Aly_Insanity

How you’d gotten tangled up with him was a mystery to even yourself. An old tale of someone you once held close getting locked up in the warden’s quarters, and for every visit, you found yourself less excited to see them, and instead, Wriothesley was the face you anticipated seeing within those cold, metal walls.

He took quite the liking to you himself. Eventually, you only started showing up for him. And he’d keep you held beside, beneath, or on top of him until the sun came up. Until his name was one you could remember better than your own, and only then would he let up, hold your face in his calloused hand and plant firm kisses all over the surface of your spent body until he soothed you to a much-needed sleep.

The things that initially drew you to him, you saw in Varka, too. The selflessness. The subtle longing in his eyes, one that can only come from prolonged hope held tight even after a life filled with betrayal. A look you wanted to mend. A hope you wanted to fuel.

Then there was the shape of him, the sheer mass of his biceps, a physical strength sculpted beautifully from battle. Broad shoulders, sharp expression, rough hands with the shocking ability to be so gentle when they want to be. When you thought of him, sometimes it was hard to remember who it was on your mind.

Varka or Wriothesley.

You made the most of Varka’s visit. You spoke to him whenever you got the chance, and every so often, something would slip past his lips that sounded an awful lot like flirting, but he’d always cover it up with a cough, a lighthearted joke, or blame it on his habit of day-drinking. He was a gentleman, after all.

For weeks, you were caught between your exploratory conversations, vivid fantasies, and suggestive encounters with Varka during the day, and your deep talks, mind-shattering sex, and worshiping touches with Wriothesley at night.

Guilt caught up fast. Were you betraying your established-non-established relationship with Wriothesley by letting someone else infiltrate your thoughts in the most improper of ways? If Varka lost his self control, finally took your shorter skirts or sultry looks as an invitation to let up the gentleman act for one night, would you even be able to face Wriothesley again after?

Maybe he’d never have to find out. Varka surely had no clue that no matter how much he got you worked up during your interactions, you were getting more than adequately taken care of either way. If you got the chance to have your way with Varka during his visit, it could be your one moment of selfishness. He would have to return home eventually, anyway…

The idea seemed a lot more probable when you were sure they would never cross paths. Varka had no business in the prison, and Wriothesley rarely had reasons to come above the surface. You always went to him, besides the occasional date he’d take you on in The Court of Fontaine, none of which had overlapped with Varka’s vacation so far.

Until you were getting coffee with Varka early one morning, and you were both handed your own respective invitations to a grand party taking place the next night, the event planned by Miss Furina herself, with assistance from the Iudex.

Your heart dropped when you realized who else would 100% be getting an invite, even more when Varka invited you as his date, even more when you said yes, and as if it couldn’t get worse, Wriothesley wasn’t one to give you a break from his antics in public places.

“Shit.”

-----

“Might I say, you look beautiful tonight.” Varka compliments, offering you his arm when the two of you step onto the venue’s property. You scan the area before taking him up on his offer, hand wrapping around his bicep. “Not that you don’t always.”

You smile, letting him guide you up the stone walkway leading up to the stairs. Music blasts from inside, and every familiar face makes you swallow a gasp, though none have been who you’re worried about thus far.

Maybe Wriothesley wouldn’t care. It’s not as if you two had conversations about exclusivity. For all you know, he could have other partners. Plenty of them. He could be with one right now.

It, so selfishly, makes your heart drop to imagine that might be true.

“Maybe you’ve never been this sober looking at me before,” You joke, which makes Varka cough out a laugh that heats your skin with a warmth you’ve known about once before this moment.

“Well, booze makes you have more of an appetite. Perhaps we wouldn’t have spent so many lunches together otherwise.” He peers down at you as you two walk along, neater than usual blonde locks falling in front of his forehead. You urge to lift a hand, gently swiping it away, and then you imagine tenderly rubbing your thumb over the X-shaped scar on his cheek.

The same way you do to the scar under Wriothesley’s eye...

You clear your throat. “That would’ve been quite the shame.”

“I’d say so.”

Varka opens the door for you, mumbling something about knightly-duties, and you step into the venue.

The world stops spinning, and your throat goes dry.

You spot him. Well, his back. The Duke is talking to some people you barely recognize as guards who work at the Fortress, his hip against an unoccupied table and a glass of some alcohol you’re sure he doesn’t enjoy planted in his left hand.

“Hey, you okay?”

You turn your head so fast you almost get whiplash, forcing a smile when you see Varka’s concerned face, one of his hands pressed against your lower back. “Yeah, I’m fine. We should…”

You pause, stealing another glance in Wriothesley’s direction, and you grip Varka’s wrist hard the moment you see him start to turn around. “Go! Let’s go!”

You drag him to the left, ducking behind a large group of people to hopefully conceal yourself from the Duke’s view. Varka chuckles from behind you, planting a hand on your hip and helping you navigate the crowd in the direction of the bar. “Someone’s real excited to get me drunk.”

“I could give you every ounce of alcohol in here twice and you’d barely be tipsy, Mister Grand Master.”

He groans. “You and the formalities.” You reach the bar, and you swing your head back to try and spot where Wriothesley was while Varka takes a seat on a stool. “And you underestimate a knight’s tolerance. Three times, at least, if you want to see me tipsy.”

You spot him. You can see his side profile from this angle, in the same spot as before, talking to one of his guards with a half-smile planted across his handsome features. Varka being dressed the most formally you’d seen from him, that was no surprise. But the Duke—He cleans up nice for such a high-profile event.

Gods, you wanted to take that suit right off…

You turn back to Varka. You’re standing close enough to his seated body that he could easily take you by the hips and drag you between his knees.

“And if I want to see you drunk?” You answer finally, teasing.

He smirks, and like you have some kind of third eye, he takes your body between his hands and pulls you between his spread legs. “Ah, well, a man can get drunk off a lot of things.”

As if your heart wasn’t beating fast enough, it speeds up even more, and you flatten your palms against his chest. You peer down at him, and the lust in his eyes is contained very poorly, like he’s in a fight with himself still trying be a gentleman.

You hum. “And what’s your tolerance in that territory, Sir Varka?”

He takes a deep breath, his voice coming out deep and tortured. “For you, I might already be too far gone.”

You’re so close now that you can feel his breath on your lips, and your surroundings seem to fade into nothingness for a moment. Your palms are pressed against his shoulders now, but his heart is still pounding enough that you’re counting the beats in your head.

His mouth ghosts over yours, and right when you think he might finally snap, a booming voice snaps you right out of it.

“Hey, I had no idea you would be here!”

Your head flies up.

Wriothesley is about six feet away from you, squeezing through the crowd to get to the bar. However, his eyes aren’t on you. You’re not sure he even notices you—He’s walking right up to the bartender.

Oh shit.

“Ah, Your Grace!” The bartender greets, and Wriothesley takes a seat at one of the stools with a growing smile. “It’s nice to see you above the surface.”

“You too.” The Duke retorts politely. The bartender must have been an inmate at Meropide at some point. The conversations drags on, but you’ve ducked down enough so Varka’s seated form can conceal you from the only other man that has ever had the effect on you that has currently caused a noticeable dampness beneath your dress.

Varka’s breath hitches before falling into a low laugh. “Scandalous. However, I don’t think—”

“I’m not—” You quickly confirm, heat overtaking your cheeks. You are technically knelt in front of his lap right now. In public. With people everywhere. One of the closest being the last person who needs to find you in this incriminating position. You straighten up a bit. “I have to run to the bathroom.”

“Do you want me to come with—”

“No, no. That’s alright. I’ll be quick.” You swiftly shoot down, still needing him to be a human shield as you turn towards the bathroom sign found in the far left corner of the venue. You stay as low as you can without looking crazy, and you slip into the hallway and out of sight.

You raise a hand to clutch the chain of your necklace, leaning your back against the wall and using the empty space to catch your breath. Varka and Wriothesley are currently seated about five feet away from each other. How are you supposed to return and not get both of their attentions? You told Wriothesley you weren’t even going to this thing, because you knew he’d ask you to join him, and this predicament is complicated enough.

You hoped he wouldn’t go without you as a date, but date or no date, he showed.

Perfect.

You’re suddenly terrified of hurting him. For him to have to find out you not only lied about not coming, but you also came with another man…

You truly like him so much. Everything about him has enchanted you since the very first time his icy blue eyes met yours, the first time you heard his voice, the way he would laugh and mutter out half-hearted apologies when you scolded his common jokes about his own mortality or his past. A past he opened up to you about with a vulnerability you had only seen before in yourself, and that was when you were with him.

You never wanted to hurt him, but Varka… You like him too. So much, and every bone in your body wants to see where this thing with him goes. And it’s stupid that you got yourself in this situation, that you weren’t transparent with both of them ever since Varka arrived in Fontaine.

Now look where you are.

“Fuck,” You curse, putting your hands on your forehead. “Archons.”

You turn, using the wall for support and slipping into one of the single-person bathrooms. You turn the lock, taking quick steps over to the sink and putting your hands under the tap, letting the warmth soak into you and calm your nerves a bit. You dry your hands, fix your hair, and try to think of a way to get out of this.

You could sneak over and very quickly pull Varka back into the crowd, and bring him somewhere you can only hope Wriothesley has no business being. You could seduce him, convince him to get you out of here as soon as possible so…

So much for calming down. You pick at the fabric of your dress, feeling the way your panties have suctioned to your cunt from all the places your mind has gone tonight.

You unlock the bathroom door, slipping back into the hallway. Maybe you could find a familiar face and have them talk to Varka for you, have him join you somewhere else?

That could work. You slip out of the hallway, back into the main part of the venue, and you spot Varka at the bar. His head pops up, and he locks eyes with you.

Wriothesley isn’t behind him. You didn’t anticipate him moving spots.

Varka nods. Oh Gods, is he gesturing you over? You—

Something wraps around your wrists, and before you can react, you hear it.

Click.

You’re tugged back into the hallway as you gasp out, the front of your body being pressed flush against the cold wall, and something, someone, is pressing against your back, your cuffed hands pinned under them.

“Adultery might not be a crime, but it is very, very, frowned upon.” The warmth against the shell of your ear comes before the voice.

“Wriothesley,” You whisper, breathlessly. “I—Adultery?” Is he serious? “We’re—”

He shushes you. “However…” A beat passes, just long enough for one of his hands to slide to your hip and squeeze hard. “Lying to law enforcement, that is a crime.” His head drops, his breath now ghosting over your exposed shoulder. "You said you weren't coming."

Your stomach churns. “I—I didn’t… I’m sorry…”

“How well do you think sorry holds up in court, baby?”

Your eyes flutter closed, forehead pressed against the wall. “Not well.”

“Clever girl,” He praises, and your hips press back against his almost instinctively. All it would take is one person to round the corner, and he could be locked up in his own prison for public indecency.

That’s when you remember.

Varka. He was standing right there, he probably saw—

You’re swiftly tugged off the wall, forcing you out of your head. Wriothesley keeps his hands just above your elbows, your wrists still bound behind your back, and he leads you all the way to the end of the hallway toward a staircase you didn’t notice before.

“I could bring you to get checked in,” He speaks, his otherwise rushed movements more careful as he guides you up the stairs. “Keep you locked up in the Fortress with me. Wouldn’t that be fun, baby? Just me and you, all the time?”

Yes.

You reach the top of the stairs, and he’s not done speaking as he continues to pull you along. “I would never have to be done with you. But the Fortress, I think I like you too much to stick you there.”

Huh?

“But what kind of warden would I be if I didn’t punish those who have done wrong?”

Oh. 

“Have you done wrong, baby?”

“Yes,” You gasp out.

As Wriothesley drags you along, he sticks a hand out to check every door. Most are locked, but finally, he comes across one that isn’t.

You’re pushed through the doorway, and an arm wrapping around your waist catches you before you fall forward. Wriothesley pulls you to a couch off to the side of the room, which appears to be someone’s office, and sits you down on his lap. Your back to his front.

With your hands still pinned behind your back from the handcuffs, you manage to find and palm his bulge through his slacks. He groans, his feet snaking between yours before spreading, forcing your legs open wide. 

You gasp, and one of his hands grip your chin to force your mouth to his, swallowing the sound. You whimper, hips grinding against nothing as he leaves his free arm swung over the front of your body.

You moan his name, desperately, urging him to touch you as you’re left completely at his disposal.

He grins against your mouth, and just then, you jump at the sound of the door creaking open and slamming shut.

We’re caught, you think, snapping your head forward, expecting to see the panicked, mortified eyes of one of the other guests, likely whoever this office belongs to.

The blue hues staring back at you are far from what you expected.

Your throat goes dry. “Varka.”

He shrugs his suit jacket off, slowly stalking over to the couch. Wriothesley’s hand is still wrapped around your chin, and he forces your head back to press his mouth to your ear.

“What was the plan? You were going to hide from me all night?”

“And I was your shield of choice?” Varka continues, the smirk on his face and the tone of Wriothesley’s voice suggesting neither them are as upset as you feared they would be. No, this, what they’re actually feeling, didn’t even cross your mind.

They must’ve spoken when you ran off to the bathroom. Surely Wriothesley spotted you all cozied up between Varka’s knees, and used the bartender as an excuse to get close enough to confirm his suspicions. You storming off was the perfect opportunity for him to figure out what was going on.

Honestly, you couldn’t be happier.

You shudder, Wriothesley’s hand that isn’t gripping your face moving to your hip. He pulls your dress up, scrunching it around your waist, leaving your soaked panties on display. You whine, and his thumb circles your hipbone in a comforting, encouraging, gesture.

“I didn’t think you’d show,” You mumble, talking to Wriothesley.

He chuckles. “You bet a lot on that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, baby.” He shoots down, his lips finding your neck, and you moan when he bites down. “But you could’ve just told me.”

Your eyes find Varka as he drops his suit jacket on the armrest of the couch, and the lust he was working so hard to keep control of earlier, he seems to have fully let loose now. The look in his gaze is so maddeningly erotic that you try to snap your legs closed just to get some friction, but Wriothesley’s feet keep you spread.

Your eyes fall closed, head tipping back against Wriothesley's shoulder. “I didn’t want you to be upset.”

He laughs once. “I might’ve been a little upset.”

You lean up enough to be able to crane your neck to see him.

“But I’m not,” He finishes quickly. “Not now.”

You turn to Varka.

He smiles. “Neither am I.”

You slowly relax against Wriothesley’s chest again, rolling your bottom lip into your mouth and biting down. He hums approvingly, and your eyes trail Varka’s movements as he approaches you.

He drops to his knees between your legs.

You gasp, and Wriothesley is quick to steady you with one hand on your hip, the other resting gently around your throat.

You understand their plan now.

Varka’s hands find each of your exposed legs, rubbing up and down the warmed skin like he’s committing the feeling of you to memory. You wonder if he does this a lot. He has quite a few years on you, more than Wriothesley does, but the stories he loves to tell you always suggested a lack of time to get laid.

“You alright?” Varka mumbles, dropping his head to kiss up your inner thigh, approaching the apex that is in desperate need of either his or Wriothesley’s attention.

You nod. Part of you wants to stop him just to have him tell you exactly what conversation led to him and Wriothesley coming to this consensus, but, you know how to pick your battles, and staying silent feels like a notable win.

You moan when he presses feather-light kisses against you through the embarrassingly soaked fabric of your underwear, his tongue darting out to apply gentle pressure to your clit. You choke out his name, bucking your hips and dropping your head back. Every movement is curious as he learns the workings of your body in the presence of someone who probably knows how to get you off better than you do.

“So greedy,” Wriothesley murmurs, biting your earlobe. “Wanting both of us so badly. Was I not filling you up well enough, baby? Is that it?”

You rapidly shake your head, which makes him laugh lowly.

“Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

Varka’s fingers hook around the waistband of your underwear, and Wriothesley frees one of your feet just so Varka can tug them off before holding you open again. Your hands start to work at his bulge again, even though the pressure of being pinned between two bodies is starting to be numbing. He groans, pressing his face against your neck, and before you can relish in the sound, Varka is pressing his face against your bare cunt.

You moan out, back arching as he quickly begins to lap up at the arousal the two of them have already contributed to. One hand rests on your thigh, and the other holds down the hip that Wriothesley isn’t already attending to. You’re completely vulnerable to both of their pleasurable antics, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Varka,” You nearly cry, and Wriothesley is quick to swallow the sound with his own mouth. You can barely reciprocate when Varka wraps his lips around your clit and sucks gently, but the Duke doesn’t seem to have any complaints, greedily drinking up every sound that emerges from your throat.

“Shh…” Wriothesley coaxes. “Don’t want anyone to hear you, do you, baby?”

“Mmm… No.”

“That’s right,” He praises, pulling your bottom lip between his teeth and biting gently. “That’s a good girl.”

You whine, forcing your mouth against his again to try and muffle your sounds as Varka hungrily eats you out. His tongue swipes over your fluttering hole before dipping inside, making you choke. Wriothesley’s calloused hand is now wrapped firmly around your throat, holding you in place. 

You’re so overwhelmed with the sensations, the shock, the reality of the situation. You went into tonight anxious that these two men would come within 20 feet of each other, and now they’re both eagerly pleasuring you with no signs of anger or sadness. If anything, the thought of working together to make you come apart seems to be spurring them on, Wriothesley’s cock hardening beneath you every time Varka elicits a high-pitched moan from deep in your chest, and Varka working more tirelessly at your pussy when he catches a glimpse of Wriothesley’s hand clutching your throat.

Whether its competitiveness or something else entirely, it’s working out in your favour.

Varka’s hand retreats from your thigh, and you gasp when his rough fingertips trail over your hole, clenching around nothing. He sucks and nips at your clit with less fervor as his eyes flit up to watch your face when he dips his middle finger inside of you.

“Oh,” You exhale, barely getting the word out as Wriothesley’s hand tightens around your throat. He cranes his neck to watch your face, studying your reactions.

Varka’s finger drags along the inside of your cunt, in and out, his tongue still lazily circling your nerves. You whine, hungry for more, and he picks up on that quickly, a second finger pressing into you.

Your back arches again, your position shifting as your bound wrists lift to rest somewhere higher, and you now have the option to shamelessly grind back against Wriothesley’s cock.

And you do.

The thrust of Varka’s digits are slow and experimental at first, his eyes still pinned on you, the heat of his gaze urging you to press back against Wriothesley’s crotch. The Duke’s hand that was on your hip travels to fully wrap around your waist, helping you along as he gasps and groans right in your ear. Varka chases the desperate movements of your hips with newfound vigor, curling his fingers against your spongy walls and flattening his tongue against your clit.

Wriothesley’s tongue dips out to drag along the shell of your ear. “Close, baby?”

You nod, chasing Varka’s mouth and arching your neck enough that the top of your head grazes the fabric of the couch Wriothesley sits on. A lewd mixture of both their names keeps emerging from your throat, like your mind can't register which one of them to thank for this feeling.

The pads of Varka’s fingers find the perfect spot inside of you, abusing the patch of nerves until you’re gushing around his fingers, hips retreating and grinding firmly against Wriothesley, who nearly chokes.

Varka keeps lapping at your clit through your orgasm, only pulling away when you whine and squirm at the overstimulation. He’s quick to resort to trailing kisses upwards, to the hem of your dress which is still bunched around your waist.

“Uncuff her.”

Wriothesley grunts. “Sit up for me.”

You do, panting, leaning forward enough that Wriothesley can access your cuffed wrists. Varka takes this as an opportunity to steal his very first kiss from you, and you hum at the taste of yourself on his lips.

His hand grips the back of your neck, still on his knees in front of you, and you feel like you’re being worshiped as his tongue desperately dances with yours. You hear the soft click from earlier again, and Wriothesley tosses the cuffs aside before gently massaging your wrists until the numbness subsides. He leans forward enough to gently bite your shoulder. 

“You okay?” He mumbles, one of his hands finding your clothed ribcage and resting it there comfortingly.

You nod, pulling back from Varka, a string of saliva connecting your lips. He groans loudly at the sight, reaching down to adjust the crotch of his slacks. You lick your lips.

“Good,” Wriothesley says, sliding his hands under your dress to tug it the rest of the way off. You put your hands up to assist him, and he throws the garment over the arm rest to join Varka’s coat. “Because you’re not done yet.”

Thank the gods.

Wriothesley tugs you to your feet, and you barely even have time to process the change of position before your chest is pressed flush against the cold wood of the desk. 

“Careful,” Varka scolds lightheartedly, coming up beside the desk to tenderly stroke your hair. You angle your head to look up at him, his knuckles grazing the soft skin on your cheek. He looks utterly enchanted by the fucked-out expression on your face. It’s the same way he looked at you when he came to get you at the start of the night and saw you all dolled up for him.

“I know what she likes,” Wriothesley remarks.

Competitiveness.

You can’t pretend you don’t find it really hot.

Varka barks out a laugh, flattening his palm over your head, sliding down your back and snapping open your bra clasp with skill. Guess that rules out your virgin theory, though you were already skeptical about that. Like, look at him. “And what does she like?”

Wriothesley grabs your waist, lifting you enough that Varka can pull off your bra. The second it’s off, each of them are palming one of your breasts with an equal amount of need. “She likes to be a real good girl,” He answers, taking your nipple between two of his fingers and exhaling shakily at the way you whine his name. “She likes to take everything I give her. Don’t you?”

“Yes,” You moan out.

He rests you down again, his palm pressing against the middle of your back to urge you to arch it. He kicks your ankles, opening your legs.

“Might as well demonstrate.”

The familiar sound of his belt unbuckling makes your knees weak, and Wriothesley continues to shrug his slacks off one-handed so he can steady your hips with the other. You're sure the desk beneath you is already majorly coated with your sweat, and you're so aroused that the evidence of such must be dripping.

Varka’s heavy footsteps circle the desk, and you turn your head to watch him as he drops down in the desk chair. You whine, grabbing the side of the desk closest to him, and he smirks before reaching out to engulf your hand in his large one, rubbing your pulse point with his thumb.

You hear Wriothesley’s slacks hit the ground, and then you feel the head of his cock nudging your cunt, and you already greedily try to suck him in by pressing your hips back.

“So needy,” Wriothesley scolds, but there’s no real distaste in his voice. You know he wants it just as bad as you.

“Yes,” You agree shamelessly. “Please.”

He bends over your back to trail kisses down your spine. “This is supposed to be a punishment, mind you.”

You desperately try to push your hips back again. “This feels plenty punishing, Your Grace.” 

Wriothesley laughs at that, leaning off of you, and you can feel him line his cock up with you again.

“I think she’s been very remorseful,” Varka adds, voice thick with his own arousal.

You nod in agreement.

Wriothesley sighs, one hand on your hip and the other sliding up to your shoulder. 

“Very well.”

He presses half his length into you in one firm thrust.

You sob, squeezing Varka’s hand and pressing your forehead to the desk. You’ve taken him so many times, plenty just like this, bent over his desk at Meropide, but he’s just so thick that you’re not sure your body will ever fully adjust to the sheer size of him.

Wriothesley shushes you, leaning down to kiss your shoulder as he slowly begins to slide further in, inch by inch. “There—Fuck.” His head falls forward. “Taking me so well. So good, baby.”

You clench around him at the praise, and he grunts before bottoming out in one more fell swoop.

His weight is relieved off your back, just for his hand that was previously on your shoulder to tangle up in your hair and tug your head back. You moan, ass grinding back.

“Greedy,” He notes again.

Hell yeah, you were.

He pulls nearly all the way out, until just the tip is left inside of you, and then he presses all the way back in to the hilt.

You nearly scream, biting down on your lip to muffle yourself. You’re suddenly aware of all the voices floating into the room from downstairs, the event still roaring with life, and how the shaking desk along with your desperate moans might quickly paint a very clear picture of what’s going on in here.

As if reading your mind, Varka unwraps his hand from yours and instead grips your chin, his thumb pressing against your lips. You take it in your mouth, closing your teeth around it and swirling your tongue. He grunts at the sight, and you catch a glimpse of him palming himself through his pants.

The effect you have on him makes your body greedily clench around Wriothesley’s cock, and the sensation urges him to begin thrusting inside of you. He sets a steady pace, every ridge of his cock dragging against you in the best of ways.

You cry out his name, muffled by Varka’s thumb shoved in your mouth. One of your palms press flat against the wood as you arch your back to accommodate the Duke’s deep thrusts, and the other wraps around Varka’s wrist.

Wriothesley uses his grips on your hip and hair to repeatedly pull you to meet his thrusts with force, and every nudge of his cock deep inside your cunt makes you see stars behind your eyelids. He chokes out small praises, telling you how beautiful you are, how good you are for him, his own way of reminding you how much it matters to him that you let him have you like this. Even with his rough treatment, he's always made sure you know that you're the only person who could ever get him worked up like this.

And you thought, for even a second, that he could’ve been fucking someone else. You would laugh if you hadn’t lost the ability to do anything except murmur pleas incoherently. 

You’re a complete mess, and the sight of you coming undone is something unlike anything either men have known before. The way Wriothesley fucks you has you convinced you’re going to fuse with the desk, and seeing how needy and pliant you have already grown for when Varka gets his turn with you… His cock is begging to be freed from his slacks, and if he weren’t brought up with the selfless and patient values of a knight, he would’ve shoved Wriothesley clean out of the way if it meant getting inside you sooner.

Wriothesley angles his thrusts to hit that spot inside of you he knows gets you, and the way you’re drooling and mumbling around Varka’s thumb has him even closer to tipping over the edge with you. His hand drops from your hair, circling your stomach, and his forehead drops to your shoulder as his thrusts stutter. His grunts are desperate, and the occasional needy whimper-like sound that you evoke from him makes your nerves feel like fucking fireworks.

“Good girl,” He gasps out, his hand around your body sliding down to circle your swollen clit with two fingers. You choke, tilting your head back, wanting the closeness, and he picks up on that when he smears kisses across your shoulder, your cheek, a lewd yet tender action as he spills inside of you at the same time you gush around his cock, screaming against Varka’s hand.

He fucks you through your orgasm, panting heavily against your skin.

Varka gently pulls his thumb from your mouth, letting you slacken against the desk.

“Wriothesley,” You murmur.

He leans off of you. “You did so well.” His palm rubs up and down your spine in a comforting gesture. “You’re such a good girl, baby.”

You manage a lazy smile as he slowly pulls his length from inside of you, cursing at the way his release immediately begins to spill out. You suppose you would’ve had to bring that up to Varka before the two of you had sex either way, that you and Wriothesley rarely bothered with protection.

You were sure he could tell now.

Wriothesley pulls you up, spinning you to face him and cupping your face. He kisses you tenderly, and you grip his arms and hum.

“Okay,” He says gently, pressing a few more kisses to your collarbone and chest. You watch as he redresses his boxers and slacks, and then he spins you towards an inviting face.

“Come here, sweetheart.”

You approach him on wobbly legs, and Varka brings you down to straddle his lap when you reach him. You clutch the neckline of his dress shirt, and he kisses you slow, eyes half lidded, like he’s analyzing you again.

“Tired?” He teases.

“Drunk?” You retort.

“You think I’ve had time for booze?”

You slide your hands down to rest on his sides. “The other drunk.”

“Oh—Fuck, sweetheart, I’m wasted.”

You grin, and then you reach down to start undoing his belt. He grunts, letting you unbuckle it and pull it out of the loops. Wriothesley leans against the wall next to the chair, and he just watches you.

