take another drag, actually loving the way I glimpse a flash of annoyance in her eyes. Even though I still feel wounded about ruining the tiny bit of progress I made with her last night, there's no denying that there's something about her fiery side that riles me up. I'm pretty sure she enjoys it too so I may as well have a little fun with it. I've not got anything to lose.
She huffs pointedly. "No, none of my business at all. If you wanna be such a non-productive member of society you go right ahead. Some of us have to go to work five days a week."
Ouch, that was a low blow. It's the sort of comment I've been getting all my life since I started pursuing music-making as a career. It never put me off though, if anything it just made me work harder. I wanted to prove them all wrong. Now I want to prove her wrong. I fix her with an even stare, challenging.
"Just 'cause I don't have a nine to five job doesn't mean I don't work hard. You wanna know how many gigs I've booked the band since we moved here? You wanna know how many songs I've written just this week? I'm not just sitting round on my arse all day ya know. Reckon I've earned myself a break. Maybe if you gave yourself a break too once in a while you wouldn't be so uptight all the time..."
"I'm not fucking uptight!" She almost shrieks at me.
Bingo. I knew I'd hit the jackpot with that one. I know I'm being a dick and I should probably be on my knees begging for forgiveness after last night's antics but I can't resist. Maybe it's the way my heart races seeing her all worked up that spurs me on. Maybe it's that little quirk of her luscious pink lips, a green light for me that tells me that some wickedly dark part of her enjoys our confrontations just as much as I do.
"Hmm I can see that." I chide, really pushing my luck. I hold the blunt out to her. "Maybe you should join me? Good shit this is. Might chill ya out a bit."
She looks horrified at the suggestion. "As if I'd smoke that crap! I'm very particular about what I put in my body if you must know."
And what a body it is. Running gear has never looked so sexy, the tight fabric accentuating her curves in the most delectable way. I can see little tiny beads of perspiration decorating her collar bones where she's been working up a sweat and my mind goes to dark, filthy places immediately.
"So am I love, only the best for me," I tell her, feeling a rush of cocky confidence. "My body's a temple and all that."
I lean back against the door frame, tipping my head back to take another drag. My eyes are squinted almost shut against the harshness of the sun's rays but I can still see Y/N. She's checking me out whilst she thinks I'm not looking, I know she is. I'm no Adonis, I might not have Tom's tanned and toned physique but I'm proud of what I've got. Y/N certainly seems to be appreciative the way her eyes roam over my frame, lingering where the bath towel's slung low around my hips. I bite back a smug smile as I finally look back down at her and she seems mildly flustered, wrenching her gaze upwards quickly to meet mine. Her eyes are blazing and her cheeks are flushed a pretty shade of pink.
"You're so full of shit you know Van. I don't know why I'm even giving you the time of day after last night."
I let my lips curl into the smirk that I was holding back. "You say that but you still seem awfully keen to spend time with me this morning darlin'."
I tip her a cheeky wink and this appears to fluster her even further. "Well I can't exactly avoid you when you live right next door can I? And I'm not your fucking darling so don't call me that, okay?"
I chuckle as she glares at me. God, she's so easy to wind up but I don't want to overstep the mark. As much as I'm enjoying the tension crackling between us I don't seriously want her to end up despising me. I'd only be pushing her further into Tom's arms and that's the last thing I want at the end of the day.
I raise up my hands in a gesture of surrender, trying to look as sincere as possible. "Okay, okay, I was only trying to be friendly. I already said I was sorry, and you're right, we can't avoid each other forever. So what d'ya say we wipe the slate clean and start again?"
She folds her arms across her chest defensively. "You've obviously got a short memory. That's exactly what we were doing last night until you went and fucked it all up again! Now if you'll excuse me I have a shift to get to. You know, because some of us have real responsibilities."
She side-steps me but not properly, close enough that she actually body-checks me as she stalks past, shunting me hard with her shoulder. She's only small but she's deceptively strong for her small stature and I'm caught unawares, standing here half-stoned and dopey and not expecting that level of hostility. I falter back against the brickwork, shocked by her aggressiveness which bizarrely turns me on more than it angers me which I'm pretty sure wasn't her intention.
I should just leave it. I know I should. Let her have her little dig and be on her way, shrug it off like I usually do when people wind me up but I just can't let things lie with her.
"What the hell was that for?" I scowl, righting myself quickly and reaching for her shoulder, spinning her around so she's backed up against the wall. I step closer until my hips are nearly touching hers. "Why have you got such a problem with me huh? And don't say it's because of last night as you've been off with me ever since I moved in. You never even gave me a chance."