The look on his face, you're sure he’ll be up for another go once Varka is done with you.

You're never getting out of this office.

You toss the belt aside as Varka hastily lifts his hips to tug his pants and briefs down. His cock stands at attention, precum dripping from the tip that you so desperately want to lap up. It’s definitely a little bigger than anything you’ve taken before, but you anticipated that. Wriothesley was the biggest man you’d ever seen in your life until you saw Varka.

“You sure?” He murmurs, leaning forward to kiss your neck. “If you’re tired, sweetheart…”

“Quit being such a knight,” You mumble.

“Yeah. You’re making me look bad.”

You glare at Wriothesley, and you can only guess that the smirk that appears on his face is because of how non-threatening you look right now. Fucked-out, tired, and still desperate for more. 

You push up on your knees, taking the base of Varka’s cock in your palm and pumping him slowly. His hands squeeze your hips, grunting and thrusting up into your hand. You bite your lip. 

You position yourself above his throbbing erection, and you gasp when his tip gets caught in your oversensitive cunt. You’re so overwhelmed already, not sure how much more you can take, but the Grand Master seems to be an impressively patient man.

He slowly helps you lower yourself down, every inch of him stretching you open with such a good ache. Your hands grip his shoulders, and you feel Wriothesley’s eyes on you… You might pass out.

Varka’s hands on your hips guide his cock deeper into you until you’re seated, taking all of him.

“Good girl.” He cups your face, forcing your gaze to meet his. His blue eyes are glossed over and so full of need, and you want to give him everything he seems so depraved of. “Just take it easy for me, sweetheart.”

You nod, lifting one of your hands and gently touching the scar on his face with the tips of your fingers. His eyes are locked on your face, your parted lips, your half-lidded eyes, the absolute fucking mess of your hair…

“Fuck.”

His fists close around your hips hard enough to bruise, and then he’s lifting you up just to force you back down on his cock. You sob, falling forward, and all you can do is cling to him as he starts to bounce you up and down. His groans and your moans blend together, and you thank the gods that his knightly patience finally snapped.

He ruts up into you, chasing a high he’s been craving ever since he first saw you. You try to keep your face buried in his neck, but you’re abruptly pulled back by a hand in your hair.

When your eyes fade back into focus, Wriothesley’s cock is in front of your face.

So, like a good girl, you drop your jaw.

He curses, using his grip on your hair to push your mouth halfway down on his cock, and he eagerly strokes the base with his free hand. You suck around him, moaning and drooling to create a view that might be doing more for him than anything else.

Varka steadies your hips, instead just thrusting up into you instead of bouncing you up and down. You try to focus on getting Wriothesley off, too, but when Varka’s thumb pokes out to rub your clit, you’re immediately a goner.

You go mindless, just a crying, moaning mess as you get fucked through your third orgasm. Soon enough, Varka’s head falls back against the chair with a heavy groan, releasing inside of you to join what was left of Wriothesley’s seed. Speaking of which, only a few more pumps have Wriothesley coming in your mouth, and with the last of your strength, you seal your lips around him and greedily drink it all down.

“Shit.” Wriothesley pulls from your mouth with a pop, and you fall against Varka’s chest with heavy breaths. Varka uses his hold on your hips to gently lift you off his cock, pulling just his boxers back on before settling you more comfortably against him.

Your cheek rests against his shoulder, face turned toward his chest, and he strokes your back.

Wriothesley gets redressed before coming up beside you and tucking your sweaty hair behind your ear. He nods to Varka.

“How close to here are you staying?”

Varka’s arms wrap around you, and he sits up a bit. “Let’s go. Grab her dress.”

---

The next time you feel even slightly awake, you’re lying down in the middle of a double-bed. The sheets beneath you smell like a newly familiar scent, and the large shirt thrown over your body smells like one you’ve known for months. 

You sit up, wiping your eyes and yawning.

“Hey, lay back down.” The mattress dips to your right, and you look down to see Wriothesley, settling next to you and pulling the covers over you both.

You obey without hassle, tiredness still pulling at your limbs, and a dull ache resting between your legs. You know you aren’t doing anything tomorrow. Or today?

“Varka cleaned you up, you’re all good, baby.”

You hum, curling into his chest contently. Just then, the mattress dips again on your left.

“She awake?”

“Not anymore, I don’t think.”

You’re too exhausted to share the state of your semi-consciousness, especially when another comforting warmth presses against your back, and you're now sandwiched between two soothing forms.

He looks…distinctly inhuman. Not just inhuman, but also not himself. Apart from the pointed ears and the glow in his eyes and those bright, iridescent wings (you’ll focus on that later, you decide), Kyryll is also not wearing a shirt with his hair hanging in a loose bun to keep it out of his face. He looks hot and sweaty and flushed—so unlike that typical collected, well-dressed, and polished man that you know who always runs a little cold. 

“I was looking for you?” You blink at him as you answer like it’s obvious, “You missed work.”

“Yes. That was an intentional decision,” he says, closing his eyes and gritting his jaw. He turns away from you, as if the sight of you physically makes him sick. You’re a little offended. “You should not have come here.”

“What? I have not seen or heard from you in almost a week! How do you think it makes me feel when I have to hear from your superiors, of all people, that you’ve taken a personal leave from—”

He exhales, the sound thin and weary. “Yes,” he says at last, each word carefully measured, “I took leave—for a reason.”

You blink at him, frowning. “And that reason would be?”

He closes his eyes, his jaw flexing as though he’s counting to ten in his head. “A personal one,” he replies evenly, though there’s a faint tremor in the calm of his voice. “When I am ready to return, I will do so. Until then, I would be grateful if you allowed me some solitude.”

“Solitude?” you echo, incredulous. “Kyryll, that’s not how this works. You don’t just vanish without a word and call it solitude. You didn’t reach out, you missed work for nearly a week—I was worried.”

“I am aware,” he says quietly, gaze lowering. “And for that, I apologize. It was never my intent to worry you.”

“Then what was your intent?” you demand, stepping closer as you cross your arms. “Because you can’t just disappear and expect me to act like that’s normal.”

A muscle in his cheek twitches. He’s clearly fighting something internal, trying desperately not to let it show. When he speaks again, his voice is soft, careful. Pleading, even. “I know what this looks like to you. I know it seems as though I am shutting you out. But please—believe that it is not from malice or indifference. I simply cannot…be as I should, not right now.”

You hesitate, your irritation giving way to confusion. “What does that even mean?”

“It means,” he groans, “that there are parts of me I would rather you never see. And those parts are…difficult to keep hidden at present.”

You stare at him. You blink once, then twice, then you stare some more. “I have no idea what you’re implying, but your solution is to just lock yourself away and say nothing? That is ridiculous.”

He sighs, the sound faintly exasperated. “It is not ideal. But it is safer—for you, and for me.”

“Are you in danger? What is going on? Is something after you? Is it the wild hunt? Maybe we can—”

“You need to leave,” he cuts you off. “Please.”

That part makes you pause. He adds that last part with a broken, croaky little voice—like he’s begging, and it’s so bordering on pure desperation, you almost feel scared. What could possibly have happened in less than a week’s time to make him plead not to see you? To skip work? To…to look so different and not human?

Because he isn’t like you. Kyryll is not human, you realize. Concern for the man you are courting has caused you to overlook that very obvious fact for a moment, but reality has dragged you back to its awful truth and slapped the cold, hard facts into your shaky little sweaty palms and said: Look, the man you think you love is not who you think he is. 

You stare at him, the question caught somewhere between your throat and your lungs. What is he, exactly? His face looks the same—still that sharp-boned, beautiful thing you adore so much—but now, under the dim light of his living room, there’s something wrong. Perhaps not wrong, exactly. Just...unfamiliar. His skin seems to shimmer faintly, and his eyes almost illuminate the dark around him, and his ears—his ears are just a touch too pointed when he turns his head.

“Kyryll,” you breathe, “what’s happening to you?”

He exhales, a sound that almost feels laced with dread. “Nothing is happening to me—I am exactly as I am intended to be. Some traits that humans would consider abnormal are…well, they are not so rare amongst non-humans.”

You furrow your brows. “You mean to tell me you’re the latter?”

What a silly question, your mind hisses, what else would those features imply?

He hesitates, eyes closing as though it hurts to confess. “You have heard before, perhaps, that Snezhnaya was once a realm of the fae,” he says softly. “A race that is no longer of any importance, but one that does exist. I am proof enough of that, simply by standing before you.”

“And when were you going to tell me that?” you ask, your voice trembling just slightly. You wonder what that sinking feeling in your chest is—fear, perhaps? Are you scared of him? Scared of what he is, or what he isn’t? Scared that he is something else entirely, something beyond you?

No, you think faintly. Human or not, Kyryll would never hurt you. He would never let harm come your way—certainly not from himself. The ache that blooms inside you is not fear at all, but something heavier, deeper, more hurtful: the knowledge that Kyryll does not trust you. That he cannot bring himself to believe you would see him for what he truly is and still love him—that your eyes would see the what of him before the who.

“My light, it was never my intention to deceive you,” he says, pleading now. “I simply wished for more time—to cherish you as you are before the truth might…alter things between us.”

“Alter things how, exactly?” you frown. “Alter things because I’d leave? You think I can’t be trusted—is that it?”

“No.” He smiles sadly—a fragile little smile that still does something painful to your heart, easing and tightening it all at once. “No, it was never that I doubted your trust,” he murmurs. “Only whether I deserved it, once my nature was known. For that, I must apologize. I should not have hidden it from you. You are far too precious a person to entangle yourself with someone like me.”

“Oh, be quiet, you fool,” you huff, stepping closer to him. You press your palm to his cheek, and he leans into the touch with a soft, startled breath. “Self-pity will not earn you any leniency. Do not lie to me again. Understand?”

“Fae cannot lie,” he smiles faintly, eyes fluttering shut as your thumb brushes his skin. “Should we attempt it, we sicken. Very gravely, in fact.”

“Ah,” you nod with mock solemnity, “so you’re simply skilled in manipulation. How comforting.”

He laughs, just barely—a sound that fades too quickly as he pulls back, though not far enough to escape your curiosity. Your hand drifts upward, fingers brushing the sharp point of his ear. He flinches.

“Now…is perhaps not the best moment to be touching—”

“You also have wings?” you interrupt in awe, gently maneuvering him to turn around. He stiffens as your finger traces delicately up his spine from the small of his back. “Can you fly?”

“No,” he says shakily, “they would not support my weight. They are not a particularly useful trait of the fae—merely an aesthetic one, if anything.”

“Very aesthetical indeed,” you giggle.

“That is not a real word,” he murmurs, closing his eyes. His breath hitches when your finger drifts to the place where the fragile wing meets his warm skin. His skin is never warm. Kyryll runs rather cold—you complain about it often when you curl against his side. (It never stops you from cuddling him, of course, but the complaints never cease, either.)

“Hm, still clinging to your extensive knowledge of words, are you?” You roll your eyes. 

You gently rub along that small network of veins where translucent skin fades into flesh, where the shimmer of his wings dissolves against the pale slope of his back. The base of each wing seems impossibly fragile—paper-thin, like spun glass, yet alive and keenly receptive to your touch. They rise from just below his shoulder blades, delicate membranes threaded with faint iridescence, catching the light in colors that shift like oil on water. You stare in awe at that narrow strip of skin between wing and back. It’s softer, almost silken, and the sensation is strange—cool, like morning dew, yet trembling with a pulse beneath your fingertips, as though burning from beneath.

The wings flutter instinctively the more your touch wanders, a tremor rippling through the transparent folds and making him flinch—a sharp breath pulled through his teeth.

“Does that hurt?” you ask, pausing in concern.

He shakes his head, though his voice is strained when he answers. “No. They are just…sensitive.”

“I see,” you breathe in fascination. 

They are sensitive—you can feel it under your fingertips. His skin there runs cold, but the pulse beneath it beats hot and fast, trembling through the thin lattice of veins. The wings twitch involuntarily, like they’re trying to fold in on themselves to escape your touch, or maybe reach for it—you cannot quite tell. When you trace your thumb along the joint where the wing anchors to his spine again, his breath catches once more, rougher this time. The friction of your touch draws a low sound from him, half-strained, half-pleasured. The wings shiver—and then so does he.

“Kyryll?” you ask softly.

He only lets out a sharp inhale in response.

“Are you…” You falter. How do you even phrase it? How do you ask your boyfriend—who has only just shared with you his origins as something not human—the burning question at the back of your mind? There is clearly something in his system, something woven into his bloodline, his very DNA, the framework of who he is, that makes him so…pent up. (That is the only phrase you can think of.) “Is…is there something happening with you? Biologically, at least?”

He goes still at your words. The question hangs between you with thick enough tension in the air that you feel like it physically separates you, and for a moment, he seems unable to breathe. When he finally does, it’s shallow—careful.

“I—” His voice breaks, then steadies, smooth and practiced as though he’s forcing it into place. “That is…a delicate subject.”

You take a small step back. “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to make you uncomfortable. I just—”

“I know.” His hand reaches and grabs yours, thumb brushing softly over your knuckles before promptly letting go. His eyes flick to yours—bright, sharp, and mesmerizing in the low light. You wonder how you never caught on before that he could not be human. “I did not intend for you to see me in such a state. It is a rather shameful condition—one might say it is…seasonal, or perhaps instinctive. A remnant of older blood. It makes my body…less easily governed.”

He swallows hard, turning his face away. The fine tremor in his wings betrays the effort it takes to keep control.

You reach out before thinking, fingers hovering over his arm. “Hey,” you say quietly, “you don’t have to be ashamed. I’m not afraid of you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

His laugh is soft, almost bitter. “You should be. There are things in me, desires in me, that are not…proper. Not human. When such old instincts rise, I am ruled by them more than I care to admit.”

He finally meets your gaze again, and something raw flickers there—fear, want, and the painful effort of restraint. The air between you tightens. Something shifts. Something that pulls you towards him just as fiercely as he wants to push you away. You ache to close that gap he wants so badly to put between you—a naive and optimistic thought process, perhaps. Kyryll knows himself and his state of mind better than you do. 

He has lived through it. For hundreds of years, evidently, and you have only known him for so long. He is perhaps, wisely so, protecting you from a part of himself that requires protection against. But you don’t find his warnings—nor his pleas for that matter—to stay away from him until this passes worth listening to. You won’t. You can’t bring yourself to. 

He looks unwell—he looks pained and in suffering and alone in this small, little home of his where nothing is there to ease his troubles, no one is there to ease his burdens or his aches. You take one look at that soft, rosy flush on his cheeks, the dampness of his clammy skin, the somehow even darker circles beneath his honeyed eyes, and you cannot fight the instinct in your heart that longs to take care of him however he needs it. The instinct that just as easily governs over your body against your will as Kyryll’s governs over his. 

Love, perhaps, is what your heart would call it. Foolishness, on the other hand, is what your mind would say. 

“It hardly happens,” he whispers, keeping his face turned insistently away from you, “once every decade or so, there are urges…and they are not very pure in nature. I am ashamed to admit I am unable to keep from harboring improper thoughts about you, my dear. It would be in your best interest to leave before I am incapable of controlling myself any longer.”

“Forgive me for being so candid,” you say with a small grin, amusement threading through your voice, “but we’ve been intimate before, you silly thing. What exactly are you trying to protect me from—sex? Kyryll, we’ve done that plenty of—”

“No.” His voice cuts through yours, low and sharp, carrying a kind of desperation that stills you. “This is hardly comparable.” He turns toward you finally, and even though his expression is composed, his eyes are not. They are hungry and wild, and his pupils almost dilate at the sight of you. His wings twitch behind him, restless. “This is not a desire one can reason with,” he continues quietly. “It is old. It does not recognize affection or care—only need. And I would sooner burn myself hollow than make an object of you.”

For a moment, you weigh his words. You can see how much effort it costs him to hold himself still, to speak in measured tones instead of instinct. So much care and respect are woven into that tense, agonized distance he keeps between you both as he wills himself to stand still. And you decide that you want none of it.

You do not care about his self-imposed moral limits and boundaries. He needs you—and by the Gods, you are going to give him what he needs.

“Kyryll,” you say firmly, the earlier humor gone from your voice. “You could have told me sooner.”

He closes his eyes, exhaling shakily. “And ruin the illusion that I am civilized?”

You shake your head, stepping closer despite his warning. “You never needed illusions with me. I am the first person you should be able to turn to when you need something—when you need someone to take care of you.”

“You cannot take care of me in this form,” he clicks his teeth, patience slowly wearing thin. (He is certainly not in his right mind after all, you deduce—your Kyryll is never impatient with you. Not his usual self, at least.)

“I can,” you say stubbornly, “and I will because there is no way I am leaving you like this to suffer—so if you must use me for your own pleasure, then I think that is exactly what I will have you do because I want it of my own will. See? It is fine now, so come here and—”

“You are playing dangerous games,” his voice is deeper, lower, almost a throaty sound that vibrates in a way you’ve never heard from his usual rich, smooth, almost velvety voice. “Humans are not meant to withstand this level of…depravity that becomes my nature—”

“You are infuriatingly stubborn,” you roll your eyes. 

You step closer, moving to wrap your arms around his neck. He catches your wrists before you can press yourself closer against him. His grip is gentle, but his hand trembles as he holds yours. His pupils are blown wide, the faint iridescence of his eyes flickering like they are something alive, something of a soul of their own. “Do not tempt me,” he breathes. “You do not understand what you are inviting.”

“I think I do,” you say softly. “You’re suffering, and I won’t stand by and watch it.”

He shakes his head, his voice dropping to a low, strained murmur. “It is not the kind of suffering you can easily mend. The endurance of a fae and that of a human are…not measured in the same way.”

“I’ve never been afraid of a little imbalance,” you counter, a faint smile tugging at your lips. “I like a good challenge.” For a heartbeat, neither of you moves. The air between you holds still—tense, waiting. 

And then he caves.

His hand rises to your jaw, tentative at first, as though he’s still convincing himself he shouldn’t. But the moment his skin meets yours, all restraint shatters. You’re pulled in for a kiss just as fervently as you lean in for one. Neither of you can say for certain who leans in first—who reaches for the other first. You don’t think you’d ever truly know. 

His breath his hot against your mouth, and it comes out in nothing but heavy, short puffs of air that he all but gasps for. For all his stamina as a fae that he claims to have, he seems almost out of breath from just a little kissing. Your hands wander along his back, gently rubbing against the delicate portion between skin and wings as he lets out a surprised groan of pleasure at the feeling. You giggle into his mouth as he flinches in shock from the touch.

“You weren’t lying,” you murmur into his lips, “they really are sensitive, aren't they?”

“Amused, are we?” he huffs into your mouth. 

“Maybe a little,” you admit cheekily. He only grunts in response—Kyryll in a rut is a Kyryll with very few words that he can articulate, you realize. 

You feel the bulge of his cock against your thigh as he flips you around to press you against the wall, caging you with his tall, strong body as his hands desperately cup your jaw and angle your face up, kissing you with more hunger than before. It’s hot, his erection—you can feel that sheer warmth of it through the fabric and layers of clothes, and it’s thick and twitching through his pants in a way you’ve never felt him before, as though he’s already responding to absolutely nothing from how starved he really is for anything. 

You move your thigh up, pressing it between his legs to slot perfectly against his crotch. He all but whimpers at the feeling—shuddering against you before his lips break away from yours and his face buries into your neck. 

“D-don’t stop,” he pleads, “more. I need…more.”

“I know,” you soothe, gently tugging the hair tie that keeps his long strands in that low bun until it frees his hair and lets it fall down his back. Your fingers stroke through them, delicately raking your nails along his scalp as you murmur, “I know, baby. You need more. Got it.”

He shivers at the pet name, and you smile fondly. You would have preferred to relieve him of such a clear ache with more gratifying methods, but Kyryll does not allow himself to detach from you long enough for you to even reach for the waistband of his pants and use your hand. Your thigh is as good as he allows you to pleasure him with the way he’s pressed so close to your personal space. You feel him grind against it with his own pace, meeting your movements halfway as he chases the friction against his hardened cock. 

When your fingers move back to his back, tracing the sensitive little networks of veins along the base of his wings, he groans into your neck, biting into your skin hard enough that it stings just a little. 

“Does it feel good when I touch here?” You press gently into the base of his wing for emphasis. 

He lets out a soft, breathless, almost whiny sound as he nods shakily. “Y-yes,” he swallows thickly, “very…very good.”

“How cute,” you giggle. “You are so cute.”

“M’close,” he gasps, “so…so, so close.”

“Already?” you blink in shock–you’ve really only hardly begun, “but we—”

You don’t even get to finish your thoughts before the sound of his voice, gravelly and thick with pleasure, cuts you off. 

“F-fuck, I…I’m s-sorry,” he slurs his words incoherently, “‘m…c-cumming—”

You feel the familiar rush of warmth as he spills into his pants. (Kyryll has only cum in his pants once before—one night after he had a glass of wine too many, and you’d dragged your aching core against his own throbbing sensation between his legs as you shifted on his lap between kisses. It was cute then—seeing the adorable pinkness on his cheeks as he’d stuttered an apology. You enjoyed the slightly damp feeling of his release against your leg.)

But this time…it’s a little different. He absolutely soils his own clothes as much as yours. You can tell that much just seconds into his orgasm—the sheer amount of his seed that seeps through the fabric of his pants and dampens yours has you shocked. It’s…a lot. More than normal. More than you thought possible. Clearly not a very human amount, considering he is…well, very much not human. But you try your best to keep the steady rhythm of your thigh grinding against his crotch since he has stopped moving himself in favor of stilling—his body is taut and stiff as he shudders through every wave of his high, gasping into your neck and letting out choked moans against your skin. 

“S-sorry,” he rasps, “I did not…I had not meant to tarnish your c-clothes with—ngh—” 

He cuts his own sentence off with a low grunt as another thick, warm rope of cum spills from the head of his swollen cock. You shake your head in response to his apology—he does not need to apologize, you tell him softly—before gently rubbing his back as he rides out the last final waves of his orgasm. (It’s a long wave of pleasure—you’ve witnessed Kyryll fall apart quite a few times before. You like to consider your intimate life a display of healthy passion. It’s never lasted like this before, though—you don’t think you would forget it if you’d witnessed that sort of…well, spectacle seems not the kindest word for it. But it’s certainly a sight, that much is undoubtedly true. You decide not to comment on it for the sake of his feelings, however—you do not wish to embarrass him any further.)

“It’s okay,” you smile into his temple as you kiss it, “I don’t mind. Clothes can be washed, you know, silly.”

He pants into your neck, catching his breath for a brief moment before he reluctantly peels himself away from you. His face is even more flushed—his skin is practically glowing, and his wings seem even brighter as they droop into his back almost self-consciously. He doesn’t dare meet your eyes, as if his moment of self-indulgence is too shameful a scene for him to make peace with. You can practically hear his thoughts without him saying them—humping against your leg like that is the least dignified thing a man could do to the woman he cares for. Utterly unrefined and uncouth, and lacking in respect. 

You sigh, reaching to cup his cheek. “Hey,” you whisper gently, “don’t worry too much. Do you feel better now?”

He looks at you miserably. It’s only then does your gaze wander a little lower…and you realize that he is still hard. Very, very, very hard—in fact, you don’t think it ever stopped despite the way he clearly came undone just a moment ago. 

“Oh,” you breathe.

“…As you can see,” he says shakily, “this is not a problem that will resolve itself any time soon. Not even with your best efforts, I’m afraid.”

“So you need a few more rounds,” you shrug. He looks utterly horrified by your phrasing, which only makes you grin a little before you reach out to poke the tip of his nose affectionately. “I think I can handle that, baby—”

“No.” His voice sharpens, though there’s still that tremor of restraint beneath it. “You have already done far more than I deserve, my light. I will tend to the rest on my own. You should go—for your own sake, if not for mine. Though it pains me to watch you leave, it is the wisest course until I have recovered from this…condition of mine.”

“I’m not leaving,” you frown, your tone firm and unyielding.

He exhales, long and weary. “You are impossibly stubborn. Funny that you would have accused me of being just that, not too long ago.”

“I’m not!” you protest. “Look at you—you look like you’re in pain.”

“If you would kindly refrain from voicing such mortifying observations aloud,” he says with a tired sigh, “it would preserve what fragile shred of dignity I still possess, my dearest.”

You roll your eyes fondly. 

You and Kyryll are an oddly functioning couple. You only just started calling him by his first name a few weeks ago. Before that, he was simply Flins. Mister Flins, before that, when he was just a ratnik who had saved you from a creature of the wild hunt. 

Do be careful when you wander at night, Miss, he had said politely. 

And then he had been off on his way. You run into him time and time and time and time again after that. It’s an odd way the world works, you like to think—how you can meet someone so often after one encounter when just days before, you’d never been aware of their existence. How they can bleed into everything you know so suddenly, like they’d been there this entire time, even when you’d known nothing of them for so long. Your usual places, your usual routes and paths, your usual stops. All of them have been the same for long enough that you wonder if perhaps they have merged with your cells and become part of who you are. 

The one thing that was never there before was him. And then, as if the Gods had willed it, he was. Always, in every corner, it was Mister Flins. 

How funny of a way the world works that things are thrust into your small bubble against your will, invading the tiny space of what you know and becoming one with all the things you hold dear. 

Mister Flins at the market buying spices at the same time as you. Mister Flins walking down the same path as you are as he makes his way to his superior’s office. Mister Flins in the area to fix some broken part of his lamp. Mister Flins and a drink he asks to grab with you when you both happen to be free. Flins after that—he asks you kindly to drop the Mister. Flins and a nice dinner that he offers the bill for instantly. Flins at your place of work to escort you home in the evening—it’s dark out, you know, Miss. Flins in your kitchen as you make lunch while he’s in the area. Flins and that coat of his that he likes to drape over your couch when he’s here to stay for a while. Flins when you wake up in the morning, and he’s still there, tangled in the sheets with you. Flins who asks you to call him Kyryll, if you would accept—it’s only fair that two people who are courting use their proper names. 

How long of a way you have come—from calling him Mister and hoping if you might ever run into him again, to whispering Kyryll like it’s a prayer and letting yourself into his home as you please. How far of a way you still have to go—he is still too embarrassed to be open with the physical desire that consumes him so wholly despite being intimate with you so many times before. 

You wonder if a decade from now, Kyryll will warn you in advance that he will experience this same thing once more. If this time, instead of hiding from you, he might ask you to help him, take care of him. If he’ll trust you and put aside his composure and be fragile in your hands, so that you can carefully curl your hand and cup him in there, keeping him tucked into your hold, protected from the world. 

You sigh, shaking your head in fondness before you gently murmur, “If you would just shove aside your pride for a moment and understand that I do not find shame in your nature, then perhaps we might both have an enjoyable time. I don’t dislike being intimate with you, you know—it isn’t as though it’s a chore for me.”

He swallows, mulling over your words before his shoulders ease. A loose, breathless chuckle slips past his lips. “You are remarkably eager to bed me, my love.”

“Don’t be so smug,” you scoff, stepping toward him as your arms curl around his neck. 

He hums, burying his face into the juncture between your neck and shoulder and inhaling deeply, breathing in the scent of you. You can still feel the throbbing length tucked away in his tight pants—but you let him set his own pace for how he wants to do this. This is about him, you remind yourself, him and his…whatever this fever is called that has consumed him and turned him into a sexual-haze induced version of himself with mythical features you did not think people of this world could possess. 

You hesitate, voice gentle. “So…is this basically…like a rut or something?”

Kyryll stills, then exhales slowly against your skin. His laugh is quiet, resigned—the sound of a man who has given up on maintaining dignity. “If you insist on using such a barbaric term, then yes,” he murmurs, voice low and rueful. “It is something akin to that.”

“Ah,” you nod, trying not to grin. “Good to know.”

He lifts his head, eyes narrowing in faint amusement. “I can feel you laughing at me.”

“I would never,” you lie, smiling sweetly. Silence lingers for a beat before your curiosity wins out. “But wait—how come I never see your features like this? The ears, the wings…” your gaze drifts downward and back up again, “I’ve seen you naked plenty before, and those wings definitely weren’t there then.”

A soft sigh escapes him as he closes his eyes, the faintest trace of embarrassment lacing his tone. “I can usually hide them,” he admits quietly. “Most of my kind evolved to conceal the traits that set us apart. The wings, the ears—I have learned to keep them hidden away to pass unnoticed among humans.” His wings twitch faintly behind him, betraying his irritation. “But in this state…” his voice roughens slightly, “I cannot maintain that restraint. They emerge on their own.”

You hum thoughtfully. “So your wings come out when you’re horny.”

He groans, shoulders slumping. “You do have an unmatched talent for vulgar phrasing, my light.”

“I like to think it’s one of my more endearing qualities,” you grin, brushing a fingertip along the curve of his ear until he shivers. “Don’t you?”

He gives you a look—half exasperation, half resigned fondness. “Endearing is one word for it,” he murmurs dryly. “There are others I might choose.”

“Charming? Irresistible? The light of your lonely, dark little life?” you suggest, all innocent eyes.

“Insufferable,” he says immediately.

You press a hand to your chest in mock offense. “You wound me. Truly, so mean.”

“You’ll recover.” His lips twitch, betraying amusement. “You always do.”

You grin wider, leaning closer so your noses almost brush. “Only because I am so fond of you. The things I endure in order to love you are what some might consider horrors, you know.”

“I’ve watched you survive far worse than my teasing,” he replies, arching a brow. You hum thoughtfully. 

“True,” you whisper as you bite back a grin, “so surely, I can handle you when you are not entirely yourself.”

He exhales, a sound caught somewhere between a sigh and a laugh—soft, endeared. “Incorrigible,” he murmurs, though the word loses its bite when you rise on your toes and press your lips to his.

The kiss starts tentative, almost cautious. You test the waters, and he trembles faintly against you, as though afraid he might hurt you just by touching. But when you tilt your head and draw him closer by the back of his neck, that restraint begins to crack. His hands find your waist, firm yet so achingly soft the way that Kyryll always is, and he kisses you again—deeper this time. Harder. Like he means it. The kind of kiss that steals the breath right out of your lungs as he inhales it for himself.

You feel his heartbeat where your palms rest against his bare chest, and the faint shiver of his wings brushing against your hands as they travel from his sternum to his back. When you part for air, he rests his forehead against yours, his breath uneven, the tips of his pointy, adorable little ears flushed a faint shade of rose.

“Are you sure?” he whispers, his voice hoarse with longing.

“Positive,” you breathe, brushing your thumb over his lower lip. He presses a kiss to the pad of your finger before nodding. 

“You’ll try to stop me if it’s too much? Perhaps we should keep something heavy nearby so you may hit me if I do not listen to reason—I will certainly survive the blow and—”

“I am not hitting your head, Kyryll,” you gape, “and I’m not backing out, either. Now fuck me—I want you.”

“Must you say it just like that?” he asks tiredly. 

You giggle, nodding as you murmur, “How else will I prove my enthusiasm to feel you?”

That seems to undo him completely. He looks at you for a moment—good and long and hard before he kisses you again. This time, it’s with the kind of fervor that feels almost desperate now, stumbling a little as you both move in a tangle of limbs through the quiet rooms of his home. His hand stays at the small of your back, guiding you blindly toward the bedroom, though his mouth never leaves yours for long.

The journey there is clumsy and impatient—you nearly trip over a low stool in your rush, and he catches you with a low laugh that melts against your lips. His wings flutter, brushing against furniture, fragile things trembling with the same tension that threads through his entire body. He moans into your mouth every few moments, unable to keep his usual composure and bite back the sounds. You like this version of Kyryll—the version that makes his pleasure a loudly known fact rather than a politely kept secret. 

By the time your knees hit the edge of his bed, he’s panting harshly, worked back up to impatience for release as his body burns with tension.

“This is your last chance to leave while you easily can, you know,” he says lowly—his voice thick, hoarse, and edged with something that no longer sounds entirely human. Each word rasps as though dragged through gravel, deeper and rougher than before, echoing faintly in his chest before reaching you. The sound sends a shiver down your spine—not from fear, but from the strange, thrilling feeling of want piercing through your spine. 

You meet his gaze steadily. “I’m not backing out,” you say, your voice so firm and sure.

He closes his eyes, jaw tightening as though your words physically pull at the fraying thread of his control. “You do not understand what you invite, my light.”

“I don’t want to understand,” you whisper, reaching for him, “I just want you.”

His breath stutters at the touch. For a moment, he seems frozen, torn between his care for you and his instinct of desire. Then—as if his biology finally wins over—whatever fragile barrier he’s built around himself shatters. The sound that escapes him is low, almost feral, but still unmistakably him. 

“I told you,” he says gruffly, “I will not be guided by my affections. Yet you insist so firmly to see a version of me that only fucks you with instinct alone—is that what you truly want? A man as depraved and senseless as this? What little regard for your fragile, human body,” he chuckles. 

His mouth claims yours before you can reply—hard and bruising and all teeth, filled with a relentless urgency. You gasp, arching into his touch as his large, impatient hands tug you closer by your clothes. (So this is what he meant, you think—Kyryll is utterly lacking in his typical gentleness. No—in fact, his gentleness is completely gone.)

Your clothes are torn off in a swift motion. He does not bother disrobing you, does not bother taking his time to admire you, or tease you, or simply just bask in the moment of being so intimately close to you. Instead, he grabs the fabric with a rough hand, pulls with more force than you’ve ever seen from him, and tears the fabric without remorse. You gasp at the sight of it being completely irreparable. 

“Kyryll!” you hiss, “soiling clothes is one thing, but destroying them is an entirely separate—”

“Enough,” he cuts in, voice low and edged. “They were in my way. I will not waste time with trivial barriers.”

You shiver at the sound of such a rough tone in his voice. Long gone is the delicate, well-mannered, and well-spoken man you know—long gone is his patience and sweetness and lingering precision in everything he does. 

His hands squeeze at your hips in appreciation as he marvels at the sight of your curves and bare skin. “Mmh, and to think I was going to deny myself such a splendid gift—where such patience had graced me, even I myself cannot tell. No matter—I will make the most of such a wonderful blessing.” 

You’re dripping—his words alone, his sheer desire to use you alone, have made the ache between your legs worsen, and the pool of slick collecting there does the same. It coats your inner thighs, and when he roughly spreads your legs apart, humming at the sigh of your bare cunt, you whimper. 

“What a sight,” he groans, “I cannot wait until I am buried in the warmth of such a beautiful, perfect cunt.”

He is much less hesitant to use filthier words, too, you realize. And less focused on you and your pleasure as his fingers sink past the velvety walls of your pussy, curling deep into that spongy, sensitive spot that makes you mewl. Nothing about this is gentle. Nothing about it is thoughtful and giving and filled with adoration like Kyryll always is when he beds you. Nothing about it puts your pleasure above all else and does it for the sole purpose of making you feel good and feel his devotion. 

No. Instead, Kyryll fucks his fingers into you because he needs you prepped and ready to take his cock. He also wants to feel the warmth of your walls flutter around his fingers because his mind is in a filthy haze. You can tell because the way he groans as his fingers pump into you, scissoring and stretching you open, has nothing to do with the way you gasp and twitch from pleasure, but everything to do with the wet, squelching sound he hears and that shiny, messy essence that he sees coating his fingers. 

“So warm,” he moans, “how long before I can sink the entirety of my cock into such a perfectly awaiting pussy, I wonder.”

“K-Kyryll, please—”

“Say that again,” he demands, “say my name like that again. Say it.”

“Kyryll,” you sob brokenly. His fingertips are so cruel, slamming and curling into that sensitive spot so rough and fast, so impatient to get you gushing around him so that you are ready to take his cock with ease. “M’go-gonna…gonna cum—fuck!”

“There it is, my dove,” he smiles, pleased. “I knew you would do well—after all, you always give me just what I want, don’t you? It’s what you know best, isn’t it? Such a good, obedient human.” 

Your orgasm doesn’t last long—it’s not like the usual sort of high Kyryll coaxes out of you. It’s not soft and prolonged and doesn’t make you slip into a hazy, blissful state that makes you feel like you’re floating. Instead, it all but makes you black out, a wave of pleasure that absolutely wrecks you and shocks your body right to its core. It’s impatient and fast, and when you come down from the split second of pure white-hot pleasure, he is already there, studying your fluttering walls and humming in approval. 

“I think you are sufficiently ready, don’t you think, my dear?” he all but growls. 

You watch deliriously as he unzips his pants, quickly shrugging them and his boxers off in a swift movement and freeing his cock—and oh. You have seen his cock. You have taken his cock down your throat and deep in your walls, and you’ve felt the weight of it in your hand. You are not a stranger to the sight of Kyryll’s cock, but you are a stranger to his version of it—the version of it that has thicker veins that are practically glowing along the side of his length. The version of it that has messy, runny, iridescent pre cum leaking from the tip and coating his pink, flushed cockhead. The version of it that looks even bigger and thicker, and longer than you remember it. 

You gasp at the sheer sight of it, instinctively pressing your thighs together in…in what? You do not even know. In fear? In excitement? In need of relief at the sheer excitement it sends through your aching core, or in need of a break before you’ve even begun from the sheer size of it that will surely break you. 

“Oh my god,” you whisper, “oh my god, it…it’s not going to fit,”  you shake your head. “K-Kyryll, you’ll…you’ll break me.”

“Will I?” he chuckles, slightly mocking as he leans down and presses a flurry of kisses along your jaw, sucking and biting at your skin before he makes his way to your neck and inhales the scent of you once more. It occurs to you then that perhaps the scent of you has only been driving him more mad this whole time—that with the way he’s taken every opportunity to sniff at your skin, he must be absolutely overwhelmed by the scent of you. “I specifically remember you saying you would not mind doing this with me and that it was not a chore. Why the sudden change of heart?”

“L-look at the…the size of…of it!” you stutter, “that is not what it usually is!”

“We will easily make it fit, my dove,” he hums, “not to worry. There is no doubt that this pretty cunt will open up nice and slowly for me—after all, she is a good, good girl, isn’t she?”

He traces a thumb over your clit as he says that—and when you whine, jolting from the touch, he chuckles in a sick, almost twisted form of amusement. Without warning, he grabs a leg, hooking it over his shoulder as his hand squeezes the meat of your thigh and groans. 

“You were made for my taking,” he says, staring at your body as though he’s in a heavy trance. His eyes are wide and dilated, unfocused and almost wild as he rakes them over every section of bare skin he can. “I am going to take great pleasure in feeling the tight warmth of you wrapped around me—what a wonderful fate life has granted me, indeed.”

With that, he leans down to hover over you, and the knee tossed over his shoulder bends and practically meets your chest as he closes the gap and kisses you roughly. The thick, blunt head of his cock meets the entrance of your cunt, pushing past the folds slowly, carefully for a moment that you almost think that this is your Kyryll—the Kyryll that you know and love. 

But then, with a rough snap of his hips, he’s pressed a good amount of his length into you, stretching you with a burning girth that makes you cry out in a sharp mewl. “T-too much, baby,” you sob, “w-wait—”

“You can take it, my dear,” he insists, kissing away the tears with chapped, warm lips that feel nothing like the usual soft and cool ones you’re used to. You hardly recognize the man who is taking you, and yet…and yet, you cannot help but fall in love even deeper with him in this state. Every fiber of your existence should scream to run, but instead, they long to be intertwined with him. Threaded into the very fibers of his own existence, living tangled and one with him. 

He’s right. You can take him—and you do. He snaps his hips one more time and buries the rest of himself into you, completely down to the hilt and completely filling you up until you feel almost certain that you can feel him in your throat and lungs. 

“S-so big,” you gasp, trying to adjust to the sheer size of him as your walls flutter around the intrusion of his thick, swollen cock. He groans, wings fluttering behind him impatiently as he waits for you to give the signal that you’re ready for him to move—he still has enough sense in his system for that much kindness. “S-so full, baby—m’so full.”

“Yes,” he says hoarsely, “what a sweet, precious girl, you are—taking me so well. Such a darling light I have that takes me so well and doesn’t complain. I simply adore you, my dove.”

You mewl at the praise, clawing at his back with your nails as you pull him closer—and impatiently, with a jolt of your hips, you plead, “M-move! Move, please…need to feel you so bad.”

Your hands rub along his back—and without the same careful, gentle precision as before, you rub at the base of his wings, too. Friction at the delicate, sensitive, almost painful nerve-endings at his wings that respond to your touch by twitching harshly. He lets out a gasp, jolting with a low, drawn-out moan that is obscenely loud. Obscene. Kyryll is never much of an obscene sight even in the throes of pleasure, but you suppose such a frenzied, desperate state of mind would make him prioritize his composure last. 

“F-fuck—I told you, those are sensitive,” he hisses, “you…you cannot simply just touch and feel them as you please unless you want to—”

You lean up and bite at his earlobe, effectively cutting him off as his breath gets caught in his throat. You hear the hitch before you whisper into the shell of his pointed ear, “Kyryll, just fuck me already. What in the Gods' names are you waiting for?”

That makes something in him snap. Something carnal and hungry and desperate and…so far gone in his desires, it almost feels animalistic. His hips snap, harsh and fast, and nudge his cock deeper and deeper past your folds, pressing effortlessly against that sensitive, delicate spot in the back of your walls. Your Kyryll usually knows where that spot is; he usually aims his thrusts to kiss that spot with the blunt head of his cock purposely. 

This Kyryll doesn’t try. He doesn’t even think to find your pleasure points, drilling his aching length and chasing the warm friction of the tight walls that surround him without a thought. It just so happens that naturally so, with the sheer size and girth of him, with the perfect curve of cock, he manages to find that spot anyway. 

“Fuck,” he groans, “ngh—you are so…so soft. So exquisite and warm and so fucking tight.”

Your legs wrap around his hips, bracing yourself for every forceful, heavy snap of his hips. It’s fast and rough and impatient. It’s everything your Kyryll is not. It’s hungry and mad and vulgar. There’s a filthy squelching sound that mixes in with both of your pleasured sounds—a wet, filthy one that comes from skin slapping on skin and the way his cock slips in and out of your dripping cunt. 

“I’ll fill you up,” he says lowly, “there is a perfect little womb right here,” his large hand presses against your belly, applying light pressure against it as he thrusts into you, making you wail. “And I intend to make good use of it. I will fill this womb up with my seed over and over again—until it takes. However many times I must, I will. Until you are swollen with a child that will have both the bloodline of a fae and a delicate little human.”

“P-please—”

“Is that what you want?” He coos, “to have a child you can bear with half of me and you? Perhaps my eyes? Your smile? Is that what my darling little human wants?”

“Y-yes,” you sob, “yes, yes—please!”

“Then far be it from me to deny such a precious request,” he hums. 

You moan into his mouth as he kisses you roughly. A messy dance of tongue and teeth and hot breath that you exchange between heavy panting. One hand tangles in his hair and tugs, and the other alternates between scratching into his back and rubbing over those delicate nerves at the base of his wings. You feel him jolt every time you trace them—feel him let out a tiny whimper into your mouth when your thumb catches over a particularly delicate membrane that makes his whole body shudder. 

“Oh,” he groans roughly, “I’m…I’m c-close—so…so tight. It’s never…it’s never felt like this before.”

For a fleeting moment, you wonder what he means by that—he’s fucked you plenty of times before. Plenty of times, he’s felt the slick tightness of your cunt and the warm walls that wrap around him invitingly. Then…then it occurs to you that perhaps…perhaps this is the first time Kyryll has ever fucked somebody at all during a rut. Perhaps he has never had the company of another while he locks himself away in his home. 

Perhaps, all these years, he’s had nothing but the frustrating company of his own hand against his cock, a limited and lonely form of relief for that awful, throbbing ache between his legs. You imagine it—the sight of him sprawled on his bed, bare and sweaty and painfully erect. The sight of his fist stroking his cock and squeezing at the base while he bites the palm of his hand and chokes on sounds he tries to suppress. The sight of him spilling into his hand and feeling the tremors of his pleasure all alone with no one to whisper sweet nothings to him as he comes down from the high. 

What a lonely, awful way it must have been to ease his aches. What a lonely, awful fate he was so willingly to resign himself to again before you had wormed your way into his home and demanded an explanation from him. A part of you knows he had done it mainly out of fear—fear of hurting you and losing control. Fear of slipping too far in his desires and taking it further than he would ever dream of, and causing you harm. 

But another part of you wonders if Kyryll is just too used to being alone. If his mind and body are accustomed to being alone during something like this, that even when his body craves the heat and closeness of someone else, even when his mind has envisioned you in less than proper ways, like he’s said himself, he is too ingrained in the habit of being alone. Being far, far away from others and handling things alone. Being far, far away from you when he thinks himself to be a burden who does not deserve your closeness or your care or your intimacy. 

And you don’t like it. You don’t want his mind to think that way on default and put space between you when all you want is to be nestled into his skin and make home in his ribcage. You’re safest there—he would protect you with his bones and shatter them first before anything would harm you. You know that. 

And you want to take care of him. See the less than human parts and make them feel welcome in this big, large world where there is room for both of you to exist with your differences. 

“Have you ever fucked someone like this, Kyryll?” You whisper, “When your body is flushed and warm like this? Has anyone touched these cute little wings of yours as you fucked your load into them? Held you as you come undone? That’s what you deserve, don’t you think?”

Filthy. That’s how you make him feel. That’s how he makes you feel, too. Even when you are being sweet, you are both downright, purely filthy. 

“No,” he rasps, “fuck—no, I haven’t. I’ve never…n-never had someone before you for…for this.”

“So I’m your first proper rut, is that it?” You manage to giggle even through his ruthless, heavy thrusts. Even as he bullies his cock into your folds as deep as it’ll go, you find a way to tease and mock him. 

(And he likes it. There is, undeniably, a part of him that excites when you do. Otherwise, you wouldn’t feel him twitch inside of your cunt like that.)

“Yes,” he groans loudly, dizzy with pleasure as you squeeze around him, “yes…my first…first proper one.”

His hips stutter for a moment as he says the words—like he’s mulling them over and pondering on the implications of them before suddenly, your other leg is thrown over his shoulder and you cannot help but squeal in shock from the force of his body maneuvering yours. He folds you in half, and your knees are almost pressed to your chest. 

He rolls his hips in quick, impatient thrusts—sloppy in rhythm and no longer as deliberate as they once were in pace. He’s close. This Kyryll is so, so different from your Kyryll, but he’s still the same. You recognize the patterns as they come. That slack jaw and those eyes that flutter shut and roll to the back of his head. The deep, heavy breaths and the low, raspy grunts. The familiar way his pace becomes messy and less rhythmic as he tries to grind into you and chase the friction. And finally, the small, little twitch his cock does before he spills into you. It’s warm—so fucking warm and thick, and it fills you up from just a few ropes. 

“M’c-cumming,” he says hoarsely, so fragile and broken as pleasure bleeds through his veins and shoots along his nerves. “So…so good, love—you always feel so good.”

Just like the first time he came in his pants right against your legs, he spills more seed than you ever imagined possible. It paints your walls white, and he does a careful job of fucking the load into you as it spills, never stilling for a second. You can feel it leaking from your folds—there’s a mess of his cum and your slick leaking past your folds and coating your inner thighs, dripping along your skin. 

He watches, mesmerized. 

And when a particularly sharp thrust lands, you follow him as you fall off the edge and go hurtling into your own pleasure. It’s dizzying. He’s never stretched you like this—you’ve never felt veins this thick rub against your walls and drag along with such sickening friction. When you cum, you cum hard—harder than you ever have on his cock. You squeeze around him, milking him of the last of his thick ropes of cum and making sure he gives you everything he can. 

“Kyryll,” you gasp—you chant it a few more times as you ride out the final waves of your high, unable to form anything else but the thought of his name. “Oh,” you breathe, “fuck.”

He slumps over you as he finishes, catching his breath in the crook of your neck. His wings tremble faintly before folding closed, and for a long moment, the only sound is his heavy breathing and the faint hum of his heartbeat against your chest.

When he finally speaks, his voice is still rough, still deep and throaty. “I did warn you,” he murmurs, lips brushing your skin. “I told you I lose myself in this state. You insisted on testing me.”

You hum, utterly unbothered, fingers lazily combing through his damp hair. “Lose yourself? That was you losing control? I must say, I expected something a little more…dramatic.”

He lifts his head, giving you a look equal parts disbelief and exhaustion. “You have the audacity to critique my performance?”

“I’m just saying,” you tease, grinning, “for all that talk about feral instincts and uncontrollable urges, you were still very polite about it. You even romantically asked to start a family with me.”

A huff of laughter escapes him despite himself. “You mock me even now?”

“Only because it’s easy,” you grin, kissing his cheek. “All that talk, and you’re already out of breath.”

A low, breathless hum escapes him. “No need to worry,” he murmurs, voice rougher than usual—and you feel the familiar twitch of his cock. Still hard and still swollen inside you. “We still have a long way to go before my desires are satisfied. I hope you’re prepared.”

You tilt your head back to meet his gaze, eyes widening a fraction. “Oh…how long?”

Kyryll smirks—that infuriating, elegant smirk that makes you weak-kneed. “Well,” he begins, voice dipping, “I did say that fae have a lot of stamina.”

“Well…” you murmur, looking at him with defiant eyes. “I still think I can handle that.”

He groans, teeth grazing the shell of your ear, “We shall see,” he rasps, “because I am not finished with you yet.”

Your father, the Viscount, was away in London again. You didn't really see the manor as your home. Such a beautiful manor, only for it to feel like an empty museum. And Flins was its sole, impeccable curator.

"Flins," you said, voice cutting through the comfortable silence of the night.

He wasn't startled, already used to your habits. He knows you hate the silence. He finished the slow, circular motion on the glass, set it down on the tray, and turned to you, his hands clasped neatly behind his back. "Yes, my lady?"

"I'm cold." You pouted, hoping to catch his attention.

A faint, almost imperceptible frown touched his lips. "The fire is well-stoked. Shall I fetch you a shawl?"

"No." You uncurled yourself from the lounge, standing and taking a few steps toward him. "I don't want a shawl."

You saw the subtle shift in him, the way his shoulders tightened just a fraction though. Your eyes searched his face, the way his gaze, usually so direct and respectful, flickered away from yours for a single, telling moment. He knew where this was going, a game he's played one too many times. This was the tone of the lady of the house beginning to peel away, a side of you only he gets to see.

"My lady..." he began, voice low with caution

"You've always been the one to warm me, Flins," you continued, closing the distance between you. You stopped just short of touching him, close enough to feel the heat from his body, to see the way your presence makes him swallow to fix his composure. "When I was a girl and had a nightmare. You'd sit right there," you gestured to the edge of the chaise, "and you wouldn't leave until I fell asleep."

"That was different. You were a child."

"And now I'm not." It was heavy, the way you said it to make a point. You reached out, not quite touching him, fingertips hovering over the sleeve of his beautifully tailored jacket. "And I am still cold. And you are still here."

He hesitated; you can see it in the way he wasn't moving. The war in his eyes, choosing between lifelong dedication to duty, and the abyss of propriety that should be separating you. All that has been clashing with the raw, unspoken thing that had been growing between you for years. Such a war you hated to provoke, because you knew the predicament it caused him. But whenever he pulled away, retreating behind the unbreachable wall of "butler" and "lady," was a loneliness so profound it felt like a physical ache you couldn't bear.

You don't understand him sometimes. Promising to take care of you, saying he loves you, only for him to put his walls up again. It was a push and pull. So, you used the only weapon you had that was guaranteed to break his defenses.

Your authority.

The voice of the Viscount's daughter. "It is your duty, is it not, to see to the comfort and well-being of this household? to see to my comfort?"

His jaw tightened. "Yes, my lady."

You feel a slight pain in your chest. Just a few days ago, he was calling you sweet praises. Now you're back to just being my lady? You bit the insides of your cheek before speaking.

"Then I am stating that my comfort requires your presence." You finally let your fingertips brush against the cloth of his sleeve. "Here. With me."

It was enough to shatter his resolve. You saw the exact moment he surrendered, the tension draining from the way his posture relaxed, his eyes darkening the way you were dangerously familiar with.

"As you wish," he murmured.

His obedience was your victory, but why did it taste so bittersweet? You hated using your position like this, hated the flicker of pained resignation in his eyes before he was consumed by something darker that only belonged to you. This bratty, imperious side of you, born from years of having everything you wanted except the one thing that ever mattered. A flaw he alone was very much aware of. And he, it seemed, was the one man who simply could not resist it. No matter how many times he swore not to touch you again, he easily goes back to square 1 the moment you cross that line.

He moved past you, the scent of sandalwood and cedar a familiar torment. He sat on the very edge of the chaise you had just pointed to. He didn't lean back into its plush cushions, still sitting as if he was on duty, his back still straight. Your eyes fluttered to meet his, dark with a storm you brewed.

"Come here," he said, voice suddenly a low rasp that was nothing like the polished tone of a butler. It was the voice of the man who had whispered your name in the dark, who had continuously lost his composure against your skin.

He patted his thigh, a command that mirrored your dangerous game of power.

A thrill shot through you. You approached him slowly, the silk of your dressing gown dragging along the carpet. You placed a hand on his shoulder for balance, feeling the solid muscle beneath his fine fabric. Settling on his lap, your breath hitched when you felt him hard against you. You settled on him, your side pressed against the hard line of his torso, legs draped over his.

For a moment, there was only the sound of the fire and the frantic beating of your own heart. His arms came around you, one a firm band across your lower back, the other splayed against your ribs, his thumb resting just beneath the curve of your breast. He pulled you tightly against him, burying his face in the curve of your neck with a shuddering sigh. His warm breath seeped into you, finally chasing away the cold that had nothing to do with the room's temperature.

"This," he breathed into your skin, "This is what you wanted? to be held?"

It was, but it also wasn't.

As you shifted, trying to melt more completely against him, you felt it. The hard, unmistakable ridge of his erection straining against the confines of his trousers pressed against your hip. You feel your core dampening between your thighs, a jolt of heat growing in you. He could try to hide behind his duty, but his body was always a traitor to his cause.

You hummed, a soft, knowing sound, and steadily rolled your hips against him in a slow, grinding pressure. Oh, and the effect was instantaneous. His arms tightened, and a ragged groan was torn from his throat. "Don't," he warned, a weak plea.

"You don't mean that," you whispered, bringing your lips to the shell of his ear. You traced the line of his jaw with your fingers, feeling the way the muscle tensed there. "Your body is always so much more honest than you are, Flins."