My heart's beating so hard I swear I can hear it, I can definitely feel it pumping the blood around my body... and to one place in particular. I always get a little horny when I'm buzzed and the fact that I'm standing out here in just a bath-towel and the way she's looking up at me now all intense and defiant like a little fire-ball isn't helping matters.
"Because I know exactly what your sort are like, that's why!" She sneers, and her hands shoot up and forward like she's going to push me away but she doesn't. She just lets them rest on the plane on my bare chest, her eyes boring into mine before they slip down to my lips and swiftly back up.
"My sort? What's that supposed to mean?"
I'm not backing down. I press forward a little, just enough pressure to close the gap between us an inch and she lets out a small gasp. She licks her lips and swallows hard.
Christ... am I imagining it? The chemistry between us is insane and I'm positive she must feel it too. My skin's tingling where she's touching me and the air between us is practically thrumming. It's like a potent mixture of frustration and anticipation and if I'm not massively mistaken... lust, a pent up energy that might explode if someone doesn't say something soon...
"Van... you seen my rolling papers? Oh... oh shit sorry guys. Didn't realise I was interrupting something."
Bondy's voice sounds from nearby and I jump back like I've just been caught doing something illegal.
"You weren't interrupting anything!" Y/N blurts out hurriedly before I even have a chance to speak. Bondy's standing there in the doorframe with a sheepish expression which turns quizzical as he looks at me.
"What she said," I crack a half-grin that falters as Y/N glares daggers at me, slipping away from our little stand-off, the spell well and truly broken.
Bloody Bondy.
"Anyway, like I was saying, I need to get to work." Y/N bustles past the both of us, pausing to greet Bondy cheerily. "Alright Johnny, don't forget to pop round for that cuppa soon like we were talking about." Then she swivels her head around to me. "In answer to your question Van, I'm sure you can work it out. Let's just stay out of each other's way as much as we can from now on hey?"
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Lea's home
Chapter 5
It's a pleasant Saturday, a gentle breeze brushes past my face. I wake up late with no intention of over exerting myself today, not in the slightest.
I don't have classes on Saturdays and the head maid has given me the day off. I intend to use every second of it to rest. God knows every fibre of my body could use it, given how frequently I've been pushing my heart of late. Most days it's Lea who pushes it, sometimes Mirin when she's feeling extra sweet, and on special occasions Mrs. Nicole would relish it. Almost every other day seems like gym training. I'm not complaining though, I just really want to rest for now.
The afternoon passes by lazily. I live by myself in a small apartment, equipped with a simple kitchen/dining room, a small hall room and a loft above for sleeping and studying.
I lay on my bed with my books and steth sprawled across, passively going through my notes for an upcoming CVS exam. The evening rolls around. I get tired and decide to treat myself to a small power nap.
I sleep for what feels like barely a minute. All of a sudden I wake up to my clock displaying 5:00 PM. Oh no, I'm late for work! The head maid is gonna kill me!
I quickly make myself presentable and run to Lea's home, heart pounding from the sudden overexcitation. I barely reach on time and get changed and begin my chores. I see Lea at home. Strange. She's usually never back home this early. She looks upset. Maybe I'll cheer her up later with her steth, I decide. She sees me from the corner of her eyes and whips to head to look at me, now looking even more upset. She motions to her room and angrily stomps inside, asking me to follow her in. I want to ease her thoughts but not in the middle of my work, that'd be too risky!
No I can't be like this. Lea is a very important person to my heart, if I can't risk this much for her then I'd be ashamed of myself.
I put aside my chores and step inside her room quietly, carefully closing the door behind so no one hears, and lock it. I turn around and am met with a weird surprise: Lea and Mirin looking ready to have a go at the other, standing in opposite corners of the room. Just what happened here? Did Mirin not do her chores well? I really can't think of any other reason. Lea points to her sofa directing me to sit there. I sense she is very impatient and close to exploding any moment now, and I don't want to be in the receiving end of that. I quickly plop down and sit in silence, watching my two heartbeat muses staring at each other.
Lea finally breaks the silence, looking directly at me like she's about to cry, "Was my heart not enough for you? What did I do wrong, was it my fault?"
I am genuinely confused now. "What do you mean Lea?". Mirin decides to join in, saying "Of course you weren't good enough. That's why she chose me! She chose me over you, why can't you just get over it??"
Mirin??? What's gotten over her? Does she want to get fired??