"You make it impossible to be otherwise," he gritted out, his control at the very seams of his edges. His hand on your ribs slid upward, thumb brushing over the peak of your breast through the sheer, thin fabric. A shudder wracked your body. "This is... unfit. You are the lady of this house."

"And you are my Flins," you countered, your voice dropping to a sultry whisper as you continued to agonizingly slowly move against him. "Or have you forgotten the feel of me so soon? The sounds you pull from me? Or the way you yearn for me, your lady?"

You were testing his limits, pushing him toward the edge he so feared and yet so constantly craved. Fucking hell, why did you have to make this so hard for him? His breathing was harsh in your ear, fingers digging almost painfully into your flesh.

"Tell me to stop," you dared him, your lips a hair's breadth from his. "Use that proper tone and tell your lady to get off your lap. Then go back to acting like nothing ever happened. Isn't that your game, Kyryll?"

His eyes, dark and desperate, met yours. His resignation long gone, burned away with nothing but raw hunger that stole the air from your lungs. His hand came up to cup the back of your head, his fingers tangling in your hair.

"You know I can't," he confessed, his voice a wreck of desire. His mouth crashed down on yours, nothing of the gentleness he always possessed. It was frantic, consumed by the hunger of a man who had just lost a war he was always destined to lose.

He pulled away, hand going up to his mouth to peel his gloves off with a swift motion of his bare teeth before trailing it down to feel your dripping cunt, relishing in the way he would always have this effect on you. He wondered, do you touch yourself too, like he does? How shameless he feels when he palms his poor, throbbing cock in the silent confines of his room whenever you're not around, just thinking about how he so badly wants to cross that line every time he promised not to.

You whine in his kiss, hands in a fist on his torso as he prods at your core, teasing the slit with a finger, only to pull out right after. You're an impatient mess, that much he knows, and he wasn't about to have his way today by taking his time teasing you. You wanted it your way. With little strength, you push him away, "No. You know what I want."

He clicked his tongue, his patience thinning, stirred up with how much of a brat you're being.

"On your knees."

His command sent a shiver of submission through you and without hesitation, you slid from his lap and onto the plush carpet, settling on your knees before him where he sat on the chaise. You looked up at him, doe eyes wide and pleading, a perfect sight he was eager to ruin.

He held your gaze, "Hands behind your back."

You bite your lip, the sharp little sting doing nothing but to quell the thrill that excites you. It's obvious, you know, how much you enjoy this better. What you truly crave, nothing of the shabby "my lady," but this. Your Flins, where his voice was stripped of reverence, and he's boldly taking control.

A soft, breathy sound escapes you as you slowly bring your hands behind your back, clasping your own wrists in a silent act of submission. You keep your eyes locked on his, mingling with a spark of pure anticipation as he unbuttons his pants, freeing his cock. You gawk at the sight of it. Your lips parted, taking in his thick mushroom head, licking off the pre, moaning at the salty taste of it in your tongue.

"Fuck" you hear him curse. But you were already beyond saving, drunk at the idea of his length in your mouth. You puffed out your cheeks, trying to accommodate his size as you bob your head up and down, making sure to lick the veiny underside of his girth. Your soft whines vibrating around him. You hear him panting, hand reaching out to caress your face as he revels in the sight of his length poking at your cheeks. His other hand a firm grip in your hair, fingers tightening as he watched the drool slipping down your chin, the desperate little noises you made when he hit the back of your throat. It was too much and not enough all at once.

Despite every ounce of his self-control screaming otherwise, he let his hips move just once, slowly letting himself slide deeper into your warm mouth. You gag a little, the hum in your voice making him shudder, his breathing coming in ragged bursts. You knew he was close; you can feel it in the way he's struggling to hold back a groan. You just can't help it, his thick cock stuffing your mouth full, it was hard to stop, your cunt spasming over nothing at the thought of getting drunk from his cum.

But no matter how much he enjoys this, he would never allow himself to cum in your mouth - no, he was too much of a gentleman for that. It was his habit to wait until the very seams of the end before shoving it all inside your poor hole.

A sharp, ragged breath escaped him, the obscene sound of slop slop slop filling the room. And for a single, dangerous second, he faltered. His hips twitched forward on instinct before he forced himself to still.

"T-this is... unbefitting of a lady." He gritted out between clenched teeth, voice trembling with restraint. One hand fisted in your hair, the other braced against the chaise beside you like it was the only thing keeping him upright. Your eyes, wide and glistening, looked up at him, silently mocking his feeble attempt at self-control.

His grip tightens, fisting in your locks, and he gives a sharp pull that arches your neck back, forcing a pop when you parted from his length. You let out a whine, he never lets you finish what you started there.

"That's enough," he grates out. You almost let out a smirk when you saw how much he was struggling to hold it in, his tip leaking pre, completely reduced to a slopping mess mixed with your saliva.

In one fluid motion, he rises from the chaise and pulls you up with him by the grip in your hair. Such a brat you're becoming. A small, startled cry escapes you as your balance falters. He doesn't even give you a second to find it. He spins you around and pushes you forward, your hands and knees landing in the soft cushions where he was just sitting.

Before you can even process the new position, you feel the cool air on your skin as he bunches the silk of your nightgown up around your waist, exposing you completely. The heat of his body presses against you from behind, One hand returns to your hip, grip so strong it might leave a bruise, anchoring you in place. Just when you thought you could breathe, his other hand reaches out for your hair in a tangle, pulling your head back just enough for you to arch your back.

Your knees buckled when he teased his thick mushroom head in your entrance, collecting the slick that pooled in your slit before plugging it back in.

"K-kyryll..."

He clicked his tongue. "Be quiet."

He teases just the tip, bullying it and out your poor hole, purposely depriving you of being utterly stuffed full. You bit your lip, eyes closed shut from overstimulation. Fuck, you can't take any more of this teasing.

"Please just—nnghgh." He cut you off, shoving it all in one delectable thrust. So agonizingly slow, the pleasure crashing in from being deliciously stretched out.

You hear him sigh as he bottoms out. But he doesn't move yet, he loves watching you take him, loves it when you're spasming over his cock, legs shuddering and he hasn't even started yet. Such a cute, sensitive little thing.

"Didn't I tell you to be quiet?"

"M'sorry," you gasp, head falling forward. "s'too good... move, please?"

He fights back a groan. You never really changed, always as pliant as ever. You stifled a moan when you felt him move, your gummy walls fluttering at the ridges of his length. He starts out slow, savoring how greedily you clamp down on him, how easy it was for him to find the spot that got you thrashing under him.

"mmh—ah—there—"

He lets go of your hair, both hands pressed up on your ass to spread them wide, angling himself to hit that spot. You struggle to stay upright, but he doesn't falter, gripping you in place. He loves it when you flail, it sends him high, keeps him bricked up inside your greedy little cunt.

"So noisy."

"M'sorry, just—ngh—good..." You start to babble nonsense.

This won't do, at this rate, anyone outside could hear how dirty the Lady of the house is succumbing to. With another click of his tongue, he flips you on your back, trapping you in a harsh mating press, shutting you up with a kiss so tender it almost made you forget how vulgar his hips are ramming into you. You wrap your legs around him, moaning in his kiss as you struggle to stay completely quiet.

He grunts; he knows you're close. The usual telltale of your habits, the way your back arches, your hips greedily grinding for friction to hit that same bundle of nerves that would make your eyes roll back. He finds it adorable how your body tenses, unable to handle the pleasure as your toes curl around him. Cunt such a mess, all you needed was for him to help you completely go undone. He reached down between your bodies, fingers rubbing your clit with every merciless cant of his hips. You part from his kiss, about to let out a moan, but his other hand was quick to cover your mouth.

"Ah ah, shut it and just cum for me, love."

You were close, so close, a filthy white ring coated his shaft. You muffle a moan, eyes rolling back as you cream all over him. His head falls, biting on your shoulder as he stifles his own moans. It was taking everything in him not to paint your walls white with his own. He couldn't. He just doesn't think he's worthy enough for a woman of your status. And so he pulls out, helplessly pumping the last few strokes on his aching cock, hurriedly reaching for the cleaning rag, careful not to spill any of his cum on your delicate skin. You watched as his head fell back, sweat trickling down his temple from the restraint.

Fucking hell, we're back to square one now, are we?

Never really pulling away, always finding your way back to each other.

The morning was quiet.

Peaceful in that decadent, golden way that only came after a night where the world outside their suite ceased to exist. She drifted awake to the weight and heat of him still beside her, the scent of his skin warm in the cool air— something clean and expensive with a trace of last night’s heat— sunlight spilling through the curtains in thin, golden lines across his bare chest. His breathing was slow, steady. Not asleep, but in that rare state of stillness that he never seemed to have during the day. She just let herself admire him — the relaxed set of his mouth, the way his hair fell slightly into his eyes, the simple easiness of him that told her he’d slept in.

By the time she usually stirred, Aventurine was long gone. He had perfected the art of leaving without waking her: a kiss to her temple, a whisper of breath against her ear, the faintest press of his palm against her waist before he slipped free. The IPC’s demands were merciless, and he’d long ago trained himself to rise early and move soundlessly through his morning routine. She was used to it by now— the cool sheets beside her, the lingering ghost of his presence.

But this morning was different.

He was still here.

It felt indulgent to have him here like this, sprawled against her, the weight of his arm heavy over her hip. His hair was mussed from sleep, a rare imperfection she would have gladly stared at all day. She could feel the faint thud of his pulse where his chest rested against her back, and she snuggled deeper into his embrace, content to drift off to sleep again.

Suddenly, his work phone buzzed sharply against the polished bedside table, cutting through the hush like a crack of thunder.

She felt him tense, a quiet hum of displeasure vibrating in his chest before he reached for it. “Sorry,” he murmured, brushing his lips over her hair. She knew what came next — the soft apology, the promise to be quick, the glide of his body leaving the bed to take the call somewhere he wont disturb her.

She almost let him. Almost.

Not today.

When he shifted to sit up, she slid her arms around him, pulling him back down into the sheets. His brow quirked in mild surprise, but the corner of his mouth lifted, that familiar look of loving exasperation softening his features.

“Sweetheart, you know I have to take this.”

She just shook her head, pressing her face deeper into the curve of his neck.

The phone kept buzzing.

With a low chuckle, he leaned back against the headboard, letting her curl over his chest. “You’re gonna get me in trouble, you know that?”

Her only answer was a satisfied hum.

His exhale was equal parts wry amusement and feigned annoyance. He tipped his head, studying her like she’s an unexpected but welcome card he drew from the deck, then conceded, settling back against the pillows as he picked up the phone.

"It's Aventurine," he finally answered the call, his voice still rough from sleep— still the same smooth cadence, but a deeper, huskier timbre that curled over her like smoke. "No, you’re not interrupting. In fact… I was just getting comfortable."

Her mouth curved, and she closed her eyes, listening to an unintelligible voice from the other line, no doubt firing off a plethora of demands and arguments first thing in the morning, but Aventurine showed no hesitation. His words were velvet, sharpened by that razor edge he keept for business and edged in charm. The kind of tone he used to win or dismantle anyone foolish enough to sit across a negotiation table from him.

And it hit her harder than she’d like to admit.

Something about the contrast — the warmth of him beneath her palms and the lethal elegance in his words — woke something deep and hungry in her.

Her fingers trailed lazily over his ribs as he spoke, tracing idle patterns that had nothing to do with affection and everything to do with seeing just how much of his composure she could peel away.

“Yes, I'm listening. Oh, I’ve seen the offer. It’s quite tempting." He smirked faintly, eyes sliding toward her without breaking cadence. “But I’m afraid I'm awfully particular. I want something worth my time… worth my full attention.”

She shifted against him, the movement instinctive, chasing heat. Her lips found the sharp line of his jaw, feathering soft, teasing kisses between the clipped phrases he delivered to whoever was on the other end. His hand came up automatically, palm warm against her hip in a silent warning, but she ignored it—emboldened by the faint curve of amusement tugging at his mouth.

“Yes, I’m aware you don't trust the IPC,” he said smoothly into the receiver, his voice dripping with polite command. The same hand absently squeezed her hip, a silent admonishment to behave. “Which is exactly why we're offering you this—”

She pressed her lips to the edge of his jaw, letting them linger just long enough to feel the faint stutter in his breath before she pulled back, feigning innocence.

“Mhm, that’s generous," he continued, leaning his head slightly away from her in a futile, amused attempt to escape her wandering mouth. "But you’ll forgive me if I hold out for the right kind of generosity. You see, some offers… they’re worth more than numbers.”

She lowered her head again, lips trailing down toward the hollow of his throat, reveling in the way his breath hitched, however faintly. He was trying his best to keep his voice steady, nonchalant, impenetrable— and to anyone else, he was succeeding— but she knew him well enough to hear the subtle strain.

The person on the other end seemed to be talking for a long time and whatever they were saying only seemed to fuel his mischief. "Ah, then, you're in luck." Aventurine threw her another wicked look. "I'm feeling quite agreeable today."

She grinned against his skin and slid her hand down his chest, trailing lower, fingers brushing down his abdomen just above the waistband of his sleep pants. That earned her the smallest huff of amusement. Not yet a break, but close.

“Well, if you want my humble opinion… this is a high-stakes, high-return investment,” he said, the words laced with that dangerously charming smile she could hear even without seeing his face. "And the IPC always keeps their word."

Her pulse spiked. Saints, that voice.

She shifted against him again, slow and deliberate, her thigh brushing his. He tensed, not in rejection, but in that restrained way he always did when he refused to give her the satisfaction of knowing he was affected.

“What's the matter, you’re awfully quiet over there?” he murmured against her hair during a pause in the call, before smoothly resuming, “Don't tell me you're afraid of a little risk?”

His free hand slid from her waist to the small of her back, holding her in place, as though daring her to keep testing him.

She did.

Her mouth found the sensitive spot just below his ear again, teeth grazing lightly. He inhaled sharply through his nose but didn’t miss a beat in his conversation.

She could feel the heat rolling off him now, the faint shift of his hips under hers. And the more he spoke — that low, commanding cadence, every syllable wrapped in power — the more her own restraint frayed.

“Of course. I’ll expect your confirmation by end of day,” he said, voice perfectly steady despite the way his fingers had tightened on her waist.

He finished the call like that—professional, composed, and yet somehow radiating the tension she’s been stoking— setting the phone aside with unhurried precision, as though he hadn’t just been put through a silent gauntlet.

“Dangerous game you're playing,” he murmured, eyes glittering with dark amusement.

She smiled sweetly, feigning innocence. “Am I?”

Before she could blink, he flipped them both over in a single, fluid motion, caging her beneath him, mouth brushing hers in a ghost of a kiss. “You think I’m going to let you get away with that?”

The laugh that slipped out from her was breathless and challenging, but it soon turned into a gasp when his mouth found the sensitive spot on her neck, returning the favor.

She felt more than heard his darkly amused and hungry chuckle against her skin. He then slid down her body with deliberate slowness, kissing down her chest through the thin barrier of her nightgown, his hands possessive as they settled on her thighs.

“Oh no, sweetheart,” he said against her skin, his voice now pure velvet and sin. “You wanted to see how far you could push me? I’m going to show you exactly where that gets you.”

A few more individuals made their way to the dancefloor, tracking unaccompanied dancers like prey, hopeful that they could score a partner for the evening. It was amusing, really, how often you’d seen some of the same men come back. They’d throw stacks of money on the table in a desperation to acquaint themselves with beautiful, upper-class women, even if they’d go home unhappy and broke.

Ice clinked against the sides of your glass as the last drop disappeared down your throat, warming you up for the rest of the evening. Already, you had caught the glimpse of several men in the club. But those who knew who you were knew to keep their distance, and they never tried to sneak more than a subtle glance in your direction.

Those who didn’t usually noticed nothing but your striking beauty and the allure of darkness that seemed to follow you. They were drawn to you easily, smiling at you like they were entitled to gawk at your appearance, like it would be criminal for anyone so beautiful to shield herself away from the world.

Rarely did that ever end well for them.

You handed your empty glass off to the bartender—a dear friend that you’d convinced to work for you at the club—and made your way over to the dance floor. The crowd parted for you with quick glances and slackened jaws, stumbling on their own feet to get out of your way. Once you passed, the world seemed to resume itself. Everyone continued about their business, averted their gaze, even if they were careful not to get too close to you.

Something about that made you smile.

For a while, you danced on your own, grinning carelessly to yourself as you twisted your hips, unbound yourself to the music and the alcohol that ran through your veins. It was a different kind of freedom, and though you’d once been wary of the watchful eyes, they no longer bothered you. You loved losing yourself in the rhythm, loved feeling transported to another realm.

The setlist for the evening included a few of your favorites, and you carried on until there was sweat on your forehead, a single bead trickling down your temple, one that you hastily wiped off. Breaths came to you more stiflingly, heaving inhales and exhales that paired with your thirst.

Finally, the tempo of the music slowed, just enough to snap you back into the present, and the energy zapped out of you as your mood darkened. The time of the evening had passed when you realized that it was no longer fun to dance alone.

You sighed, and with a frown, let your gaze trail across the room to find the cool brown eyes that you loved more than the music you spun in circles to. But Dazai was already in a conversation with someone else, tapping slender fingers against his glass full of amber liquid. He listened intently to a conversation between two men twice his age.

Beside him, Chuuya stood at the edge of the table like a loyal bloodhound, his arms crossed as he leaned back against the wall. You caught his eye instead and smiled to him, though not a single muscle in his face twitched. It seemed as though he was intent on keeping up the charade for the evening.

As much as you wanted to smile even more sweetly and taunt him mercilessly, you didn’t let yourself get too distracted. Instead, you refocused your sights on your other goal.

The stocky, tall man was right where Dazai said he’d be, sitting with a couple woman and a few empty glasses in front of him. He had a neatly trimmed, graying beard, sporting a watch that was, at least, a couple million yen.

You caught him watching you over the edge of the table, his smile slow as you bat your eyelashes at him, sauntering past him with a perfectly coy expression. Eyes lingered on the curves of your hips; the smooth skin of your legs revealed by the dress. The lust came in near waves off of him, thick and heavy as they reached you.

It made your job easier, the obvious attraction that they never tried to hide from you. You smiled to yourself, and felt a sense of satisfaction, despite his disgraceful leering.

The seats at the bar had been filled up when you returned, leaving no room for you and your new companion to retreat.

A younger regular, one with an overabundance of nerves and an awkward smile, spoke in hushed whispers to his friend, one that was dressed in a suit far too cheap to be in this club.

You tapped him on the shoulder, smiling at him in the way that had everyone bending over backwards for you. “Excuse me?”

He looked over, irritated for a fleeting second before realizing who it was that had approached him. Immediately, he was to his feet, stammering over a greeting while his friend gawked at him with incredulity.

“Sorry to bother you,” you said, softening your voice. “I was wondering if I could have those seats. I hate to—”

“No, no,” he said, practically shoving the other man away, pushing him out of the chair while he sputtered confused nonsense. “Take them! We’ll be out of your hair.”

You thanked them before placing yourself neatly back onto the stool you’d occupied before. It was far too easy.

The bartender sent you a knowing look, all too familiar with your games, before going back to mixing a drink.

Moments later, you felt the presence of another behind you, an overwhelming smell of tobacco and pine assaulting your senses. He was taller up close, taller than Dazai, at least, and older than you’d originally thought. Deep wrinkles weathered his skin, his eyes, and though there was still a hint of black in his dark hair, it was slowly being overtaken by the signs of a life that was twice as long as yours.

“Pretty dress.” That was the first thing he said to you, letting his eyes wander over your chest, lips curling into an ugly smirk. “It suits you nicely.”

You wouldn’t be won over so easily, so you merely smiled at him, nodding in thanks. Though, that had him coming on twice as strong, as if the simple eye contact that you’d made earlier had been a full invitation to fuck you. He took the seat next to you, signaling the bartender over.

“Let me buy you a drink,” he said, and though it was a kind proposition, it always made you laugh. You received a million free drinks from strangers here.

Still, you shrugged and let him, unsurprised that he knew what you’d been drinking earlier. It was a clear sign that he’d been watching you since before you even got up to dance.

“What’s your name?” 

“Should I give it away that easily?” Your voice was silky in your response, unimpressed, but luring him in, nonetheless.

He laughed, and offered you his own instead, Tanaka, as if you didn’t already know it. You’d been planning on springing him into this trap since the moment he’d arrived that evening. It was a target and a plan that had been set in motion for days.

His grin was uncomfortable, but he thought so highly of the way his lips curled, seemingly luring you in.

In reality, you weren’t sure how any woman could stand to get down on her knees for that.

Half an hour passed as you talked with him, preening under his endless string of compliments, wishing that you could string him on for a little bit longer. You enjoyed the words well enough, just another thing to stroke your ego, but the minute he moved closer, you inched away, placing distance between you before he could touch you.

It was obvious it frustrated him, but one look at the flash in his irises had you knowing that he enjoyed the chase.

He droned on, careless conversation about hobbies you didn’t want to understand, and though you smiled, pretending to be interested, your focus drifted to the table where Dazai sat.

His conversation had shifted to Chuuya, the two other men from earlier gone. It seemed strained between them, sharp words spoken as they glared at one another, visibly at odds about something.

Despite the clear dispute, anger cleared away from their expressions within seconds, Chuuya straightening like a board beside his boss once again.

Dazai looked up; it was less than a second that your eyes met, but your knees had weakened, heart stuttering in your chest as it skipped a pulse.

A soft exhale left you, and you longed for Dazai, craved the feeling of his strong palm on your skin, the kiss of his lips on your neck. You had half a mind to say fuck the mission and walk right over to the table and plant yourself on his lap.

It would certainly cause a scene, especially when there were so many new customers there who knew about Dazai but didn’t know about you.

Still, you knew Dazai wouldn’t object. He’d merely smile into your hair and curl his hand around your hip, continuing on with his conversation like nothing was out of the ordinary.

You looked away. If you were to make it through the rest of the night, you couldn’t get distracted by the beautiful man just feet away from you. “Sorry,” you said, turning back to Tanaka. “What were you saying?”

His interest in conversation had already waned, and he faced Dazai, displeased by the uptick of fascination within your expression. “Found someone more interesting already?”

You laughed, shaking your head as you pressed your palms into your thighs. You may have longed for Dazai, been so desperate that you couldn’t spare him another glimpse, but you could still play this role well. There couldn’t be another slip, every move had to be precise.

“I’m just curious,” you said, puckering your lips in a pout. “He looks important.”

Tanaka took a sip of his drink as you spoke, nearly spitting it back out when your sentence concluded. His eyes were hard, narrowing at the sight of Dazai just meters away, surrounded by a security of sorts, “You don’t know him?” He coughed.

You frowned, tilting your head. “Should I?”

“That’s Dazai Osamu. He owns this place.”

There was room for a theatrical pause. You took that moment to pretend to think. “Oh, of course. What a silly question,” you said, humming, and set your chin down on your hand to glance back over at the table of Port Mafia personnel. “I hear he owns a lot of things.” You tilted your head, gauging the man with siren eyes. “Is that true?”

Tanaka huffed, but he didn’t deny it, looking down at his two-million-yen watch like it was nothing more than a trinket. “A pretty girl like you shouldn’t worry about him.” He seemed irritated, though he didn’t let it show, his voice the only indicator that you had upset him. “But I can tell you it sure gets hard to run a business in Yokohama when the Port Mafia owns half the city.”

You widened your eyes, leaning forward. “You’re telling me the Port Mafia owns this place?”

Tanaka laughed, loud and haughty, looking at you like you were just a poor idiot from the countryside, even if the dress you wore cost just as much as his entire suit put together. “Oh, hon, if only you knew.”

The condescending tone sent a screech through your entire body, momentarily halting any proper responses in your current act. But he was unfazed, already moving onto the next topic of conversation, telling you all about the business dealings that you’d known about from the long list of jobs within his file.

There was, truly, nothing about him that you hadn’t already dug up. It was boring you immensely, but you smiled on, nodding enthusiastically as he spun the most lackluster story you’d ever heard.

Dazai, across the room, stared at you as you conversed, clenching his jaw at the way the man eyed you, the gaze that scoured your body like you were nothing more than a piece of meat.

Oh, he would certainly enjoy tearing him apart later, even if he would be too easy of a case to break.  

“When are we leaving?”

Chuuya’s voice snapped him out of his onlooking, and Dazai leaned back in the chair, shedding the tension in his shoulders to resume a comfortable position.

“Not until they’re both in the car and I can confirm with Tachihara and Gin that she’s safe,” Dazai said, crossing his arms over the table. He couldn’t forget that there were others around him, those who would never say a word to him, but knew who he was, knew what he stood for. Even here, he couldn’t let his guard down.

“Safe?” Chuuya laughed, though it was without any humor. His irises flashed dangerously, steely grey darkening into a deep silver. “You trust that idiot not to lay a hand on her? He’s undressing her with his eyes.”

Chuuya seemed intent on irritating him that evening, as usual.

“I don’t trust anyone who comes here.” Dazai scowled. “Don’t be a fool.”

A moment of silence lapsed between them, and Dazai became sickened by the way the man was eyeing you. Though you took it all in stride, leaning just far enough away so his knee didn’t graze yours, and his palm didn’t brush against your own, it still lit a fire deep within him.

It was all the better, he supposed, to feel such deep hatred for his enemies. It made it easier to tear them apart without any guilt. 

“How long are you going to make her do this, huh?” Chuuya spoke up once more from beside him, his voice nothing more than a grumble as he whispered down to Dazai. “This charade you two are carrying on has lasted long enough. I mean, you’re whoring out your wife for fuck’s sake—”

Dazai reacted without a thought, despite not wanting to take his eyes off of you for even a second. He gritted his teeth and turned on Chuuya, his hand gripping the gun in his pocket, finger tight on the trigger. Enough of a warning for him to know how sincerely the simple comment irritated him.

“Don’t ever insinuate that I don’t love my wife, Chuuya, or it’ll be the last thing you ever say.” Dazai spat the words out carefully, just under his breath, holding Chuuya’s piercing gaze without blinking. “You may be a valuable asset to the Port Mafia, but I will not listen to your opinions on matters that don’t concern you.”

Chuuya stared, setting his jaw before turning away once more. The two of them looked back to where you were smiling, leading the other man out of the room, though still not touching, placing a respectable distance between you.

“I’m just surprised, Dazai.” Chuuya leaned back, crossing his arms as he titled his head, watching your figure fade into the shadows. “You love her so fiercely, and yet, you watch as this carries on time and time again. I don’t understand.”

Dazai stood from the booth, tucking the gun back into his waistbad, under his coat. He straightened his shoulders, inhaling deeply. “I think you’re underestimating her if you truly believe she doesn’t have a handle on the situation.” His hands slipped into his pockets as Chuuya followed, grumbling from just a few feet away. “Besides, I’ve never forced her into anything. It was her idea in the first place.”

“Why?”

Dazai sighed, though it was almost wistful, the mere thought of you enough to turn him into a lovesick fool. “Perhaps it is because there are many men that seem to think they can crawl into her bed so easily, and she enjoys their humiliation when they realize that they are so far beneath her.” Dazai shrugged, and smiled lightheartedly, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Perhaps, she just wants to make everyone’s lives a little easier, including yours. You should thank her sometime.”

Tanaka sat beside you in the car, his hand lingering in the leather seat between his thigh and your own. Night had fallen deep across the city, the sky a navy through the haze of streetlights. Though it was nearing one o’clock in the morning, there were crowds of people out and about, lines at all of the much more affordable clubs in the area.

It hadn’t taken much to get him to come with you. You’d batted your eyelashes, smiled at him from under them, and told him you had a car waiting out back.

That was enough. When you’d pulled yourself down from the barstool, he’d followed after you, eyes blown wide as you’d begun leading him out of the room.

All it took was a dress that hugged your curves and a small grin, and he was in the car with a man that worked for you, heading to a building that your husband owned.

“Do you live far?” Tanaka asked, itching to put his hands on you, even though you’d convinced him to hold off until you got back to your room.

You placed your chin on the inside of your palm, glancing out the window at your own reflection. “Not too far.” You turned back to him, offering him a shy smile. “Why? Are you getting impatient?”

He grinned wolfishly. Your stomach churned anxiously at the sight of it, even when he was no match for you, nor all the other, powerful individuals that surrounded you. “I don’t think I need to answer that.”

Through the rearview mirror, Tachihara met your eyes, and they softened, just barely, silently showing his support from the front of the vehicle.

It was, in a way, a relief. You relaxed, regained a sense of composure, and let your ruby red lips spread over your teeth, cocking your head as Tanaka indulged himself in whatever fantasy was milling about in his mind. His eyes were cruel, though the darkness in them was nothing compared to what you were used to.

Idly, he made comments in your ear of all the things he wanted to do to you, his unpleasant breath tickling the skin there as you tried your best not to recoil. The smell of him was growing heavy in the car, overwhelming and nauseating. You sat even more stiffly, pressing Tanaka away with a palm to his chest as you giggled to yourself, pretending to enjoy his vulgar words.

Tachihara pulled the car around to the back of the building, letting the two of you out as he put it into park.

Any fool should’ve known where they were, what the dark building in the middle of the city stood for, but Tanaka was all too focused on you, intoxicated and inattentive. The mafia headquarters loomed overhead, dark, and unassuming, a triad of buildings stacked perfectly against one another.

“Thank you,” you said to Tachihara, winking at him as Tanaka turned his back, too disoriented to take in anything but the sight of you right before him.

The car drove away, then, and you were left to guide your guest into the building, towards the room that you had already planned to meet Dazai in. When you reached the elevator, Gin was waiting for you, dressed in female attire, this time, charading as a worker instead of the trained assassin that she truly was.

“Impressive building,” Tanaka said, as if not noticing all the obvious signs of the mafia base. “You must come from quite a wealthy family.”

You smiled at him over your shoulder, curious as to why he didn’t assume you’d come into the riches on your own. “I suppose you could say that.”

Gin opened the elevator, then began typing a message to her boss, alerting him of your arrival. Tachihara had taken the longest route back, giving Dazai just enough time to arrive home before you.

“Are you a renter?” he asked, staring as the numbers on the elevator increased, climbed higher while you went towards a floor that was only two below the penthouse.

“We own it.”

Tanaka turned towards you, eyes wide with surprise, perplexed even further by the alcohol running through his veins. “You didn’t say—”

Abruptly, he cut himself off. Whatever comment he was about to make was overshadowed by the fact that he’d met you at the Port Mafia’s night club. That was certainly no place for anyone that didn’t have a million yen to spare in their pockets.

Finally, the elevator dinged, and you relaxed at the sight of the familiar hall, the carpet that had recently been replaced, the paintings that you’d personally added, ones that had been purchased at an auction. There were traces of you everywhere, and though it belonged to many members of the mafia, it was, inherently, your home.

You grabbed Tanaka’s hand, realizing just how cold it was, wrinkled with calluses and dirtied nails. It took everything in you not to grimace as you pulled him towards the fourth door on the right, the one that had been used for every interrogation over the past two years.

It had become something of a holding cell for the mafia’s enemies, and most didn’t remain here long. You doubted that this man would be of any exception.

Tugging him along, you increased your speed, an invisible string guiding you right back to Dazai. He was your fiery beacon, and though you were still separated by walls, your heart thumped at being so near to him.

“Eager, are we?” Tanaka asked, and when he grinned in the lights, you realized how slimy it was, a hunger dripping off the edges of his yellowed teeth.

You smiled right back, but it was forceful, painful as it etched its way onto your cheeks. An itch started in the cracks of your palm, willing you to snatch it out of Tanaka’s hand and scrub it clean. Still, you held on, remembering that this was for the Port Mafia, this was for Dazai and everything you’d worked for over the years.Your determination increased tenfold. “It’s just around the corner.”

Finally, you reached the room where you knew Dazai would be waiting, and just like every other time you’d done this, every time you’d brought another willing victim into a den of wolves, you could finally relax.

You entered the room, not bothering to flip on any of the light switches. There was furniture, but it was dusty, bloody, and it would make it far too obvious that you were not leading Tanaka back to your bedroom. You didn’t want him turning tail too quickly, running when he discovered you had no intention of rolling around in the sheets with him.

He shut the door behind him with a quiet click, advancing on you like a hunter. It would’ve been threatening, intimidating perhaps, if you had not been able to sense Dazai on the other side of the wall. You knew that whatever control Tanaka thought he had on the situation had quickly evaporated, and it was only a false blanket of security that he’d wrapped himself up in.

“Can I get you anything? Maybe a drink?” you asked, stopping Tanaka with a flat palm to his chest, not allowing him to come any closer. “The alcohol in me is starting to wear off.”

He ignored your wishes entirely, upon you once more. One larger hand ripped yours from his chest, pulling you just another inch closer. “I’ve had enough tonight,” Tanaka said, teeth flashing in the dim starlight. “I’m dying to fuck you.”

You frowned, eyebrows wrinkling. “Well, I’d like a drink first.”

“I’m not in the mood.” He yanked on your hand again, and this time, you knew he’d kiss you, knew he’d plant the cracking pale lips of his own on yours. The thought of it made you ill.

Without thinking, you slung a fist across his face, a crunch sounding from his nose at the force of your hit. Blood trickled from one nostril, flowing in a fast stream over his lips, into his teeth.

He bent over, and you stood, straighter, staring over him as he cursed. The punch had been much more forceful than you’d intended.

“What the fuck.” He was angrier than before, and though his pain was immense, it did little to dissuade him. You kept your face hard, inching backwards as he stood tall, so much bigger than you’d remembered. It wouldn’t take much for him to lift you, throw you onto any surface he wanted.

You’d use your ability if you had to, kill the man if it was necessary, but that would mean the entire plan had gone to waste.

“You bitch—”

Without letting any fear cloud your face, you took a step back and bumped into something solid and warm. A cologne more familiar than Tanaka’s enveloped you in a safety net. 

The older man made it one step further, aggressively, before every ounce of determination waned from his eyes. He staggered, tripping over himself and stared back at the man that had slowly come up behind you. The one that was brushing soft fingertips between your shoulder blades, his steady breath tickling the crown of your head.

Dazai smiled, in a way that was so menacing that your heart thumped twice in its chest before resuming its natural melody. Tanaka took a step back, scrambling away, nearly tripping over himself in the process, eyes dilated in fear.

“You,” he breathed. “Dazai—” Tanaka didn’t finish his sentence, too stunned as he stared between the two of you. “What’s going on?”

Dazai stepped forward, letting his hands fall away from you as he cornered the newest addition to his long list of enemies. Already, you missed the warmth of Dazai’s touch, the security that came with his proximity.

Tanaka cowered before him, suddenly so small, weak under the breadth of Dazai’s power. A sense of twisted satisfaction curled within you, lightning up every pore under your cold skin.

“I believe you owe my wife an apology,” Dazai said, and his tone was even, hard, not a hint of amusement laced within the words. Tanaka’s eyes darted to you, where you stood with your arms loose at your sides, eyes softer, every inch of you more delicate now that Dazai was in the room. 

“Wife—” The word tumbled from his mouth before he could stop it, hesitant. “You said you didn’t know him. You asked me questions about him.”

You slid the ring back onto your finger, the one that you’d kept tucked away in the pocket of your bag. It glimmered in the beams of the moon, the diamond and rubies sparkling. “I can lie just as easily as a man can.” Crossing your arms, you sighed, and stared at Dazai’s taut back, the strained muscles in his shoulders as he stood over Tanaka. “You’re all so stupid sometimes. It only takes a simple question, and you never ask it. Anyone in that club could’ve told you who I am.”

He balked, considering his own ignorance, and followed your eyes back to Dazai, who had gone just a few steps behind you, to the small storage of top-shelf alcohol that you kept locked up in the room. “What is this about?” he asked, shaking his head to clear away his distress. “You’ve obviously brought me here for a reason. What is it?”

“I find it funny that you think you’re the one in control of the situation,” Dazai said, turning his back to fix himself a drink. He didn’t doubt that you would watch Tanaka for him with careful eyes. Even the smallest twitch of his eyebrows would be telling. “You don’t get to ask questions.”

“I haven’t done anything,” he said, and though his voice was hard, there was underlying panic. “I’ve stayed well out of the Mafia’s business, as promised—”

“Perhaps.” Dazai interrupted smoothly, coolly. “Our agreement wasn’t broken, per se. I just happen to think that working with outsiders is an act of much higher treason.”

Tanaka blinked, faltering. His jaw went slack, a mere second ticking before he replied. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t try to lie to me.” Dazai glanced over his shoulder, dark eyes narrowing. “I’m talking about Dostoevsky. The rats that are trying to take over my city.” He tsked, rolling the glass around on the counter, clinking it against the granite. Then, he popped a crystal bottle open, letting it fill a quarter of the glass.  “Such a shame. You’ve built quite a name for yourself in Yokohama. Is this really worth losing all that?”

Tanaka stuck both hands in his pocket, shaking his head vigorously. His fingers flexed against his sides. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know who that is, I’ve never crossed anyone by that name.”

Seeing an opportunity while Dazai’s back was turned, Tanaka began to pull out a pistol from his coat; one you had, stupidly, forgotten to check for. It seemed he doubted that you were a threat, and if he could just kill Dazai, you’d be an easy target.

You moved without thinking, making the single-step distance between you and Dazai. There was a gun relaxed at his waistband, and you stole it, knowing exactly where he kept it hidden. Before Tanaka could point his own at the head of your lover, you’d acted first, aiming Dazai’s gun, your jaw tense and back straight. “Put it down.”

Tanaka, caught off guard, locked his jaw, and his fingers twisted tighter around the handle of the gun, inching towards the trigger. For a moment, he contemplated, but even without knowing the thoughts in his mind, you could read his actions.

You wouldn’t give him the opportunity to do as he wanted. Instead, you fired your own gun, digging the bullet into his fingers, shattering them, blood spattering as Tanaka dropped the pistol to the floor in a ghoulish scream.

For a second more, he writhed in pain at your own hand, once again. You held your arm taut, before letting the gun drop to your side as Dazai hummed behind you. Tanaka had fallen to his knees, tears welling up, his vision glossy as he dropped the maimed hand to his thighs.

Dazai came up beside you, smiling at you, and brushed his fingers down your arm. Slowly, he took the gun, placing it back into his waistband, his touch electric on every centimeter of your skin. “You’ve handled it beautifully, my love.” Dazai squeezed your hand, tilting his head so dark hair cleared away from his eyes. “I can take it from here.”

You nodded, and though Dazai was, by no means, pushing you out of the room, he could see how exhausted you’d become by the whole ordeal. If you wanted to leave—and you did—he wouldn’t object.

“Will you be long?” you asked, just a whisper over Tanaka’s heavy breaths of pain.

Dazai laughed easily, his breath ghosting the bridge of your nose. “Akutagawa will be here soon.” A touch lingered on your hands for a minute longer before he pulled away completely. “Then, I’m yours for the rest of the night.”

It was already late, but you’d take whatever time you could get with Dazai, even if you were drained. You nodded, and he turned away, going back towards his enemy, pulling Tanaka up roughly by his collar. Dazai’s expression changed into a man you almost didn’t recognize, if it hadn’t been for the moments that you’d had to see him shift into the underworld’s fearsome demon.

You left the room, yawning, Dazai’s voice the last thing you heard before you shut the door silently.

“Now that you’ve learned your lesson, perhaps you’ll be more willing to tell me everything you know,” he said.

Despite Dazai promising to leave once Akutagawa arrived, he’d been gone for nearly two hours, with no indication that he’d be returning anytime soon.

You waited for him in the penthouse of the Port Mafia headquarters, the home you’d come to know well in the past few years. A glass of imported wine was beside you on the nightstand, resting between a book you’d been too tired to read before bed.

You sat up, unable to fall asleep, and chewed your lip thoughtfully. It seemed ridiculous, really, for you to already miss a man that you woke up next to and fell asleep beside every night.

Still, you couldn’t help the desperation in your chest, the need to see him, to brush the mask of the Port Mafia boss away so Osamu could take his place.  

You finished the wine, then headed towards the door. The room felt cold and lonely, and if Dazai wasn’t going to return soon, you’d just find someone else to bother on the lower levels of the building.

Though, just as you were about to slip on a pair of shoes, the door unlocked, swung on its hinges, and Dazai stepped through the threshold, a vision of gore and violence and every ounce the man you adored.

“Osamu,” you said, and even when you’d said his name a thousand times before, it still left your lips like a prayer. A smile formed, and you dropped your shoes, eyes sparkling, as you regarded the mess that he was in.

Dazai took one look at you and relaxed, shoulders falling as you closed the distance between the two of you. “Sorry it took so long, sweetheart,” he said, craning his taller frame down to kiss you.

You gripped the lapels of his coat, holding on tight as you pressed into him, deepening the kiss. Dazai’s bloody fingers cupped your cheeks, smearing red along your jaw, ruining your clean skin. Though, as you exhaled a sigh deep into his mouth, you couldn’t have cared less.

“I thought you said Akutagawa was going to take care of it?” you asked as Dazai released you, offering you a small, almost defeated smile.

He walked past you, towards the bathroom, feet dragging as he shrugged off his dark coat. Under the crisp top, his muscles were stiff, strained from all the stress. He wiped another hand over his face, doing little to clean up the mess of red that remained on his cheeks.

You followed him, trailing a few feet behind, feeling silly for wanting to cling to him so tightly. Yet, you couldn’t get enough of him, and you watched as Dazai remained silent, pausing in front of the mirror to regard his own appearance. He made a face in the glass as he gazed back into his own expression, sticking his hands under the faucet. The water ran in a steady stream, staining the sink a rose color as he scrubbed the blood from his fingers, his nails. There were parts of his bandages that had been soiled, and he ripped them right off, exposing pale wrists that hadn’t seen the sun in ages.

You mimicked his action, washing your hands in the second sink before scrubbing the blood from your face, clearing away the smear of maroon that he’d put there. The water shut off, briefly, and Dazai regarded you, frowning as you rid the evidence of his crime from yourself.

“I sent Akutagawa home.” Dazai finally answered your previous question and sighed, frustration evident. He stretched his hands over his head, the bones popping in one fell swoop. “Tanaka cracked right open; he really didn’t know anything.” He blinked at himself in the mirror once more, tidied his hair, then scowled. “He’s just a low man on the totem pole, and he paid for it with his life.”

Dazai seemed at odds with himself, and he drummed his nails against the countertop before patting his hands dry. The blood had been cleaned from his skin, and even though his hair was still unkempt, it was the only evidence that any wrongdoing had happened at all. Nothing but a speck of blood remained on his collar, the rest garnishing his coat instead.

You shifted, leaning against the counter. “Did you get anything out of him?”

“Names, a location.” Dazai clenched his jaw, fists tight at his sides. “He wasn’t lying, but who knows if they’re real or not. He could’ve been given fake locations. I’ve asked Ango to check on it.”

Dazai, once again, left you standing, contemplative, in the bathroom. You could hear him shuffle around in the other room; he released a small sound of relief as he stretched out his sore muscles.

When he’d finished moving around, you returned to the other room, and he was settled in the red armchair, legs spread out in front of him. Dazai rested his head against the back cushion, his eyes closed in serenity, a deep exhale expelling the tightness in his body.

It was almost a sight too serene to spoil.

“Do you want some space?” you asked, and though you’d always respect his wishes, that was the last thing you wanted to give him. You wanted to consume him completely, to press yourself against every crevice of his being and swallow him whole.

Dazai opened his eyes and blinked at you. Instead of replying, he smiled, slowly, and gestured to his thighs, sparing a glance at his knees.

Your heart pounded, launching its way up your throat, and you scrambled over yourself to crawl into his lap, straddling his thighs, the muscle strong beneath you.

Gently, he smiled at you, and brushed your hair over your shoulder to rub your neck. You let your arms rest on his shoulders, and slowly, you removed the bandage from his eye, hating whenever he tried to hide any part of himself from you.

You waited for him to protest, but he relented, and let you kiss his forehead, the very darkest parts of himself on display for you alone. It was hard not to collapse under the weight of your love for him.

You discarded the bandages, tossing them onto the table as Dazai tapped a pattern in the crevices of your skin.

For a moment, neither of you said a word. You noted every feature of his that you loved so dearly, and Dazai just watched you study him, tried hard not to smile against your lips when you kissed him.

If only he could see how beautiful he was, surely, he would understand that he deserved a life so much better than the one he’d been dealt. That someone with a smile brighter than a dying star shouldn’t have it taken away by years of endless anguish.

Finally, Dazai spoke, whispering your name in a tone he never used on any word but that one. “You don’t have to do this anymore if you don’t want to.”

“Hm?” you asked, tilting your head, so distracted by the endless galaxy within his eyes.

Dazai huffed, placing a possessive hand on your hip. His thumb grazed the bone and you shivered, smiling at him in confusion.

“Sweetheart, I don’t ever want you to feel like you’re obligated to do something just because you’re my wife.” He looked past you, an uncertainty beneath his words that he was ashamed of. “If you don’t want to take on any more assignments—"

“I told you already, Osamu,” you began, brushing the hair at the back of his neck that was hidden beneath the collar. “I don’t mind.”

“I know, but—” Dazai hesitated, his gaze steady on the doors behind you, the ones that led to your bedroom. Somehow, he seemed to think all the answers would be there, a script written out for him to recite to you. “Chuuya brought it up to me earlier. He said that I’m…” Dazai swallowed the words, shaking his head. “Look, it doesn’t matter. I just want you to promise me that you know if you want to stop, you can stop. Even if you wanted to quit the Port Mafia altogether, I’m happy to give you whatever you need.”

You smiled, kissing the wrinkle between his eyebrows in the hope that it would ease the anxiety in his expression. The tension was such an unusual thing for anyone but you to see, as Dazai had such trouble revealing his vulnerabilities to the world.

“I promise.” You swept your thumb over his lip, watching as it bounced right back into place, so soft and lovely. “I just don’t want to quit.” You leaned back on his lap, so you were able to see the entirety of his face.  

Dazai’s eyebrows drew together once more, putting that worry right back on his appearance, and a part of you hated that of all the things he had to be stressed about, it was something as silly as you not wanting to quit your job.

“Why?” Dazai asked, tilting his chin, searching the depths of your soul for an answer that would appease him. “I don’t understand. You hate them; you tell me you hate them every time they try and lay a finger on you.”

He wasn’t wrong, certainly not about something like that. You loathed that men looked at you like you were something that they could just steal away, like they were entitled to the subtle way that they brushed your hip in passing, caressed your back when they walked behind you.

You just didn’t hate everything about the work you’d been doing. After all, it was your idea.

“I just don’t want to,” you said, looking over his shoulder to the open curtains, the bright expanse of Yokohama laid out before you. Twinkling star lights from skyscrapers and the port in the distance. “It doesn’t matter.”

It was your home, your city, and it always would be. You wouldn’t let Dazai die, wouldn’t let anyone take him from you—including himself. You’d continue to do whatever it took to protect that. Whether or not you used your appearance to achieve those ends didn’t matter. When it was all said and done, Dazai’s enemies would be dead, and you’d still have him to come home to.

“It matters to me.”

You shook your head, chewing on your lip thoughtfully. There were a million different ways you could’ve explained it, but none that were intelligent. “It’s embarrassing, ‘samu.”

Dazai laughed, a genuine noise, and kissed your shoulder as you sighed, relaxing into him once more. “I can’t think of anything about you that could possibly be embarrassing.”

You held his gaze, wishing for him to relent, to just give up and let you have this one. Instead, he just smiled back patiently, hoping you’d reveal another part of yourself to him as he slowly traced your hard collarbone.

Those pools behind his eyes were too distracting, the thumb on your neck dangerously close to your throbbing pulse. You swallowed, letting him feel every movement as your throat bobbed up and down.

“I guess,” you said shyly, “I like it. I like leading on your enemies, letting them think that they could possibly have a chance with someone like me. I like the look on their faces when they realize they’ve been made a fool of, that the girl who they wanted so badly belongs so completely to the boss of the Port Mafia.”

Dazai studied you for a moment as you shrugged the revelation off, his deep brown eyes darting over every crevice of your face. “You want to make them jealous of me?”

“Maybe.” Your cheeks heated, and though you’d been together for years, loved him for even longer, you still shied under the weight of your own desire for him. “I don’t know. Maybe I just want them all to know that I’m as much the boss of the Port Mafia as you.” You wound your arms around his neck, anchoring yourself to him, the only person you’d ever need in the dangerous world. “They’re blind to their desire, and they refuse to see that I have complete control over them.” You smiled, lazily, fondly. “Don’t they know that this is my city, too?”

Dazai’s strength made an appearance then, and he gripped your cheeks, holding you with a spiraled mix of possession and affection. “It is,” he whispered, ghosting his lips across your own, “and I’d burn it all down before I let anyone take it from you.”

Your heart stuttered in your chest at his deepened tone, the seriousness that drew on his normally playful inflection. You grew hot, and a twist of desire started deep within you, spreading down easily, slowly turning your thoughts into a muddled mess.

“I know,” you said, trying to keep your words steady as Dazai drew lazy circles up and down your sides. “Everyone knows.” You met his eyes, soft, yet dark, clouded with a longing you weren’t unfamiliar to. “The woman who brought them to their knees is still nothing more than a simple fool for Osamu Dazai.” You inhaled drawing your fingers to his open collar, the crisp bandages around his chest. “What could they ever do to deserve that kind of devotion?”

Dazai waited, watched your smaller hand run across his neck, his smirk slowly growing on his lips. “I’m a lucky man, indeed,” he said, drawing the words out slow and lazily. He tipped your chin down to him, his smile displaying the almost sharpened points of his canines. Slender fingers caressed your hipbone, pressing you farther down onto his thigh.

You let out a small sound, not taking your eyes off of his as his expression grew wily, and the slip you wore slowly began to rise up your thighs, exposing the softer skin of your leg.

“I admit, I can’t stand that everyone in this city wants you so fucking bad.” Dazai sunk his lips to your neck, kissing the space between your shoulder and jaw. “But I can’t blame them. My beautiful angel.” He smiled under your jaw, gripping your hips harder, forcing you to drag against his thigh. A puff of air left your throat as Dazai grinned, spiking your arousal. “It’s for the best, isn’t it? I’ve ruined you for anyone else.”

Your eyes flashed; Dazai bounched his leg, just once, his eyes shining, every move calculated. He’d always known exactly how to touch you, and he’d never forget, never stop enjoying the way you jerked so easily under his palm, the way you were already trying to rub yourself against him.

“Osamu,” you began, desperate for just a moment of friction, to feel his rigid muscle drag against your cunt. You wanted him so badly that your heart stumbled over itself, all the love you held, locked up there and looking for a way out.

He made a sound of disapproval, holding you still with a tight grip on your hips. His fingers dug into the bone, but it did little to ease your aching need for him.

“See?” Dazai’s kisses were light as he whispered against the shell of your ear, the sound nothing more than a breath of air. “I barely have to touch you and you’re a whimpering mess.”

You swallowed, tugging at the hair at the base of his scalp, trying to remain steady, if only for him to give you what you wanted.

Dazai seemed to be in a generous mood, worn from the previous mission, and he was grinning lazily, two fingers slipping under your dress.

His grip loosened, and you shifted, letting him pull on the strap of your panties, drag them down your thighs, over your knees, to discard beside the chair. Already, there was evidence of your desire, a spot of wetness obvious against the red satin.

He let the garment hang between his fingers before he looked back at you, watching as it softly fell to the floor. “If only they knew how easy it was to get you wet,” he said, shrewdly, “they’d want you twice as much as they did before.”

You let out a soft whimper, trying to direct his beautiful hands back between your thighs. Though, Dazai kept his fingers away, and in an act of desperation, you pressed your forehead to his, conveying every ounce of your affection for him.

“Osamu,” you breathed, blinking into his warm irises, a shade of brown that had easily become your favorite. “I’m so crazy about you.” You kissed his cheeks, smearing your lip gloss all over the skin he’d just wiped clean. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you all night. Everyone in Yokohama watches me, but I ache for you.”

His eyes flashed, pleased, and he relented, nudging his thumb to the inner most part of your thigh. The smile was still mocking, but he gave you at least some relief; Dazai let you sink back down on his thigh, the pressure just enough to have you clawing your nails into his chest.

He kissed your nose, but kept you where you were, perched on the middle of his leg and much too far from his cock. “What would you ever do if I wasn’t here to take care of you, hm, darling?"

You softened; even if his gaze was taunting, there was utter devotion between his dilated pupils.

All those men who fell for your act may have been complete fools, but Dazai was even worse off than them: he was a fool in love.

“It’s so hard not to crawl into your arms every time you’re around,” you admitted, grabbing the buckle of his belt to undo it with a clank. The mere sound, the feel of the leather between your fingers, nearly had you salivating. “I’m stronger than a lot of men in Yokohama.” Your features contorted then, eyes vulnerable as you looked up at him through delicate lashes, no longer a vision of authority, but of someone who desperately wanted to be taken care of. “Not you, though.”

Dazai’s grip on you relaxed, and something in his eyes shifted, lips parting as an exhale left them. He said nothing as you removed the belt, and instead, let himself sink deeper into the cushion, bearing your weight.

Hastily, you pulled down the zipper of his slacks. The weight of his heavy cock in your hands was so familiar. You stroked him gently, watching for any reaction, and while his face remained steady, you could sense the change in his heartbeat.

“I don’t need you to be strong around me,” Dazai said. His voice had deepened, your name leaving his lips, raspy by the end of his sentence. “You can fall apart if you want to, my love.” His erection grew slowly in your palm, and he brought you closer, your bare, soaked cunt dragging against his thigh. “I’ll always be here to put you back together.”

You smiled, flushing as he hardened, his breath growing uneven. When you had him leaking within your palm, you shifted forward on your knees, grinning at his reddened cheeks. Dazai’s eyes drifted towards your chest, just inches from his face.  

Uncertain, you hesitated, even though you wanted him, needed him with every fiber of your being. It was an unfamiliar position. He could take control of the situation at any moment, but you weren’t usually the one looming over him.

“Osamu—”

“What?” he released with a sigh, and in one swift motion, lifted your hips so he was positioned at your entrance. “You walk around my nightclub in those dresses I buy you, force those pretty tits into other men’s faces, but now you’re too shy to fuck your husband?”

You made a face, knowing he was just trying to get a rise out of you, and if only to prove a point, you sunk down on him, your folds slick. Dazai slid into you easily, a sinful noise breaking the silence between you as he grinned. “I’ll f-fuck you,” you stuttered, swallowing under the heat of his watchful eyes. “It’s just…” Your words failed again as his cock went deeper in you, your focus entirely on your own pleasure.