"Mirin, sweetie, pipe down a bit. Lea, explain to me what's going on? Help me understand!"
Lea slams her palm into her chest and cries "MY heart! I thought my heart was all you wanted and needed. But turns out I'm wrong, you're pampering Mirin's heart as well? Why? What more do you want me to do? You could've asked me anything and you KNOW I would've done everything in my power to give it to you, why go to HER???"
Ooh. I get the situation now. Lea and Mirin are jealous of each other.
Oh no, what do I do? I never thought it would play out like this, what should I do, what do I say? I want to hug Lea and cup her face, I want to stroke Mirin's head and tell her to calm down.
Mirin decides to become a smartass and throws oil in the fire- "You don't understand, you can never compare to my heart! Stop trying!!"
The sweet voice is no where to be found, Mirin now acting like a spoilt brat. Lea marches towards Mirin, grabs her hand and pushes it to her apex hard. "Feel that? My heart is 10 times stronger than yours! You can't even begin to compare!" As she says this, Mirin and I see her hand jumping with such amplitude I get jealous I'm not in Miri's place.
Mirin's face shifts and from previous experience I know she's amazed by it. But then she abruptly switches up, grabbing Lea's hand and pushing it into her small breast. I see Lea's hand jump slightly but quickly, pattering away to Mirin's pulsating heart. A few seconds of silence passes and I see Lea and Mirin pay close attention to each other. Lea starts getting agitated as apparent by her increasingly stronger heartbeat heaves and looks resolutely in Mirin's eyes.
"I know her heart the best, let her decide instead, right here, right now, between us both." And without waiting for Mirin to reply she marches up to me, grabs my head and smashes it into her pounding breast. I immediately close my eyes, letting the sound of her majestic heart thud deeply and fast in my ear, and I know it is beating for me. Before I can lose myself entirely, Mirin huffs and joins me on the sofa on my other side, leans into my other ear and arches her back, pushing her heart directly into my head.
My head fills with the cacophony of hearts, each thudding away uniquely, fighting against each other. I feel their hearts beating strongly against my face. I lose myself entirely, my mind fogging up and lip biting down, trying not to moan. My heart instantly starts pulsating so strongly, as if someone injected epinephrine into my veins. I am unable to think straight, and I know from the way my chest is rocking back and forth that my pump is begging to be touched, to be held. Lea and Mirin see my left breast vibrating more than before, and they are entranced by it. Lea reaches for my apex, and grabs my whole boob in her one hand, squeezing it firmly. The euphoric feeling of my heart fills Lea up and she grabs Mirin's hand as well, pushing it into my PMI, sharing in my rhythm. It's almost like in this moment both are working together, almost like they forgot this was a competition. I feel my pussy becoming increasingly warmer by the second, and my nipples pleading to be released from my shirt. Sensing my need, both my muses work in unison and unbutton my top, unhook my bra and throw it aside, and pull my skirt up to reveal my damp underwear.
Lea starts attacking my apex, digging her fingers into my chest as if trying to dig out my thumping vessel. Mirin focuses her efforts on my nipples, pinching and flicking it. They both start breathing harder and fast, my pants becoming mixed with their moans.
Suddenly we three hear a knock on the door and our eyes whip open in unison. I hear Lea and Miri's hearts thud with fear and anticipation, and their thudding is defeaning me.
The door opens and in walks the sexy Mrs. Nicole. She enters the room and closes the door behind her, locking it. Wait, I thought I had locked it earlier?
All 3 of us look anxiously at Mrs. Nicole, who's foxy eyes have narrowed into thin slits behind her glasses, her face a stern expression, turning me on even more. With her large tantalizing breasts visibly bobbing, she breaths in deeply and sighs out.
She walks slowly to me- "How dirty, what kind of shameful madness is this..... and how dare you do this without me?" her voice drops low and with quickness in her fingers her blouse and bra are off, her breasts out in the open. Lea and Mirin's heart kick up even more, and they watch Mrs. Nicole as they continue to play with my apex and nipples.
Mrs. Nicole bends down to my level, takes my hands to hers on either side, and aligns her nipples to mine and leans forward, initially rubbing the tips of our erect sensitive nipples against each other. I suck in a deep breath and whimper, shuddering breaths leaving my mouth in between haggard moans. My torso quivers and I'm finding it hard to hold my position.
Mrs. Nicole leans further in and now I can feel her heart hammering directly above my sternum, forcing my heart back into it's cage, trying to dominate me.