“Just what?” He stopped you for a moment, planting you on his thighs, his cock still straining, filling you. Glaring, vibrating with need, you opened your eyes, lips parting as he whispered against your mouth “Finish your sentence, sweetheart.”  

“It’s not my fault, Osamu,” you said, on the edge of a whine, squirming within his hold. “I can’t help that they stare.”

He laughed, then, and it was just a brush against your swollen mouth, the one he kept coming back to. “They can stare all they want,” Dazai said, tilting your chin up. “As long as they know who you belong to.”

Finally, he let you go, his hands tracing the edges of your knees, and you started a slow, steady pace, gasping as you held onto his neck tightly. He bowed his head into your collarbone, and kissed you once, before leaning back lazily, watching you take and take and take.

“Doing so good, angel,” he said, watching you with such a passion that it was distracting, as he let his palms rest simply on your thighs. “You always look so pretty stuffed full of my cock, don’t you?”

“Feels so good,” you muttered.

“I know.” Dazai seemed too devilish with his dark hair fanned out against the red chair, grinning in a way that twisted up your insides, sweat beading down your forehead as you tried to reach your orgasm.

You were hot with his piercing gaze upon you, but he didn’t bother to move his hands, did nothing to even pretend like he was fazed. You sunk down faster, heart racing, as the muscles of your hips strained, burned. Already, you were growing tired, sleepy from a full evening, but still so desperate to come around him.

You leaned forward, trying to angle your body, gain some relief from the position. Though it did little, and instead you were left sighing in frustration, wishing that he would do anything, instead of just look at you with a lust blown smile.

With every moment, the pain began to grow, the ache in your legs far too much to give way to pleasure. You started back at Dazai, frustrated, eyes glossy with need.

Dazai laughed at you then; it wasn’t quite mocking, but it wasn’t kind either. “Don’t tell me you’re already tired.”

Frustrated and impatient as you dripped down your own thighs, you grabbed his throat, thrusting his head into the back of the chair.

Dazai, eyes wide with surprise, stopped smiling as you curled your hand around his neck, his fingers digging into your thighs.

“Are you just going to sit there, Osamu?” you said, your words high-pitched and desperate. “Or are you going to—”

The end of your sentence was cut off by him gripping the back of your hair, smashing your lips into his own. The hand on his neck fell away, drifting to the lapels of his bloodstained collar, as he brought you down hard on his cock, hitting a place deep inside you that you hadn’t been able to reach with your own strength.

Dazai’s fingertips left bruises on your skin as he devoured the inside of your mouth, bringing you down over and over, stretching your walls with each movement.

“So pretty and desperate for me,” Dazai laughed, but he was breathless, his own tenacity crumbling from adoration. “Can’t do anything by yourself, can you, baby?” His kisses were sloppy as he dragged them across your neck, tongue grazing the sharp vein under your ear.

“No, but you said—” you were losing your breath and your words. “You said you’d take care of me. I don’t want to cum all on my own, ‘samu.”

Dazai groaned, his gaze drifting down to the space between your bodies, where you were sucking him back in, your own body aligned with your heart, never wanting to let him go.

“Fuck,” he said, slamming you back down on his thighs, his eyes hazy with love. “Of course I’ll take care of you.” One hand guided your hips as the other curled around your jaw, setting the pace with half his strength. “You’re my whole world.” His words stuttered, aching cock twitching inside you. “I’m nothing without you, understand?”

You nodded, but you weren’t quite thinking straight, the words a jumbled mess when they entered your mind. “I love you,” you said, gasping the end of his name. “I love you, Osamu, need more.”

Dazai breathed, just as heavily, softening as he regarded you. He’d always loved the look on your face as you came apart. “You take it so well,” he said eyelids fluttering over hazy eyes, and he kissed your forehead. You dragged your hands all over his chest, just wanting to touch any part of him. “Wish you could see yourself. You’re so beautiful.”

You groaned, pulling him closer, until there was nowhere left to go, surrounded completely by Dazai; the smell of him, the taste of him. “Say it back,” you muttered, “say you love me too.”

He choked on a laugh, and the lewd sounds of your wet arousal were loud as he came in and out of you. “I love you, angel, you know how much I love you.” Dazai kissed you, then, and your heart sped at how hoarse his voice had become, how easily it was for you to make the most powerful man in Yokohama fall apart at the seams. “You’ve got a pretty ring to prove it, don’t you? I don’t want anyone but you. I never will.”

“Come inside me.” Your eyes squeezed shut as his cock reached impossibly deep within you, stretching you, your legs shaking as you tried to ignore the dull ache within your tense muscles. Tears sprang to your eyes, coating your lashes; it was almost devastating how much you loved him. “Please. Feel so full, ‘samu.”

“Yeah?” He reached between you to play with your clit, and you were so close, crying out a broken moan as he touched you. “Need to remind everyone that you’re my girl, hm?” He knew just how you liked to be touched, how easy it was to get you to come when he fucked you like you needed. “Want me to put a baby in you next, sweetheart? Shit.” He curled his fingers, bruising your mouth as he stole the oxygen from your chest. “Everyone would know then, wouldn’t they? How could they doubt you’re mine when you’re carrying my child.”

You cried out, then, breaking, spasming around his cock as you fell onto his chest. Dazai said your name, kissed the top of your head, but you were too full of love for him. You breathed heavily as he brought you down once more, twitching against him from the ache in your sensitive cunt.

A moment later, Dazai jerked, then came inside you, spilling his warm cum against your folds, the white ropes dripping down your thighs, staining his dark, wrinkled slacks. Slowly, he pulled out of you, letting you rest on his chest as you breathed, your legs sore. A gentle touch ran up and down your spine as Dazai wrapped his arms tight around you, his cheek resting against the top of your head.

“God, you’re perfect,” Dazai said, and his voice sounded almost broken, devastatingly emotional. “You can’t ever leave me, okay, angel? I need you right here by my side.” Lips grazed your temple, so sweetly, gently. “What’s the point of all this if I can’t share it with you?”

You smiled, resting your head in the crook of his neck, eyes full of tears as you kissed him. “I’m not going anywhere, Osamu. I promise.”

KINKTOBER 2023 MASTERLIST

tag list: @satohruu (hannah i planned this one bc of your tags on my last pm dazai fic HDSFHSFH) @cha0thicpisces

The hush that fell over Morepesok late into the night was typically one of comfort, a gentle blanket enveloping the village and drifting its citizens off to sleep. Tonight, however, there was a distinct lack of that peaceful lull you’d grown used to on your walks home. No soft veil of darkness, no calming silence that was disturbed only by the familiar rhythm of the sea—rather, an oppressive sense of dread hanging in the air, like when ocean waves receded from the shore moments before bringing about a devastating tsunami.

A thick sheet of clouds covered the sky, blocking out any traces of moonlight and promising fresh snowfall. Nothing unusual for Snezhnaya, all it meant was a few more inches of white powder crunching beneath your boots if you didn’t make it home in time. You pulled your hood securely over your head and, sure enough, it wasn’t long before the first few snowflakes began floating down in a delicate dance, so fragile that it was easy to forget how unforgiving they could be.

As you approached the walkway to your cottage, the source of all your foreboding suddenly became abundantly clear to you in the form of a distant silhouette. The faint light emitting from the streetlamps revealed a figure standing motionless in front of your house’s entrance, one you recognized all too well.

A horrible chill gripped your body, completely unrelated to the frigid winter air swirling all around you. It turned your feet into cinderblocks and your blood to ice. Despite every instinct screaming for you to turn tail and run the opposite direction, your heavy footsteps trudged on, only because you knew that the slightest glimpse of fear you exhibited would immediately be snuffed out and used against you. So, you continued steadily forward, ignoring the way your heart rate picked up with every step you took until the pale light finally illuminated the form that had been waiting for you. That thick, fluffy coat—you could never decide if it made him look absolutely massive, or highlighted how lean he really was underneath—and that bright, ginger head of hair, standing out against his surroundings like blood splattered in the snow.

“Childe,” you muttered. “I told you to stop coming here.”

“I know,” he let out a breathy chuckle, puffs of air fanning out around him in a ghostly fog. His eyes lingered on you for a few seconds before they darted to the ground, feet shuffling from side to side. It was a sight that was probably meant to appear sheepish, but you knew better than that by now. 

If Childe had any shame, he wouldn’t have waited by your house again. He wouldn’t have come back to you time and time again in the countless months you’d been broken up. He wouldn’t have sent you so many gifts and letters that you’d come to dread the arrival of the mail. He wouldn’t have memorized your daily routine and used each day he was back in town to follow you everywhere you went. He wouldn’t have made the view of him on his knees for you so commonplace, breaking down crying with crocodile tears every time you sent him away again. At least, you liked to think of them as crocodile tears. The possibility that they may be real was too troubling to consider.

No, Childe didn’t feel any shame. He wanted you to make him feel it.

Another spell of that hollow silence passed between you two, interrupted only by the sound of your keys jingling as you crossed your arms, an indirect order for him to explain himself.

“I just really missed you,” he whispered at last. 

You should’ve come to expect it by now, but those words never failed to soften your heart just as much as they struck dread into it. Oddly enough, it wasn’t so much that you were afraid of him. You pitied him, and that was what frightened you the most. Knowing that you still had the capacity to care for this man no matter how many reasons he gave you not to.

You steeled yourself, hoping your expression hadn’t already betrayed you. “It hasn’t even been a week.”

“Two weeks and a day,” he frowned, visibly drooping over the implication that you didn’t count every waking second you were apart the same way he did.

“Yeah, well…” You eyed your front door longingly, praying you could wrap this up as quickly as possible and head inside the warm sanctuary of your house. “That’s nothing. We’ve been apart for far longer before.”

That was your first mistake of the night. Childe’s face brightened over the acknowledgement of a “we”—you and him, together again. A single unit, exactly how it should be in his mind. You realized your blunder a split-second after he did, panic rising in your chest when you caught the pure glee lighting up his features. Before you could backtrack, however, he used the opportunity to his full advantage.

“Exactly! Which is why we should make up for all that lost time, right?”

He tilted his head in a way that was so deceptively innocent, it only made you all the more determined to get away from him. Before you could fall for it again, before you could make a far greater mistake. Swallowing hard, you took a step towards the entrance of your house, and like clockwork, he matched you, taking a step backwards so that there was no path ahead for you but him.

“Who knows how long my next assignment will take,” he added wistfully. 

The snowflakes were falling faster now, forming a crown of crystalline flecks in his fiery hair. You resisted the reflex to reach up and brush them away, instead deciding to use the coming blizzard as leverage to get rid of him.

“Childe,” you gritted your teeth. “It’s cold. Go home.”

Whatever hint there was to be taken, he tossed it to the harsh, blowing wind without a second thought. Rather than moving out of your way like any normal human being would, he surged forward, engulfing your body with his. You stumbled backwards from the sheer force of his embrace, only managing to remain upright thanks to his arms wrapping around your torso like a protective belt. More like a cage, really.

“What are you—!”

“Warming you up,” he sang, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

Before you could even think to react, he pushed past the shelter of your hood and buried his nose into the crook of your neck, brushing its reddening tip that you’d always found so painfully cute against your skin. He took in a deep, blissful breath, strong fingers clutching the back of your coat, eager to break past the barriers of fabric and get to you. 

Then, his muscles stiffened around your body, just noticeable enough to put you on edge.

“You smell different,” his voice grew eerily low. “Were you with someone else?”

You blamed the shiver that ran up your spine on the sensation of his breath tickling you.

“No, Childe.”

He nuzzled his nose further down your neck, completely shameless as he rubbed his face all over your scarf and burrowed underneath to reach more of your bare skin, taking in your scent over and over like a guard dog on a mission.

“Where were you?” He sounded more distressed now. “Why are you back so late?”

What, too busy to stalk me, today? You bit back what you really wanted to say. Somehow, refusing to address that incessant, ugly habit of his felt safer to you in that moment—because admitting to knowing about it would be the same as admitting to allowing it. Perhaps it was better to play dumb, let him think he was more subtle than he actually was.

Or maybe, subtlety had nothing to do with it. Maybe it made no difference to him whether you knew he was following you or not. He wouldn’t stop, either way.

“That doesn’t concern you,” you shut him down before he could start his usual spiel. Not wanting him to get used to the proximity, you rested your hand on the back of his head, grabbing a fistful of his sweet-scented ginger hair and giving it a harsh tug. He didn’t fight back, but a soft noise rumbled in his throat as you yanked him away. The effect it had on you was even worse than if he’d just resisted.

Childe’s eyes fluttered open as he came back into view. Even in the low light, you recognized the look starting to glaze them over, pupils dilating after just a small taste of physical contact with you that no doubt left him hungry for more. He took in another deep breath, making it no secret that he was lingering on the traces of your scent in his nostrils. 

“Why aren’t you wearing the perfume I got you?” He tilted his head again, and he was pouting. Reminiscent of a hurt child whose mother hadn’t hung his drawing up on the wall for everyone to admire. “The heart-shaped bottle from Ying’er’s shop in Liyue, I thought it was your favorite.”

You forced your eyes away from his puckered bottom lip. He must have caught the way you were staring, because the corner of his mouth twitched a bit, threatening to break into a smile.

“It is my favorite. That's why I save it for special occasions.” You saw no reason to deny that fact. “Anything else?”

He reached for your hand where it was fumbling with your keys in growing agitation, gloved fingers resting over yours. Despite the thick gear covering his hands, you could tell that he was still wearing the ring you’d gifted him over a year ago underneath—you knew the accessory by outline alone. A simple silver band with specks of ruby; his birthstone. The color of love and passion. The color of blood. Who knew where the gem ended and the bloodstains began.

“I miss it,” he murmured. “I miss your scent.”

There it was again, the earnest declaration that snaked its way around your heart and seized it in an iron grip, no matter how badly you wished you could remain indifferent to it.

“If you miss it so bad, you know where to buy the perfume,” you dismissed. Another impatient step towards your door, another step matched seamlessly by him. “Go home, Ajax. I have to be up early tomorrow.”

You’d thought that using his real name might help sway his obsessive mind and make him listen to you, just like it always used to. It was your trump card; soothing all his worries with your doting tone and putting his head into a happy haze, ready to follow any command you may give him. This time, though, it seemed to backfire. Childe’s entire face lit up over the first sign of affection from you, the closest his dead blue eyes ever got to reflecting light.

“I'll stay with you tonight!” he chirped. “I can help you fall asleep, so you’ll be well-rested for tomorrow.”

Only he could make such a harmless offer sound so inexplicably sinister. The worst part was, you knew he meant it, too. There was no underlying meaning to his words if you didn’t want there to be—if his sole use to you was helping you sleep, then he would gladly fulfill it.

And if you wanted to use him for anything else, well, he’d gladly fulfill that, too.

“I don't need help falling asleep.”

Another step forward. The lock to your front door was almost within reach.

“I can tell you a story or sing you some tunes, just the way you like.”

Against your better judgement, you paused. Memories flooded your mind of that sweet, charming voice that had first won you over all those years ago, the same voice he would sing his younger siblings lullabies with. It was uncharacteristically gentle and pure, so entrancing that you never stopped to think of the poison laced within it. An oleander voice. 

Childe sensed your hesitation immediately. A fox on the hunt, scanning the undergrowth for the faintest rustles to lunge at and sink his fangs into. He leaned in closer, his hopeful gaze studying you so intensely that you worried it may actually burn holes into your skin.

“Please?”

“No,” you said at last, cursing the strain in your voice. “You can’t. You need to go, Childe.”

Back to Childe. It was like a knife to his chest. His face darkened again, eyes narrowing with a predatory accuracy.

“Someone’s coming over, right?” he muttered. A barely concealed rage bubbled beneath the surface of his question, like the final moments before a dormant volcano erupted in the most violent of ways. “You’re seeing someone else behind my back, right? That’s why you’re trying to get rid of me.”

“I'm trying to get rid of you because you act like this,” you spat, giving his chest a shove. For all the force you put into it, he barely even stumbled. “No one's coming. And even if they were, it’s none of your fucking business. How many times do I have to tell you that we’re done?”

You’d half-expected him to look hurt— angry, even. To lash out at you for being so heartless, to give you another practiced pout that always made you forget why you felt the need to treat him so cruelly in the first place. But what he said next caught you off guard, taking your words and throwing them right back in your face. 

“Until you mean it.”

Childe lifted his hand slowly, curling his fingers around the collar of his thick jacket to tug it down and reveal something that made your heart drop. A bruised patch on his neck, originally deep red and lined with indents where your teeth had dug into his skin, now faded into a purple-yellow color. Even among the countless battle scars riddling his skin, the mark stood out. It had been over two weeks since you’d given it to him—you couldn’t believe it still hadn’t gone away. But for such a fearsome warrior, Childe’s body had always been oddly delicate, quick to bruise. Especially around his neck, especially in your hands.

Or, the bastard might’ve taken measures to make sure it didn’t fade, to keep your brand on him for as long as physically possible. You wouldn’t put it past him.

The unwelcome reminder of that night made you wince. Of course. Maybe you were just as much to blame for this endless cycle as he was—after all, even the most loyal of dogs would eventually learn to stop returning to the same place over and over if it hadn’t grown accustomed to getting some kind of reward, right? But when Childe had finally returned from Fontaine a few weeks ago after being gone for much longer than either of you had anticipated, battered and bruised like you’d never seen him before, you’d had a moment of weakness. Or perhaps, several moments of weakness. 

Rumors about what had happened to him in the foreign nation had reached your village; the unjust trial, his unexplained disappearance, his long, grueling battle with something horrifying and otherworldly that had left him so weakened he couldn’t make the journey home for months. You’d been worried sick about him, it was foolish to pretend otherwise. So when you found him on your doorstep again two weeks ago, still not fully healed, but smiling that sunbeam of a smile when he saw you, you’d let him fall back into your arms without much resistance. Back where he belonged, as he would put it.

You gave your head a violent shake, physically forcing the memories away. It had been a mistake. Nothing more, nothing less.

“Go home,” you commanded. “Now.”

“My home is here, with you.”

You forced out a scoff. “Give me a fucking break.”

It was obvious Childe knew just as well as you did that he was chipping away at your resolve, little by little. You had to put an end to this before it went any further, spiraled into something out of your control. Disregarding the crestfallen look on his face, you found the willpower to push past him at last and shove your key into the lock of your front door. 

“Can’t you see how much you’re hurting me?” 

His voice was far closer than you’d expected it to be, warm breath fanning over your ears and making goosebumps creep up on your skin. Struggling to focus, you threw out the first response that came to mind.

“You like it when I hurt you.”

“I do.”

You could hear his lips curving into a grin as he spoke. It made your stomach churn with disgust and desire, all at once.

“Goodnight, Childe.”

There was no room for debate in your tone, distant and resolute. Turning the handle of your door, you at last cracked it open, a fleeting sense of relief finding you as the welcoming warmth from inside began to seep out, beckoning you to safety. 

“I guess I’ll stay out here, then,” he said quietly. “To make sure no one disturbs your sleep.”

If that was his last-ditch attempt at gaining some kind of sympathy, then you were confident that you’d won this battle. Stepping into your house with newfound certainty, you didn’t even spare him a glance as you replied.

“Don’t bother. You’ll freeze to death in this snow.”

“Are you worried about me?” he giggled. “That makes me happy. But you should really be more worried about anyone who happens to pass by your house tonight.”

You froze.

“I don’t like hurting innocent people,” he continued on with a sigh. It was far too casual, as if he were discussing something as mundane as swatting a few pesky flies. “But who knows what kind of creeps might be lingering around here? If someone gets too close, I’ll have no choice but to assume they’re the bastard who’s trying to steal you away from me.”

There was a soft crunching in the snow as he inched closer and closer to your rigid form until he was pressed fully against your back again, eclipsing you with his shadow. The comfort of your home was taunting you like a sick joke now, a mere step away from the nightmare unfolding behind you. It all clicked in your head. Even if the person Childe had it out for didn’t truly exist, he would make them exist. He would hold the whole world hostage if he had to.

“I really hope you won’t let it get to that,” he finished with a whisper. Low, barely there, but full of promise. 

Your throat went dry, anything you’d planned to say shriveling up along with it. Given how uncomfortably close he was, you were certain he could feel the tension in your body. You wouldn’t be surprised if he could hear your heartbeat, pounding wildly against your ribcage like that of a cornered prey animal.

Whether it was an empty threat or not, you didn’t want to risk finding out. Every day, Childe challenged what you thought you knew about him, the limits you’d set in your mind for what he was capable of. He loved nothing more than to test himself, after all, and blurring the lines of his morality was no exception to that. The only predictable thing about him was his unpredictability.

He’d already given you glimpses of how far he was willing to go. His returns to Morepesok started becoming apparent to you not when Tonia would send you excited letters in the mail or when he showed up unannounced at your front door, but when the people you had grown close to in his absence inexplicably started to keep a distance from you. You didn’t know what he’d done to them—you weren’t sure if you wanted to know—but the very fact that they were still alive once he was finished with them sent a message in itself. 

“Look what I can get away with when they lived to tell the tale. Imagine how easily I could get away with killing them.”

“Ajax,” your voice cracked on a single syllable, as did the composure that you’d worked so tirelessly to maintain up until now. Any delusions you’d had about being free of him just moments before seemed so laughable, in retrospect. It had been a losing game from the start, it always was.

He rested his chin on your shoulder with a carefree hum. “It is really cold out, huh?” he noted, hand reaching out to rest over yours on the door handle. “Do you think I could come in with you, instead?”

It wasn’t so much a question as it was an offer of mercy.

You nodded.

That was all it took for him to slip past you in a flash, swinging your door wide open and stepping aside to hold it for you. He watched eagerly as you brushed past him and entered the cottage, like a puppy awaiting some kind of approval for remembering his manners so well. You found yourself thinking that if he had a tail, it would surely be wagging by now.

The door shut with a heavy thud, at last freeing you from the unforgiving snowstorm that was swirling to life outside. But you were far more concerned with the storm brewing between you and the man you’d just allowed into your home. He mirrored your actions as you removed your heavy boots and shrugged off your thick winter gear. Rather than hanging his coat on a different hook, he draped it completely on top of yours, no doubt to make sure you smelled nothing but him the next time you wore it. It was so ridiculous, such an undeniably him thing to do, you couldn’t help but roll your eyes. He met your annoyance with a self-satisfied grin, almost cheeky enough to remind you of simpler times. A time when you were blissfully unaware of what that smile was capable of. 

The coziness of your home eased your nerves a bit, at least, allowing you to feel more in control as you watched him wander down the hall, head turning curiously from side to side to take in every last detail of his surroundings. It earned a bitter laugh from you. As if he didn’t have every nook and cranny of your house memorized in that sick mind of his. As if he didn’t break in regularly when you were gone to see if anything had changed in his absence. If you’d purchased any new clothes or perfumes, developed a taste for any new dishes he should learn how to cook, or, most importantly, if any evidence of another person being there had been left behind.

The floorboards creaked under your feet as you followed Childe to your room, where you found him fiddling around with the items on your dresser. He inspected each one with a childlike fascination, toying with various trinkets and souvenirs and opening up the caps of your creams and lotions to smell them.

“You never change,” he remarked dreamily, placing a bottle of Inazuman, sakura-scented lotion back where he’d found it with a care he only reserved for you. For such a simple comment, it was full of overflowing adoration that you’d never been able to pinpoint the source of. You wanted to dispute it—to insist that you were no longer the same person you’d been when you and Childe were lovers—but you supposed the fact that he was back in your bedroom was proof enough that he was right.

He must’ve removed his gloves at some point, because his hands were now bare, your ring shining on display as he ran his fingers carefully along every bottle and piece of jewelry decorating your dresser, many of which were gifts from him that you hadn’t been able to discard. A detail that you were certain he took great pride in. The snow in his hair had begun to melt, dripping off his bangs and splattering onto the wooden floor in a rhythm that was partially soothing, and partially akin to a ticking time bomb.

Without thinking much of it, you opened one of your dresser drawers to pull out a hand towel, reaching up to press it against the droplets forming on his hair. His breath hitched as you dabbed at the wet locks, eyes darting to fixate on you, to make sure that you were actually touching him on your own accord and it wasn’t just his imagination.

You regretted the gesture the instant his widened gaze met yours. It was full of an intense, twisted sort of joy, an emotion you’d never once considered could be dangerous before him. What was far more troubling, however, was the very obvious craving that lurked beneath it. Itching for more, he always wanted more.

“You were getting my floor wet,” you tried to explain, yanking your hand away just as you would when veering too close to an open flame. But he grabbed your wrist before you could, not breaking his stare for even a second as he guided you back to his head, tossing the towel aside and nuzzling shamelessly against your palm.

It was frightening, how right it felt to have your fingers tangled in his hair again, brushing through the charmingly messy strands and watching his eyelashes flutter shut in contentment. You fell back into your roles with such ease every single time, a domestic facade beautiful enough to trick you into forgetting about what festered underneath.

Your gentle scratches to his scalp came to a sudden halt when he turned his cheek without warning to press his lips into your palm. The peck was soon followed by another, then another, until he was leaving hungry kisses all over your fingers and down your wrist. Each one sent a jolt through your senses, hauntingly familiar.

“Childe,” you warned.

“You’re so warm.” His thumb pressed against your wrist’s pulse as he mumbled between kisses. “Missed you so much.”

“You have no right to miss me anymore.”

His lips stopped for a moment, body tensing against yours. You tried not to let it get to you, even if the thought of who might suffer the consequences if you angered him made a wave of nausea rise within you.

“Don’t you get it?” he chuckled, but there was a hurt crack to it. “I’m yours. I'm always gonna be yours, no matter what you do.”

“I don’t want you to be mine,” you said coldly.

“You don’t have to want me.” He rested his head against your chest with a happy sigh, burrowing into your softness and tracing patterns into your back with restless fingers. “I still belong to you. Throw me out like a used toy and I'll still be yours to play with. Give me to someone else and I'll still have your name engraved on me.”

“Ajax.”

You cut him off before he could rile himself up with his own delusions any further—or perhaps, before he could pull you into them with him.

Hearing his name uttered so harshly on your tongue was enough to snap him out of it, at least momentarily. The look he gave you would put a kicked puppy to shame, and you could only hope that the unnatural gleam you spotted in his eyes wasn’t the beginnings of tears forming. You weren’t sure if you’d be able to handle it otherwise, not when he was such a convincing crier. A pretty one, too.

“They’ll be dispatching me to Nod-Krai soon.”

Your heart dropped. This time, it was impossible to hide your reaction from him. Confusion, relief, dread—they all burst to life at once, a battle of emotions that you were certain Childe sensed in you with ease. You, on the other hand, couldn’t read his expression. It was good-natured as ever, completely detached from the situation at hand.

“Nod-Krai?” It came out incredulous. You wished you could just write it off as another one of his attempts to get in your head, but it was such a bizarre thing to lie about that you knew it had to be true. “Already? But you just…” you trailed off, mind racing a mile a minute with the implications of the news. Childe had just barely recovered from his extensive injuries in Fontaine, and Nod-Krai was far more unpredictable a place to roam, even for a Fatui Harbinger. Especially for Tartaglia, given his unquenchable thirst for throwing himself into harm’s way at any given opportunity. It was a lawless land, crawling with factions of varying loyalties, unbound by the same conventions as the rest of Sneznhya—or any nation in Teyvat, for that matter.

Childe hummed, and you knew just as well as he did that you’d taken the bait he’d set out for you. Even so, you didn’t care about keeping up the act anymore. His revelation should’ve come as a blessing to you, it should’ve lifted the weight of his suffocating love off of your shoulders and made you feel light again for the first time in months. But you didn’t. All you felt was guilt.

Guilt for treating him this way when all he wanted was your love. Guilt for rejecting every letter, every gift, every desperate attempt to gain just a crumb of your attention, when you knew that any one of them could be his last.

“I’ll be gone in a week, maybe less.” He moved closer to you as he continued, very deliberate in his phrasing, you noticed. Not “leaving”, but “gone”. There was an unspoken air of permanence to it, like he may never return. 

You weren’t sure when he’d managed to grab it without you realizing, but that coveted heart-shaped perfume bottle was now resting in his hand. “Dunno how long this project will take, either. It’s a really big deal, apparently.”

You said nothing.

“So, I just…really needed to see you, y’know? Really need to be with you, right now,” he admitted with a feather-light whisper. “Will you let me?”

His finger rested on the bottle’s nozzle without pressing down on it quite yet, silently asking you for permission to spray the perfume. You just nodded, squeezing your eyes shut as a faint mist wafted over your skin, fragrant and nostalgic. A scent you would never be able to detach from him. Maybe that was why you still called it your favorite.

Childe was back on you in an instant, wrapping his arms around you in a bone-crushing hug and burying his face right back in the crook of your neck like it belonged there, like he wanted to get lost in you and never find his way out. You indulged him, petting the back of his head in an all too familiar motion as he took in a deep, unstable breath, whimpering softly in the back of his throat as the perfume flooded his senses. When he exhaled, it came out shaky, his whole body shuddering along with it and making you realize for the first time that the firmness you felt pressing against your thighs wasn’t just his vision casing.

It made your insides coil—with dismay, and with something far more shameful. Hot and uncontrollable lust, pooling in your abdomen at an alarming rate. But you were past the point of lying to yourself, of pretending that you hadn’t anticipated this exact outcome from the moment you saw Childe’s silhouette awaiting you in the darkness. As soon as he’d stepped inside your home, you’d made your choice.

This time, when his lips found your neck, you didn’t stop him. His panting was like that of a starved dog, frantically trying to absorb your scent and leave uncoordinated, open-mouthed kisses all over your skin at the same time. His fingers dug deeper into your clothes, pulling you closer to him in fear that you might disappear from his grasp if he didn’t. You shifted your leg so that it pressed directly against the growing ache in his pants, drawing out a whine from him that activated an old urge within you—to make him fall apart.

“You smell so good,” he managed to gasp out between fervent kisses. They grew sloppier and slopper with every new patch of skin his lips devoured, leaving hot, wet rings of saliva all over your neck that were as dizzying as they were sobering. Kisses that were so undeniably Ajax. 

If all his nipping and licking wasn’t enough to thoroughly remind you that it was him, his nonstop chattering certainly was. “So good, so, s-so good. Need you. Need you so bad.”

You gave his hair a harsh tug as he wandered down the column of your throat to nip at your collarbones, already completely drunk on you. “Is this all it takes to get you worked up?” You dug your knee harshly into his bulge. “You’re pathetic, Ajax.”

As if to prove your point, he let out a sweet moan of relief, mouth falling open against your skin and spilling out a dribble of drool.

“Slobbering all over me like a fucking dog,” you muttered. Using your grip on his hair, you yanked his head back. Though being forced away from your neck earned a tiny mewl of protest from him, he still complied without much resistance, giving you a lopsided grin when you came face to face with him again. You studied him for a moment, running your hand down his burning face and resting it on his flushed cheek, already smeared with his own saliva. Just a few seconds of not having his lips on you, and he started to grow restless again. He leaned forward on impulse, expecting you to kiss him, only for him to yelp in surprise as you shoved his head down and sent him to his knees.

“Act like a mutt, and I’ll treat you like one.”

Childe eyes gleamed. The only time they ever had any life to them was when he was gazing up at you. He gave you an obedient nod, far too eager as he tucked his legs underneath himself, waiting for your next move.

“Gonna collar me?” he asked sweetly, cocking his head to bare his throat. You weren’t sure if it was his intention, but it served as yet another reminder of the fading lovebite you’d left on his skin. 

“Dogs don’t talk.”

He went quiet, a luxury you were certain would last no more than a minute or two.

You could see his hard-on clearly from this angle, the outline of his length was painfully obvious even through the thick material of his pants, visibly twitching with anticipation. Childe swiped tongue over his lips, already beginning to shift a bit in his spot. It was adorable, really, how hopeless he was when it came to staying still. There was nothing in this world that he wouldn’t do for you—he’d made that abundantly clear a long time ago—but his overzealous nature couldn’t be contained no matter how hard he tried.

His soft, impatient whine morphed into a gasp when you brought your foot down to his crotch without warning, pressing your sole against the bulging heat. Childe’s hips bucked up instantly, only to be forced back down with a warning shove from you.

“What’s got you this hard, baby?” you taunted, trailing along the shape of his length. “Thought I’d let you fuck me, just like that?”

The way he throbbed under your foot was answer enough. You could tell it was taking every ounce of his strength not to rut up into your touch again, just to prove to you that he could be disciplined, that even a trigger-happy mad dog who acted on his most depraved wants would still do his very best for you. 

“Please—mmph—I’ll be good,” he promised, voice trembling with effort. “I’ll be so good for you. Your good boy.”

“My good boy?” you echoed. They were the words Childe always yearned to hear the most from you, never failing to send him into a frenzy when they left your lips. But hearing them spat back at him with such disdain made his heart ache just as badly as his cock. “Does a good boy follow me around without permission?” You dug your heel mercilessly into his erection, making him double over with a pitiful choking sound. “Does a good boy break into my house? Take my things? Jerk off to my clothes and leave his filthy stains all over them?”

Childe’s expression didn’t disappoint. Eyes going wide in a rare display of shock, mouth hanging open uselessly—though, whether it was his surprise that had rendered him speechless, or a fresh wave of lust, you couldn’t decide.

“You’re not a good boy,” you sneered. “You’re just a whore.”

He keened, a low, primal sort of sound that made your core clench. His unsteady hands wrapped around your ankle, urging you to shift more of your weight onto his dick until you were fully stepping on it. You could hear how labored his breathing had become, see the rapid rise and fall of his broad chest as he struggled to speak.

“No, n-no,” he protested, nails digging into your leg, begging you to understand him. “I only do it to protect you. Need to keep you safe from all those rotten bastards who want you for themselves. Need to remind them that you’re mine.”

The irony of it all was almost enough to make you burst into a fit of laughter. As if there was anyone in this world you needed to be protected from other than the very man at your feet. You tilted his chin up with one finger, locking your eyes with his wild ones. Then, you drew your hand back and slapped him across the face. The sheer force of it must’ve caught him off guard, because it actually managed to swing his head to the side, sprawling his bangs over his eyes and giving you a clear view of the mark already reddening on his cheek.

“You think that justifies any of it?” you snapped. “You think you get to act like a mutt in heat in the name of protecting me?”

Recovering from the sting of your slap, Childe turned his head back to face you, jaw flexing under your fingers. As he came back into view, something twisted in your gut as you realized that he was smiling. Not only that, his length was practically ready to burst under your foot, pulsing with waves of heat that still managed to seep through despite all his layers of clothing.

“Sorry,” he breathed, thick with lust. “‘M really, really sorry. Didn’t mean to upset you, I swear.”

He rubbed his aching cheek into your palm with a dreamy sigh, as if you hadn’t just struck him with that very hand.

“I’m so sorry. Won’t happen again, I promise. S-so please, take it easy on me, yeah?”

His tone sounded anything but apologetic, in fact, it couldn’t be more obvious that he was delighted with the situation he’d landed himself in. Coupled with the wide, insufferable smirk that had yet to leave his face, you pieced together exactly what he was trying to goad you into doing.

You grabbed hold of his jaw, digging your fingers into his flesh with little care for the whimper that slipped out of him.

“Liar.”

Childe didn’t falter. He batted his eyelashes innocently up at you, then opened his mouth wide to sink his canine teeth into the flesh between your thumb and index finger. His bite lasted for no more than a second, not strong enough to truly hurt you, but enough to make a sharp hiss rise in your throat. You freed your hand from his mouth and swung it back again instantly, coming down on his other cheek twice as hard as before. A loud, smacking sound echoed off your bedroom walls, only rivaled in volume by his sinful groan that followed.

He’d anticipated the second impact, but what neither of you had expected was the way his whole body convulsed as the rush of pain shot through his nerves. At first, when you caught his shoulders shaking, you thought the brat might actually be laughing. Then, with a weak gasp of your name, his hands flew to your foot in a panic, trying to lessen the friction and angle his hips away from your touch.

“A-ah, no, wait,” he grunted suddenly. “Too much, ‘s too much! Gonna—!”

Childe threw his head back with a broken moan, nails sinking into your ankle fiercely enough to leave behind crescent-shaped indents. The tinge of worry you’d felt for going too far soon morphed into understanding when you felt a fresh surge of warmth spreading underneath your foot, thick and moist. Just to be certain, you pressed down on his spasming cock a little harder, pleased to see the overstimulation make him writhe helplessly on the ground.

He panted as his unexpected climax started to ebb, leaving his head ducked low and his face burning with shame—a deliciously unfamiliar emotion, one that only you could ignite in him. Fighting back a smile, you tilted his chin up once more, but he couldn’t bring himself to look you in the eye. His cheeks weren’t just flushed from the force of your slaps, anymore. The Eleventh of the Fatui Harbingers was on his knees for you, blushing like a flustered virgin after making a mess in his underwear.

“Poor thing,” you cooed, rolling your heel over his soiled, twitching crotch and eliciting a small mewl from him. “Couldn’t control yourself, hm?”

He nodded miserably, hands sliding up from your ankle to grasp on to your thighs. “I’m sorry,” he hiccuped, and you knew that this time, he truly meant it. “S-so sorry, I tried to hold it in. Just felt…felt so good. I was just so happy you were touching me again.”

“Shh. It’s okay, baby.” You ran your fingers through his hair in faux sympathy. As you brushed his tousled bangs out of his eyes, he finally found it in him to look up at you again. The tenderness of your touch was almost enough to fool him, until it was sharply contrasted by the scorn laced in your words that followed, “I don’t expect much from a dumb little puppy who can only think with his dick.”

He whined in protest. His hands pawed at your thighs in a frenzy, squeezing your flesh and clinging to you with very real distress that you may actually toss him out into the snow for being so pathetic. Childe hated finishing without your permission—or, rather, he hated missing out on the addictive praises you’d shower him with when he was able to hold himself back for you. But what he hated most of all was cumming anywhere that wasn’t inside of you.

“Please, please,” he begged, leaning in to bury his face in your thigh. You raised an eyebrow at him, grabbing a fistful of his hair to pull him away, only for the boy to latch on to you twice as hard. Anything you planned to say was promptly cut short when you suddenly felt his lips puckering against the inside of your thigh, pressing hot kisses to it as a meek apology. “Please,” he repeated, voice rising in pitch with each one. “Lemme make you feel good. I’m sorry, ‘m a good boy, y-your good boy.”

His kisses grew more erratic as he ventured higher and higher up until he came dangerously close to your heat. Your stomach flipped as it became clear what he wanted, fingers grasping at his scalp in a silent order for him to stop. Childe sucked in a deep breath through his nose, tongue darting out to swipe over his bottom lip as he took in your scent with absolutely zero qualms about letting you see how much he was enjoying it. You cursed the way it made fresh wetness seep into your underwear, praying that your arousal wasn’t obvious enough for him to smell.

“Why? Why won’t you let me?” He pressed his nose back into the spot where your thighs met, trying to calm himself with shaky inhales of your essence. “Don’t…don’t get rid of me. You know I can make you feel so good. Please, let me show you.”

It was true, his mouth was good for so much more than just pissing you off to no end. You shushed his rambling with a firm nudge to his torso, easing him backwards with your foot so that he was forced to let go of you and balance himself with his hands. It left him sprawled out on the floor below you, arms and legs spread wide with the embarrassing wet patch in his pants clear as day.

“Easy, baby. I’m not done with you just yet,” you assured him, ghosting your touch over his cock that, despite his orgasm, still hadn't gone fully soft. Childe swallowed audibly, but his panic at least seemed to ebb at the possibility of a second chance to satisfy you.

It was still impossible for you to wrap your head around. Someone of Tartaglia’s sheer physical strength and international influence, someone who not only had the ability to get whatever he wanted in this world, but the ambition to go after it. All that power bursting at his fingertips, and the only thing he wanted was to be under your control. 

You would never understand how the maze of his mind worked, but it would be a lie to say that it didn’t give you an adrenaline rush like no other.

“Undress,” you directed. With a final flick to the garter wrapped around his thigh, you turned and left him there, padding towards your bed and settling on the mattress. Childe didn’t take his eyes off of you the entire time he stripped, his movements uncoordinated and urgent as he fumbled with his belt. An enthusiastic puppy barely managing to follow his master’s orders when his favorite treat was dangling just within reach.

You beckoned him over with your finger, and he scrambled over in an instant, legs wobbly from kneeling in the same position on your wooden floor for so long. The mattress dipped as he sat next to you—almost completely on top of you. If he could have it his way, you were certain he would’ve meshed his body with yours and never let go. Your eyes scoured over his bare form, illuminated by the low light; it was impossible not to. Every time you saw him again, his shoulders seemed to have gotten a little broader, his muscles flexed with newfound strength, plenty of fresh scars and bruises decorating his skin like badges of honor. New additions to his wounds never escaped your notice, not when you were more intimately familiar with the map of his body than even Childe himself. 

Old habits taking over, you reached out your hand, tentatively brushing along the recently gained injuries littering his skin. A long, rippling one across his toned stomach, several punctures on his chest that almost resembled the sharp teeth of some animal, a thick bump of healing flesh on his shoulder from a particularly deep wound. You traced over all of them with the same care you did when he was still the man you loved. 

Maybe he was right, you never changed.

Childe’s eyes were half-lidded with contentment, never more at peace than when he was under your undivided attention like this. Tender fingers touching him like he was the most precious treasure in the world, keen eyes observing every last detail of his body to lock safely away in your brain. It was his own personal heaven. Your gaze gradually wandered further down, taking in his built chest, the lean muscles of his abdomen, the trail of soft, red hairs forming under his belly button, and finally, his length resting against his thigh. Just as you’d suspected, it was still half-hard, already beginning to twitch under your attentive stare as more and more blood rushed south, reddining its tip. Evidence of his earlier release was still splattered all over his dick and thighs, slick and glistening from his own mess.

With a start, you realized you’d been staring for far too long. You snapped your eyes back up in a flash before he could get the wrong idea, only for embarrassment to wash over you when you saw the sick elation written all over his face.

“You can stare all you want, y’know,” he giggled. “It’s yours.”

You hardened your expression again, leaning back against the headboard of your bed with what you hoped was an air of indifference. Even if his words set every one of your nerve endings ablaze, that was something best kept a secret. He was already manic enough as is.

“Let’s see if it’s worth calling mine.”

Spreading your legs, you took your sweet time removing your layers of clothing, acutely aware of his ravenous eyes fixated on your every move. As you unclasped your bra, his gaze dropped to your breasts with a speed that had your lips twitching in amusement. He was so transparent in moments like these, nothing cunning about him. His hands twitched at his sides, mouth watering with desire, but even so, he remained put, fighting the urge to lunge forward and bury himself in your chest with all his might.

Your fingers paused under the waistband of your underwear, an idea coming to mind.

“Wanna touch, puppy? Take them off for me.”

Childe’s breath hitched. The order had barely left your lips before erratic fingers were tugging at the garment, as careful as he could manage when in a state like this. You could feel the effort it took him to restrain himself, animalistic need bubbling under the surface of his skin as he slid your underwear off, eyeing the soaked fabric longingly for several heartbeats before swallowing hard and placing it to the side.

The look he gave you, earnestly awaiting your praise for not pressing his nose into the underwear like he’d so obviously wanted to, almost broke your facade. But you couldn’t give it to him yet. It was your private way of punishing him, however futile it might seem in comparison to the unstoppable tidal wave of his obsession. Withholding the approval that he depended on so heavily in the hopes that one day, you might be able to wean him off of it entirely. 

Instead, you simply motioned for him to settle in the space between your thighs, ignoring his disappointed sulking. His dick rested against your folds, heavy and sticky with his own seed.

“F-fuck.” His hips jolted forward involuntarily, drawn to your dripping heat with all the natural force of a magnet. “Please, can I put it in? Please?”

He sounded like he may actually break into tears if you denied him any longer. It sparked something within you that was always lying dormant, no matter how tirelessly you’d tried to force it down until it was buried away for good. The need to comfort him, to satiate him just enough so that he wouldn’t spin completely out of your control—or at least, the illusion of control. You reached up to brush his bangs back, relishing in the brief sense of normalcy it brought you when he rested his cheek in the cradle of your palm.

“Come on in, baby.”

Childe fumbled with his cock for a moment, a tiny, frustrated sound forming in his throat before he was able to line its tip up with your entrance. He pushed past the slippery folds bit by bit at first, then, instinct getting the best of him, sank into you all at once with a powerful snap of his hips. You tightened around him instantly, adjusting to that familiar stretch that your body would recognize as his every single time without fail. His length had always fit inside of so well, like two pieces of a puzzle, as he so gleefully loved to remind you when he was gushing lovesick nonsense into your ear.

The moan that slipped out of him as he bottomed out was pure sin. Drawn-out and broken and turning up in pitch at the end, almost like he was in pain. For a moment, you thought he might have actually cum again, just from the sensation of your warmth enveloping him. But his cock was still rock hard as it twitched inside of you. In fact, you could feel it growing bigger the more your walls squeezed around him, taking on every inch of his shape, pressing against every ridge and vein.

“I’m s-still,” he gasped, body slumping forward. “Still sensitive.”

You cupped your palm against the blazing hot skin of his face, tender to the touch where you’d slapped him. You rubbed his cheek delicately for a moment before trailing down to his neck. His pulse raced with adrenaline under your fingers as you wrapped them around his throat, pressing down on its sides to grab his attention.

“You wanted to make me feel good, right?” you frowned. “Now’s your chance. Fuck me like a good boy.”

Childe’s eyes clouded over, the words fogging up his mind like he’d fallen into a trance. You could feel the vibrations of his moan rumbling against your palm as he gave you a shaky, obedient nod, sinking his teeth into his lower lip and forcing himself to pull out despite his hypersensitivity. You tried not to think too hard about how your walls ached at the loss, immediately longing to feel him filling you up again. And like a good boy, he did exactly that.

Slowly, he eased back into you, inch after inch until his cock was almost entirely sheathed in your pillowy heat. You both sighed in unison, an undeniable sense of relief overtaking you that you were sure to reprimand yourself for later. He took a few extra seconds to bask in your wet warmth before pulling back out again, his trembling breaths puffing out against your face as he began to properly rock his hips. Each burst of pleasure he felt was accompanied by a tinge of overstimulation that made his brain go haywire, and after just a few agonizing thrusts, he was reduced to a wreck above you.

“So—fuck!” he choked out, barely able to string a sentence together when your walls sucked his cock back in so seamlessly every time, taking any coherent thoughts along with it. “So good, f-feels so fucking good. I missed you. Missed being inside you s-so much.” His forehead fell against yours, the pace of his strokes gradually picking up until he found a steady flow. You dragged your nails down his throat, encouraging him to keep going in the language he understood best.

“You…ah…feel so perfect around me,” he whimpered, lips brushing against yours, so rife with desperation that you could taste it dripping off of them. “So warm and soft. So…so wet.” He interrupted his rhythm suddenly to pull all the way out of your pussy before slamming himself back inside in one fluid motion. It created an especially obscene smacking sound, emphasizing his words and making his stomach twist with gratification.

The swollen head of his dick dragged against your sweet spot as he did, earning a soft moan from you that you couldn’t suppress. Childe throbbed inside of you, visibly ecstatic over the smallest indication that he was pleasing you right. Eager to draw more sounds out of you, he repeated the action, taking on an uncharacteristically careful pace that had your composure slipping further and further each time he filled you to the brim. 

“O-only I can make you this wet, right?” To anyone else, it might’ve sounded like he was simply stroking his own ego, but you knew better than that. He was genuinely asking, he needed to hear it from you like the oxygen he needed to breathe. “Only I get to—hah—feel you around me like this, fill you up like this. Only me, right?”

You could’ve blamed it on the pleasure muddling your mind and allowing your heart to take over, but that was far more damning an admission of how you truly felt about the mess of a man sinking himself so deep inside you that you’d think he wanted to meld his body to yours. Swallowing down another moan, your hands found the back of his head again and tangled in his damp, fluffy hair.

“You think anyone else is filthy enough to do what you do?” you answered with a breathless question of your own. It wasn’t exactly the doting response he’d hoped for, but it was more than enough to placate him for now. His lips crashed into yours, tiny huffs rising in his throat and spilling into your mouth as he returned to his breakneck speed from earlier. The sudden whiplash in pace might have caught you by surprise if you hadn’t known Childe so well. Slow and steady never lasted long with him. 

His kisses were a whirlwind of teeth nipping at your lips and drool coating your tongue, every bit as intense as his thrusts, like he was trying to suck all the air out of your lungs and selfishly keep that for himself, too. Just like every other part of you.

Even if you didn’t say it, he was right—no one else could make you feel the things you experienced with him. No one else could ever replicate his essence; animalistic, but not purely in a chase for mindless pleasure, he was far too passionate for that. It was a chase for you, a perfect balance of primal and emotional craving that only you could provide him.

Your head was spinning by the time you forced him to break the kiss, drunk on all the moans he’d emptied into your mouth that still managed to be so loud despite your lips muffling them. Childe didn’t miss a beat before diving back into you, pressing sloppy kisses to the corner of your mouth, licking a messy stripe down your jaw, and latching on to your neck. The sensation of his canines pricking your skin made your body jolt in a different kind of way—bringing you back to your senses.

“No,” you warned him. “No biting. Bad boy.”

His hips stuttered, a wrench thrown into his frantic pattern of thrusts as he was denied by you yet again. It was cruel, really, for you to expect him to anchor himself long enough to form a response. He was so far gone, already, only able to peer up at you with wide, pitiful eyes.

“H-huh? But…please,” he resorted to begging right away. “Please, please, please. ‘S not fair. Everything’s faded, there’s no—ngh—!” He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing his hips to a stop long enough to gather his words. “All my marks are gone. P-please, need to make new ones. Need everyone to know you’re mine.”

His teeth dragged helplessly over your flesh, threatening to sink right back in at any moment. Your mind raced. Marks were far more tangible than an unwanted memory that you could banish to the depths of your conscience. Marks left evidence of your mistakes, taunting you with your own body each time you caught sight of your reflection. The marks you’d left on Childe were exactly what had landed you in this situation in the first place.

“No, puppy. Do I need to muzzle you?” 

He whined low in his throat, already beginning to grind into you again, pressing his cock against the ridges of your walls in a way that was so dizzying it made rational thought an impossible feat.

“If I don’t…” he panted. “Someone might t-try something with you and I’ll just have to get rid of them instead. You don’t want that, right? Right?” 

His words made you stiffen all over again, an ice-cold, brutal dose of reality crashing back over you like a crack had formed in your walls and allowed some of the raging blizzard outside to seep through. In your alarm, you squeezed around his dick even tighter than before, making him collapse into you with an angelic sigh that was so wildly detached from what he’d just said, it was almost comical.

“Or…is that what you want?” he mused, drawing playful patterns against your skin with his lips. “Want me to—ah—prove myself to you, yeah? I’ll do it, y’know. I’ll do anything for you.”

You said nothing, simply tilting your jaw back and pushing his head into the crook of your neck to grant him permission. With a grateful hum, Childe parted his lips, latching on to the patch of skin right below your jaw and suckling like his life depended on it. There was no doubt in your mind that he’d deliberately chosen a spot high up so it’d be difficult for you to cover with your clothing. He gradually began rocking his hips into you once more, picking up the delicious buildup of pressure in your stomach exactly where it left off. 

It made you feel a tinge of disgust with yourself—wanting nothing more to be free of this man one second, then shamelessly using his battered body for your indulgence the next. But just like everything else surrounding Tartaglia, there was no single, clear answer to your feelings towards him, there was nothing black and white about it.

You didn’t have time to brood over it for long, as the slew of sensations overtaking your body quickly consumed your thoughts again. The combination of his teeth devouring your neck and his length pumping a delicious friction inside of you was nothing short of addictive. It drew all your focus back to him at once, like he’d sensed that your attention had slipped off of him for a minute and greedily tried to snatch it back.

Not satisfied with just one lovebite, he quickly moved on to the base of your throat to create another. More, more, more, he always wanted more. His canines sank into your skin deep enough to make your back arch, rolling his cockhead against the roof of your walls and dribbling a pool of saliva onto your neck as his mouth fell open in a groan. Every sharp prick of his teeth was accompanied by a soothing lick over the damaged area afterwards, as if to apologize for being unable to control himself. 

“Crazy, crazy, crazy,” he babbled against your shoulder. “You make me s-so fucking crazy.”

“I don’t make you anything.” It was hard to sound as stern as you wanted to when your voice was so full of lust. “You’re like this all by yourself. A dumb dog that only knows how to fuck.”

A high-pitched whine met your ears at that, hands grasping your hips to pull you impossibly closer to him, plunging his length into the deepest parts of you. Your whole body jolted with pleasure, thighs wrapping around him and ankles locking behind his waist to trap him close to you. Childe finally pulled away from the crook of your neck, utterly lovestruck as he studied the array of marks he’d left all over your neck and shoulders.

“Did that feel good?” As expected, he’d caught on to your reaction immediately, even when you’d thought he was too busy making a meal of your throat to notice. “Am I—hah—making you feel good? Please, t-tell me ‘m doing well for you. Just wanna be a good boy.”

Endless praises for him danced on your tongue, yearning to be set free. The closer your orgasm drew, the harder it became to restrain them.

“Please.” He repeated the motion, and its effects hit you twice as strong this time, twisting the coil in your stomach so tight it was unbearable.

You relented. The ways he’d use himself for your pleasure were frighteningly easy to get hooked on, but that alone had never been the reason you let Childe back in, time and time again. It was the look of pure, unbridled need in his eyes, more irresistible than anything his body could make you feel and more honest than anything that could come out of his mouth. Raw, innocent love. You knew better than to believe most of the lies he fed you, but you would never be able to deny the fact that he loved you.

“It’s good, baby. You fill me up so well.” You appeased him at last, sickeningly sweet, reaching up to pet his head for good measure. “Keep it up, okay?”

His head fell into your chest, all the power of his arm muscles effectively rendered useless as they crumbled under his weight upon hearing a few simple words of approval from you. The sounds he let out eclipsed yours in volume as his hips pistoned inside of you, hellbent on bringing you to your climax. He breathed in your scent as he nestled his face between your breasts, pressing feverish kisses into the soft flesh and sucking fresh marks wherever he could. It came slurred and incoherent at first, but eventually, amidst the creaking of your bed and the smacks of skin, you realized he was saying something. Or rather, repeating something.