I am now a small prey being cornered by 3 beasts, all hungrily staring me down, hunting me, ready to eat me.
"You've been wet down there a while now, haven't you? Let me help you with that." Mrs. Nicole breathes huskily, she releases one of my hands and slips into my underwear, wet and dripping with pleasure. My heartbeat is felt in my pussy and my clit is so sensitive. Mrs. Nicole starts rubbing the lips slowly, coating her fingers through and through. My heart bangs hard and my chest starts hurting. I feel Lea also slip her finger into me, her other hand into herself. I can feel Mrs. Nicole and Lea inside me, both rubbing all my pleasure spots. Mirin joins in, her fingers finding their way into my slippery wet lips and into herself, her tongue hanging out like a dog panting after a run. My chest burns and tightens, my heart no longer making sense, as if someone stabbed epi directly into my cardiac muscle. I am being eaten alive by these carnal monsters and I am enjoying every second of this euphoric sensation. Mrs. Nicole brings her lips to mine and kisses me with a fiery passion, pushing her tongue down my throat, her breasts heaving heavily on me, nipples still furiously rubbing against each other. Mirin gets jealous and leans over and kisses Lea above my head and I feel all our hearts skip messily and sloppily. All four of us are a sweating mess, bodies tangled with each other. A wave of orgasm rolls over all of us, our hearts finally joined as a symphony of music in my ears and on my chest, haggard panting and heat filling the air:
Lea with her strong heart, thudding forcefully like a machine gun in my ears and moaning as she feels her heartbeat pounding in her wet mounds;
Mirin with her heart beating fast and deep like a caged butterfly, struggling to break free from its confines and her high pitched moaning;
Mrs. Nicole, her large breasts directly on mine, merging our bodies as one, her heart beating steadily with a deep bass as the mature strong woman she is, her low pitched moans sultry and erotic.
My heart gives out and starts beating erratically all over the place. I feel my sternum bounce and it hurts so bad. I feel the hot release of pure desire over and over again, all of us coming in unison.
I am sooo so close to reaching my climax, when I am suddenly pulled away from it all and my breath knocked out of me. Everything vanishes in a split second and I am surrounded in darkness.
In a moment of desperation I reach my hand out and-
My eyes open. Directly above me I see a familiar ceiling. The bed underneath me is wet and drenched in my sweat, my pants are soaked through and my breathing is staggered and short. My heart, as if still in the moment, continues beating painfully fast and irregular.
I quickly grab my steth and finish by myself on the bed.
It was all a dream.
The sensation of 4 heartbeats, simultaneously coming together..... it still lingers in my ears and body. This dream will consume my thoughts for a while, mourning the loss of what could've been.
And here I thought I wouldn't over exert myself today.
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Miklos & Evya — Training
The air is crisp, biting at my cheeks as I wrap my fingers around cool steel, the hilt of the practice sword an anchor in a tempestuous world. I swing, muscles straining, each stroke an expulsion of frustration and fear. Sweat beads on my brow, a testament to my exertion, mingling with the dust that billows with every movement.
"Give it a little more spin off your back foot." Miklos’ voice cut through the rhythm of my solitude. Startled, I stumbled mid-kick, narrowly avoiding a graceless fall. The Vanyalian prince emerged from the shadows, his figure outlined by the dusk light that bled into the arena.
"Or perhaps you prefer being predictable," he added, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"Predictable?" I scoffed, regaining my footing. "I suppose you're here to teach me the art of surprise?"
"Maybe," he said, stepping closer, the air between us charged with a strange tension that was neither entirely hostile nor friendly.
His gaze held mine, unwavering, as he picked up a training sword, the balance perfect in his hand. "Let's see if you can keep up."
We circled each other, two celestial bodies locked in an orbit dictated by the silent language of battle. His movements were fluid, a dance of danger and grace, and I found myself drawn into the tempo. Was this a lesson, or was there a sharpened edge of malice behind his strikes?
"Focus, Evya," he said as his blade met mine with a resounding ring. "Your enemies won't show mercy."
"Neither will I," I replied, a surge of determination propelling me forward.
Our swords sang a metallic duet, the notes high and clear. Whether he intended to guide or wound me, I would not flinch from what I could learn from the crossing of our blades. Atreus always said that training with someone was the best way to learn about them—I resolved to do just that.
“Are you truly always this excited to fight, or is that just for me?” he taunted.
I smiled back, feeling the thrill of anticipation in my veins. The sting of the cut on my forearm was a sharp reminder that Miklos’s lessons were far from gentle.
“Move your feet! Come on, you've got to move if you don't want to end up flat on your buttock!” As he stepped back, allowing me space, I pressed my hand against the fabric of my sleeve, feeling the warm dampness of blood seeping through.
"Cosmos' sake Miklos ! Are you teaching or mocking me ?"
"Perhaps a bit of both sweet girl," he replies, his voice carrying the weight of steel and dark convictions. I cringed at the nickname. "Or maybe I'm here to learn. After all, one never knows when a friend might become an enemy—or an enemy, a friend."
I grit my teeth, countering his offensive with a calculated retreat.
"Your vision for your kingdom," he presses, aggression lacing his tone as his blade meets mine with a force that suggests more than just a sparring match. "It's naive, Evya. You must show power—it's order; it's control. Without it, your kingdom will crumble."
I shook my head, trying to ignore the pain and focus on the ideological duel now unfolding. "Control through fear is tyranny. People need hope, not an iron fist."
"Hope?" He scoffed, tossing his sword aside with a clatter. "Hope is the carrot dangled before the donkey, leading it to pull the cart. And your people have been dragging the weight of your father's legacy for far too long."
"Then help me lighten their load, not add to it!" I argued, my voice rising with passion. "Together with your kingdom we could—"
"Rule?" His lips twisted into a wry smile.
"Serve," I affirmed without hesitation. "A ruler who does not serve their people is no ruler at all, Miklos."
"Admirable," he admitted, but his eyes betrayed a flash of scorn. "But idealism doesn't rebuild cities or fill stomachs. You must accept that the path to victory now is one of violence."
Before I could retort, the hurried steps of the page echoed across the stone training grounds, interrupting our heated exchange. [...]
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Tw: abuse
Looking for: advice
Is it possible for a younger sibling to be abusive? Because with my brother, it's only a three year difference, but he's taller and stronger than me. And since he's gotten stronger than me, he's gotten more aggressive. Like he already was before, he would threaten me with objects and knives and air guns and such things. But now he's more physical. He will randomly hit me and shove me, I've made it known that I don't like this and that it hurts, but he doesn't listen. He's come close to seriously injuring me, although that part was accidental, but it still doesn't stop him. He's always been aggressive, and I knew he'd get stronger as he got older which scared me, and now he is and I can't defend myself if ever intends to do more than torment me. And it's not just physical. He just absolutely mentally drains me on the daily. He will come in my room and break and steal and disorganized things or he come in his room to dump trash and rotten food and dishes and anything because he won't take anything to the kitchen. Just generally he exerts so much extra effort into trashing my room. Along with the fact that he also blackmails me, like if im ever upset or crying he'll record me and send it to people which makes it kind of hard to feel safe at home because he could leak my whole private life like that. And he's gotten his friends in on always making fun of me. I've told my mom about all of this and it's only ever an empty promise that she'll deal whit it. She never has and never does. She doesn't discipline him. She doesn't enforce any of the boundaries she says she'll set. She spoils him as well, she spends thousands of dollars giving him what he wants to prevent him from throwing fits rather than setting boundaries. Which leads to him destroying the house and becoming physically violent if he doesn't get what he wants. We're by no means rich, and in this way, he financially drains us further. I don't understand why my mom doesn't do anything about his behavior. I mean I got beat for things such as crying too loudly. I don't condone beating kids at all, but why was I subjected to such harsh treatment and he gets a free pass to do whatever he wants. I feel like such a stupid pushover, because my family generally picks on me and I can do nothing about it. Like my mom and my brother are practically the same. She will also record me at my nerves end like neither of them didn't push me to my breaking point. I'm just so tired of this. Like why am I expected to achieve so highly and be perfect but he isn't expected to do anything at all.
I'll go by nyx.
Hi nyx,
I'm so sorry about what you've been going through. It sounds like you've not only been victimized by your brother for a long time, but you seem to be the scapegoat as your mom seems to be enabling his behavior. I can understand how this dynamic may make you feel like you're being ganged up on. You don't deserve to put up with this.
Please know that age gaps are not the only ways that an abuser can create or take advantage of a power imbalance. Being taller or stronger can certainly be one of the many alternatives.
It might continue to escalate so it may be worth looking into involving the authorities, for your safety. If you can access or afford it, a mental health professional such as a therapist could also help you process and navigate these experiences, as well as equip you with some useful coping mechanisms that you can take with you along your healing journey.
If anyone has any comments or suggestions, feel free to add on. I hope I could help and please let us know if you need anything.
-Bun
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