“M-mine—ngh. Mine, mine, mine,” he chanted. The closer you listened, the less they sounded like possessive growls and more like desperate whimpers, pleading for it to be true. For you to agree, to let him know that you craved him just as carnally as he craved you.

His hands slid down from your breasts to grip your thighs where they were wrapped around his waist, pawing needily at them in a thinly-veiled desire to push your legs back and bury his cock as far into your heat as your bodies would allow. However deep he was inside of you, he needed to be deeper, he needed to reach parts of you that no one else but him could ever touch. The only thing stopping his insatiable greed was the remaining few shreds of his sanity, telling him to control himself, to be good for you, to show you that he deserved to be yours. 

You could practically hear the pleas on his tongue without him having to speak a word. 

Not enough. More, more, more. Need you more.

“You’re such a greedy puppy, y’know that?” you clicked your tongue. Using your legs’ hold around his waist, you raised your lower half off the mattress just enough to press fully against his pelvic bone, granting his wish and pushing his dick further inside you. Childe keened your name, his brain short circuiting for a few moments before he remembered to resume his thrusts, slipping his hands under your back to help support you.

“Th-thank you, thank you,” he stammered. “Fuck, can’t get enough. Wanna stay like this forever.”

Coming from him, you knew it wasn’t an exaggeration in the slightest. The new angle was dangerously electrifying with how it allowed him to roll his tip perfectly into your sweet spot every time he sank into you. It wasn’t long before that familiar feeling in your core reached its limit, coiling tighter and tighter until it snapped all at once. You sucked in a sharp breath, thighs squeezing around his hips so fiercely that it became difficult for him to move. Still, completely lost in you, Childe continued grinding diligently, making each wave of your climax all the more intense as his length didn’t falter its strokes once.

His eyes snapped open as he processed your walls clenched wildly around him, darting down to study the spot where he was thrusting into you. You could see the moment it clicked in his head as he noticed the fresh juices dripping from your slit and coating his cock, his entire face lighting up with a giddy grin.

“Did you—hah—cum?” he asked breathlessly. “You came, right? I made you feel good, right?” He lowered his head again, nuzzling his sweaty face against yours in ecstasy.

The aftereffects of your high were still in full swing, a light, floating sensation replacing the complicated web of emotions you’d been working fruitlessly to detangle up until now. Overcome with bliss, you finally stopped trying to fight back the affection banging at the confines of your heart, begging to be set free and reach him.

“Mm. Good boy, Ajax,” you murmured at last, pressing an encouraging kiss to his forehead. “You did so well for me, baby. My good boy.”

The final thread in Childe’s brain snapped. A violent shudder rippled through his whole body, hips bucking forward reflexively as the words he’d been driving himself mad to hear finally graced his ears. 

“O-oh, God,” he choked out, nails clawing pitifully at your back. “Again—ngh—please, say it again.”

All the added slickness from your climax allowed his cock to slide in and out of you even faster than before, and given how manic he was, the force of his thrusts quickly had your sensitive insides burning.

“You’re my good boy, Ajax.” It was a challenge to keep your voice from shaking when he was rutting into you with reckless abandon, no longer able to restrain himself. “My one and only. You make me feel so good.”

He suckled at your collarbone with a sweet, high-pitched whine that completely juxtaposed his intense movements, hands grabbing and squeezing at your flesh erratically, just trying to have as much of his skin in contact with yours as possible. 

“I l-love you. Love you, love you, love you.”

For once, you were grateful for his mindless babbling, because it left no space for you to have to say anything in return. Maybe, in the very back of Childe’s fucked out mind, he was thinking the same thing. If he kept repeating the words over and over himself, he wouldn’t have to face the silence that followed when you didn’t return his declarations of love.

“Love you s’ much—ah! ‘M gonna lose it.” His dick pulsed inside of you, giving you a warning of its own. “Can I, please? Wanna c-cum inside, fill you up. Want you to always be full of me.”

Despite already reaching your own peak, his pleas made your toes curl all over again. It was so tempting to deny him, just to hear him grovel for you a bit more, but your walls were already overstimulated from the nonstop, merciless pace he’d taken on after you’d climaxed; you weren’t sure how much more you could take, either. Grabbing a fistful of his hair, you clenched tightly around him, adding a mind-numbing pressure to his every stroke.

“You can let go, baby,” you encouraged. “Cum for me like a good boy.”

That was all it took for Childe to fall apart. Pushing his cock as deep inside of you as he could, his high crashed over him in an all-consuming tidal wave. You could feel his stomach flexing rapidly against your clit, broken cries and curses falling from his mouth as ripple after ripple of pleasure passed through him. Spurts of his release coated your walls with each one. Even after cumming once already, there was still so much of his seed spilling inside of you, hot and thick enough for you to feel as it filled you up. He never gave you anything less than his all, and this was no exception.

As the peak of his climax began to fade, so did his string of moans, quieting down into weak whimpers until he was left panting above you, shoulders rising and falling in exhaustion. He swallowed down the saliva that had pooled in his mouth, then parted his lips to say something. But all that came out was a giggle; boyish, cute, and utterly infectious. Coupled with how innocent his eyes looked, blown-out wide so that the black eclipsed the blue, you felt yourself melt a little.

Childe at last removed his hands from under your back, still trying to catch his breath as he slumped his body weight on top of you like a blanket. You huffed at the impact, but your arms slipped their way naturally around him nonetheless. He hadn’t pulled a single inch out of you, even after readjusting his position, and as he nestled his head into the pillow of your chest, you could guess why.

“Can we stay like this a bit?” he mumbled, as close to shy as he ever got around you. “Want you to remember my shape inside you. Wanna remember how you feel around me when I’m gone.”

Reminded once again of his upcoming departure, you couldn’t have rejected him even if you’d wanted to. With a murmur of agreement, you reached up to play with his hair, curling your index finger around the unruly blond streak that stuck out in his bangs. 

It was moments like these where the reality of what had just happened should’ve shattered your peace, extinguishing the afterglow with dread and regret—but that was never the case. Seeing him so docile in your arms, drowsy from pushing himself to the limit and clinging to you to stay grounded, only added to your bliss. If you could just contain him like this, keep him secure and satiated so that none of his poison could seep out and harm anyone else, then that was enough for you.

He blinked his eyes open to watch you as you played gently with locks of his dampened hair, a dreamy, lopsided smile plastered to his face. His gaze flickered lower down, admiring the utter chaos he’d unleashed on your body—neck, chest, and shoulders all littered with deep, blossoming lovebites and very clear indents of his teeth. A thought seemed to occur to him, because suddenly he didn’t look quite so pleased with himself.

“You didn’t leave any on me,” he realized with a pout. “Mine are fading too, y’know. I can barely see them anymore.”

He used some of his waning strength to tilt his head back as proof, and you tried not to grimace. It had been a very intentional decision on your part, even if the sight of his bared neck, ripe for the taking, had been tempting enough to make your mouth water as he’d rutted into you. You’d forced yourself to keep your mouth off of him, in the feeble hope that he wouldn’t be able to use it against you the next time you found him sitting at your doorstep.

“I hate it,” he added with a grumble. “I hate it when there’s no trace of you on my body. Doesn’t feel right.”

“You have my ring, don’t you?” In an attempt to soothe him before he could get riled up again, you cradled his face with both hands, squeezing his cheeks together in a way that made him look so harmless it was almost cruel. He considered what you’d said for a moment, his thumb coming to rub subconsciously over the silver band with a fond expression. Still, you could tell you hadn’t entirely swayed him.

“Mmm, but I want more. I’m greedy, right?” he imitated your words with a childish lilt. “So, you can just give me new ones tomorrow when we wake up.”

You pressed your lips together. There it was—the beginnings of a crack forming in the illusion, exposing it in all its fragility. “Ajax,” you said lightly. “I have to be up early, remember?”

“Do you?”

He tilted his head, chin still perched on your chest. It was an unassuming gesture, cute even, but it made your skin crawl with unease. Of course. He’d seen through your bluff from the very beginning—he of all people would be acutely aware of what your schedule looked like the next day, after all. It was pointless to even consider lying to him about it. 

Though he’d more or less just announced that he knew you were deceiving him, he didn’t look upset in the slightest. Instead, he shifted his body so that he could lay on his side, pulling you along with him and letting out a soft grunt as his length rolled against your insides in the process.

“Let me sing you to sleep then, like I promised.”

Naturally, like you, he drifts toward the door. You listen as he walks up to it, feet falling short right behind your back. You tuck into yourself a little tighter, thighs clenching together like he might hear how wet this had made you. The soft shifting of fabric indicated his leaning forward, peering in like a predator sniffing out his prey. The distinct clinking of his metal claws pushes against the door, trying and failing miserably to get it to budge.

You nearly fail to keep quiet, but clamp a hand over your mouth to stop any sounds from falling out. He breathes heavily, each sound a heave of excitement. You can only imagine the wild look in his eyes as he searches for you in this tiny little room he cannot break into. It almost makes you want to taunt him, but you are smarter than that, staying quiet and hiding like good prey should.

Finally, agonizingly slowly, he pulls back with a sigh. Having decided that the room was no longer worth his time. You strain to listen as he walks away, hearing him check a few other places before finally exiting to the room adjacent to this one again. You recall that one, it has two floors, but the access to the second floor is only through this hall – the stairs had long since crumbled. It was perfect, you could get to the second floor easily and remain hidden while keeping tabs on him.

You wait a few moments longer, allowing him time to get comfortable in the next room before making your risky move. Most would not want to stay in the same room as the person hunting them, but that is exactly why you are. Remaining just out of his reach, ensuring you had a visual upper hand was better than cowering like a child. You crawl out of your hiding space, deftly climbing the stairs to the second floor and slipping into the next room through an open door, quiet as a mouse.

Mydei is still there, you hear him just below you. You keep your back pressed to the wall and body low to be safe, unwilling to be seen by him. Your legs tremble when he grumbles something under his breath, the thick annoyance in his tone having your body begging for him already. You ignore the way they shake, moving silently as he moves, keeping your hunter just beneath you. You wonder what he is thinking, what he plans on doing to you when he catches you. Will he take you hard and fast, or will he torture you slow and painful? Is he as excited as you are? The questions swirl in your mind to a dizzying degree.

You take a sharp breath when you hear him leave into the next room. Unlike this one, there is no way to get to it, which means you will have to either run the other way or follow him and risk being caught. You toss your options back and forth in your head, debating on which would be the smartest, and deciding that perhaps waiting here for a moment would be the right choice. He surely wouldn’t return so quickly, so it would be alright to stay here for just a moment.

Yet the door adjacent to the one he exits from opens, and you see him for the first time. He is wearing his usual uniform, armor, and all. The only difference to him is how narrow his eyes are, sternly focused on the hunt. On finding you. And find you they do, scanning the area above him and blowing wide as they zero in on you. You watch his expression shift from calm determination to wild delight, the lion has found his prey.

Like a monster, he turns and sprints toward the next room, sure to follow you up here where you have effectively cornered yourself for him. Adrenaline curls around your limbs, pooling more heat into your core, and urging you to run. You listen, though you have nowhere to go, only furthering yourself along the wall until you are opposite of where Mydei burst through.

His shoulders are drawn back, hands clenching excitedly at his sides as he rakes his eyes over every inch of exposed skin you offer him. Confidence drips off him, rolling across the room in waves and making you feel smaller than you already are, cowering into the corner. Your brain screams at you to do something, anything to get away from his rapid approach. 

You agree with it, despite how much you want to freeze, your flight kicks in instead. In an instant, you are jumping forward and down to the floor below you. You roll, tumbling a few times ungracefully, your body screaming at the sting. You ignore its cries, turning to look back at Mydei who looks almost terrified until you stand up and bolt through the doors he’d come through.

A wicked laugh tears through the ruins, but you do not allow yourself to stop, the real hunt has begun. Tearing through door after door, corridor after corridor as his clanking footsteps slam quickly behind you. You’re so deep in you do not know where you are, but you continue onward, ignoring the burn of your lungs. Your mind cannot keep up with your surroundings as you run, too much information to keep up with too fast. 

You stumble around, over fallen rubble, cracks in the floor, most anything you cannot immediately process you trip over. Yet, you never fall, adrenaline keeping you upright and running even when your motor skills fail you. Mydei only gets closer with each failure of your feet, until he is practically on your tail. Faster and stronger than you, smarter too without the terror in his veins keeping him anxious.

You come across a large open room, covered in debris from the fall of the kingdom. Loose pillars stand around you, and your only exit is the door that you came through. There is no immediate escape as Mydei backs you into yet another corner, eyes blown wide in anticipation. You think he may tear your throat out like a real predator the closer he comes to you. You are smaller, weaker, and more exhausted than he is. This feels like the end, and he anticipates it to be as he saunters up to you with all the calm of a seasoned warrior.

You never had a chance to truly win this, nor did you really want to. The fear feeds into the heat gathering between your legs, and you want nothing more than for him to take you here and now. That would ruin the fun of it, though, giving up so easily. So, you take into account the one thing you have that Mydei doesn’t. As he reaches out to you, you duck beneath his arms, small stature making it easy to avoid him. No matter how fast his reaction time is, you are just small enough for his second swipe to miss. 

Scrambling over to one of the unstable pillars, you manage to use enough force to get it to tumble to the ground just as Mydei charges forward. He stumbles back for only a moment, but it’s long enough for you to get across the room and through the door again. You have all the means of escaping, and you were so close, yet halfway through the next room you stumble, and this time you cannot correct yourself. Your body crashed to the ground harshly, skidding across the floor. You cry out, scrambling to get up, but it is too late. Mydei was already there, hauling you up by your arm and dragging you alongside him to a nearby couch.

You are thrown against the plush cushions and then forced to look up at Mydei as a clawed hand grabs your face tightly. His talons dig into the soft flesh of your cheeks as he drags your eyes to his. You grip at his metal-wrapped hand, squeezing uselessly at the armor like it might free you through desperation alone. He smirks at the pathetic attempt, satisfied with the mess you have become.

“I have won,” he declares simply, “behave unless you enjoy being punished.”

You heave, out of breath, and aching in more ways than one. Mydei does not repeat his previous mistake, of caging you against the back of the couch with his free hand. It takes no effort for him to nudge your legs open, grinning like a beast when your pussy shimmers up at him. You are trembling under his gaze, feeling truly overpowered by him. He was stronger, more physically capable, more intelligent in the ways of the hunt, and he still held the dignity of being fully clothed.

You cannot physically fight him off when he uses the hand holding your face to lay you down on the couch. His body cages yours beneath him, golden eyes tearing a path across all his favorite parts of you. Unabashedly taking in the spoils of his hunt, ignoring the way your legs weakly attempt to push him away from you. So lost in his ogling, he nearly misses the elbow you throw at his head, a last resort to prolong the fight. It misses his temple as he deflects it, instead catching his jaw hard enough to make him blink in surprise.

You almost feel proud to catch the ever-sturdy Mydei off guard, a rare feat from most anyone. You do not get to revel in it, because as soon as you smirk his free hand is shoving its way between your legs, two fingers curling inside you cruelly. He does not bother preparing you in any way, not that he needed to with how well the adrenaline had done its job. Still, the stretch from empty to this stung, drawing a long hiss out between your lips. You are silently thankful that he chose only to wear one gauntlet, likely for this exact reason.

He glares down at you, forcing your eyes back to him with a squeeze against your tender flesh. You fear the golden gauntlets may tear into your skin and scar you. The idea secretly excites you, but you do not voice that. You refuse to voice anything, unwilling to give in yet, despite the futility of fighting.

“Fighting me is useless, you will never win against me. Give up, lest I use more force to make you.” He commands, and you clench around his fingers, excited at the idea of punishment.

It does not amuse Mydei, though, as he frowns at you in some kind of annoyance. The fingers that had been pistoning in you suddenly switch up their movements, instead rolling them against the top of your walls, pressing right into your g-spot. With much effort, you bite your tongue and refuse him any noise other than the choked moan when he initially begins. He watches you with those glowing eyes, hypnotizing you into giving him what he wants, but you remain steadfast.

No matter how hard he presses, how fast he goes, you remain silent. It takes all that you have, but you refuse him the satisfaction of having caught you. He has won the hunt, but you refuse to allow the game to end with such ease. So, even with the coil building quickly in your stomach, you fight him tooth and nail. Fingers gripping the cushions until your knuckles are white, toes curling up until your feet hurt, every exertion is spent on keeping yourself from making noise.

You don’t account for the fact that he will stop so abruptly though, a confused noise bubbling past your mouth when he removes his fingers from you entirely. You stare at him in confusion, even more so when he releases your face. You swallow hard, unsure if he intended to leave you here alone, naked and needy as he stands. He does not walk away, instead, he pulls you up by your hair and shoves you down to your knees.

He keeps a fistful of your hair in his hand as he sits, spreading his legs out and pulling you between them. Thrown off your game, you place your hands on his thighs, staring hard at the lump in his pants. Your eyes find him, and he raises an eyebrow at you, telling you silently to quit playing stupid. Still shaking from your earlier adrenaline rush, you fumble with his pants for a moment, shoving the fabric aside just enough that he springs free. His angry red tip lands right in front of your lips, inviting you to have the taste you’re dying for.

You don’t do it though, staring blankly at his member, entranced by it. Your fingers tap along his armor in anticipation, clinking dully and ringing in your skull. If you sucked him off obediently, you lose. Yet, the sight of his pretty swollen cock, dripping precum down the shaft was wavering your resolve. 

All it takes to crack you completely is a shove of your head, the tip pressing into your cheek as he did. A low growl sounds from his throat, “Suck.”

You don’t have to be told twice after that, opening up and taking him in. He’s merciful enough to let you go at your own pace, but he urges you to swallow all you can as quickly as possible. Your eyes tear up as he brushes the back of your throat, thankful you don’t gag, and then swallowing hesitantly. He sighs when you do, spreading himself out just a little more so you lean forward and take just a little more down your throat.

What you cannot fit, you wrap your hands around, giving a careful few strokes to test. Then, with as much courage as your mind can muster, you start bobbing your head at a slow pace. Each move has you slobbering around him, unable to properly swallow him down. Your spit coats his cock, making the movement easier as you spread it with your hands. Each time his tip touches your throat, your eyes water a little more.

Still, you put your all into swallowing him up. Slowly but surely, he was breaking you down into the good little prey you were. The fight you had in you earlier was all but extinguished by the taste of him. Going from hissing and fighting to cooing and cuddling in no time, completely pacified by the weight of him on your tongue. 

He sighs, relaxing into the cushions and pulling you along carefully by the hair. You gaze up at him, lashes dotted with sparkling tears. He groans at the sight, thumb caressing your forehead with a tenderness he’d been lacking most of the night. Reminding you that he was still your Mydei, even now. The wet slopping of your mouth on him fills the ruins, sending heat through you again. It takes a lot in you to resist the urge to reach between your legs.

You hear him sigh again, readjusting the grip he had on your head. You don’t think much of it initially, just him getting more settled, but you feel him push a little harder each time you go down. You think maybe he’s just being playful, but he keeps going, inching more and more of him down your throat until your hands no longer have room on his shaft. 

His cock throbs between your lips as you struggle to keep up with the faster pace, breaths coming in short uneven blows out your nose. He gives one final push, pressing your nose flush against his skin, hair tickling you. He holds you there, and all you can do is swallow around him. You feel him twitch, your only warning before hot cum pours down your throat. Obediently, you do your best to gargle it down, but you can’t stop it from pouring down the sides of your chin along with your tears.

When he pulls out, you gasp for air, coughing harshly at the invasion of your throat. He holds your face as you do so, swiping the cum off your chin as you catch your breath. Then, he presses it into your mouth. You lick it up, swallowing every last drop he has to offer, then show him proudly. Your reward is him pulling you upward and licking at the salty tracks your tears have left on your face. It makes you moan wantonly, the sound bouncing around the ruins and reverbing right back into Mydei’s dick.

“Stand,” he commands, and you do so without hesitation.

Legs aching and shaky, you support yourself on his shoulder. His eyes roam your figure hungrily, waiting for his final meal to be served like the king he is. They catch on your swollen pussy, leaning forward to kiss your lower lips with a reverence that did not match his earlier actions. He gets his fill, making you stumble in place, supported by his clawed hand digging into your hip. Sure to leave bruises deep into your skin.

He pulls away far too soon for your liking, a thin sheen of you on his lips as he smirks up at you. You bite your lip at the sight, fingers digging into his shoulder as if to hold yourself back. He licks his lips, sure to get all he can of you on his tongue. What he misses, he uses the same thumb that cleaned you of him to gather your essence and push it past your lips. He urges you to taste yourself, like it was as sweet as the pomegranates he loves so much.

You swirl your tongue around the finger, moaning to yourself. There is still the lingering of him, mixing with your own juices, leaving you lightheaded. He pushes down on your tongue, thumb opening your jaw and watching the muscle struggle to still against his hold. He smiles, dragging it down and pulling your lip back on the way down until finally he leaves your mouth alone. Hand falling to your side.

“Sit,” he commands once more, “until you have all of me inside you. Do you understand?”

You nod, placing your knees on either side of him. You align him with your entrance, rubbing your slick along the tip in hopes that it will help with the squeeze. Mydei taps his fingers along your hip impatiently, a warning that he will get involved if you do not listen. With a deep breath, you press his tip inside you. The stretch is instant, stinging as your walls struggle to take his girth within them.

The coating of slick and spit does nothing to help, only making the slide easy, not easing the pain in the slightest. Still, you push onward for fear of Mydei forcing you to take him all at once. Inch after inch, your walls conform and flutter around him, leaving an imprint in your stomach by the time he is fully sheathed inside you. The sting slipped away into a dull ache, begging you to nullify it with pleasure.

Myedi observes you the whole time, doing nothing to step in and help, only drinking you up with his bright golden eyes. They glance down at the bulge in your stomach a few times, fingers lightly tracing over it, raising goosebumps around the sensitive area. You swallow, watching with rapt attention, trying your best not to wiggle too much from feeling him inside and out. When he presses down harder, both of you hiss, clenching around him.

He taps your cheek lightly with his talons, and you gaze upon him in a lust-filled daze. He almost looks sweet with how he gazes upon you. The love for you burns beneath the lust, taking your breath away when he smirks. 

“No hiding your voice,” he says sternly, “Do you understand me?”

A test to make sure you were still coherent, you nod adamantly. Moan a lot, you could understand that command easily. Anything else might be a little difficult, luckily this is all he asks of you. “Yes.”

He hums, tugging your hips forward a little, “Good.”

Never one for hesitation, he immediately moves you against him. A brutal pace to begin it all, guiding you along his shaft with his hands. Your hips meet his in succession, wetly slapping against one another. You have to use his shoulders to steady yourself against him, unable to do anything other than that as he uses you to his contentment.

You moan out with each thrust, crying your burning desire out in the ruins. Your voice rang around, reminding you of just how pathetic you were right now. Being split apart on his cock, babbling like an idiot, begging for more of him. You fall forward at some point, forehead pressed to his sweaty chest, deepening the thrusts unintentionally.

You watch as his cockhead presses up into your stomach repeatedly, whining at the sight. Your fingers come to press into the lump, crying out again when it tightens you even further. Mydei isn’t left unaffected either, groaning and tightening his hold on your hips, leveraging himself off them as he begins to thrust up into you instead. Your body goes limp into him, unable to maintain a sitting position with him slamming into you so relentlessly.

You can feel yourself getting closer and closer to orgasm, walls fluttering uncontrollably around his length. From the way he was twitching around you, you knew he wasn’t far behind either. You were sobbing against him now, your only comfort was the weight of his hands on your hips. He fucked you so well that you couldn’t even think, gasping for air with each upward thrust. 

The coil in your stomach has wound itself so tightly that it is making you lightheaded, you think the next thrust will snap it, but it keeps tightening. Mydei’s cock throbs inside you, and that is what you in, body jolting as your orgasm crashes into you. Mydei presses you close to him, thrusting upwards a few more times before you feel his load empty into you.

Warm kisses press against the crown of your head, strong arms keeping you from thrashing about from pleasure. You sob his name into his skin, shaking through your orgasm. He hushes you, soothing you with gentle strokes up and down your back, until you slowly level out. You are left breathing softly against his chest, curling against him for more warmth as the chill of the room settles over you.

He sighs deeply, brushing hair behind your ear, peering at your tear-stained face with something like guilt. Even after all that, he was still worried he’d taken it too far, despite this being your idea in the first place. He was too sweet for his own good sometimes. You smile tiredly up at him, stroking his cheek with a thumb. His own taloned one trace down the tear tracks, frowning further.

“Are you alright?” He asks quietly.

You nod, “Mhm. I know our safeword, I would’ve used it if it was too much.”

He hesitates, then settles on kissing your head again, “Alright.”

You stay like that for a little while longer, neither of you wanting to make the trip back to Okhema just yet. It was peaceful and quiet here, just the two of you alone and at peace. Still, you had to go back at some point, so you carefully peel yourself from Mydei sighing when you feel globs of his cum roll down your thighs.

You don’t need to look at him to know he’s staring, the intensity of his gaze following the sight with unabashed enjoyment. You wipe it up on your hand and leave it on the couch. Perhaps historians will overanalyze the stain at some point in the distant future. 

Mydei stands after you, shrugging off the rich red fabrics and bringing them up around your freezing body. It does little to keep you warm, but it keeps you covered well enough that you can walk through Okhema without getting weird stares from people. He kisses your forehead again when he finishes, gathering you up in his arms.

You frown disapprovingly at him, “I can walk, you know?”

“I don’t want you to,” he states simply, leaving no room for argument.

You huff, mildly exasperated. You should’ve known. “Jing Yuan,”  

Jing Yuan holds you firmer, tucking you into his side. You look up at him. His expression is almost hard to read. Or at least, it’s not on you see on him often. Golden eyes wet with sincerity, round and soft - almost begging. He places his lips against the crown of your head to placate you. “Are you so determined to leave me?”  

You stare at him in disbelief. “You’re especially melodramatic today,”  

Jing Yuan laughs. “Perhaps. I’ve missed you a great deal,”  

You soften. “You make it sound as if I’ve been more absent than usual.”  

“I suppose you haven’t,” Jing Yuan says thoughtfully. “How strange it is. I’ve been alive this long, yet no time passes so slow as when we are parted.”  

You feel heat creep up your neck at the romantics. Not a tactic to keep you here, though you prefer to think of it that way. If you read too much into the sincerity, you’re sure your face will overheat from embarrassment.  “Enough with that,”  

“Stay,”  He insists.  

“And do what?” You tease, voice light. “I know how fond you are of doing nothing but I think this time would be better spent for me elsewhere,”  

“If you’re looking to get your heart racing, I can think of a few alternative methods. Consider it compromise,” Jing Yuan says. Salacious. Playful in the way he only ever is with you. You scoff at him.  

“Was that your real intention?” You ask, almost incredulous.  Jing Yuan smiles airily, though he does not answer your question. He replies with his touch instead.  

A big hand settles on your hip as you lay on your side, smoothing along the curve of your waist before slowly making their way underneath your shirt. He settles them on the small of your back and slides them all the way up to the nape of your neck in a single go. You tilt your head up to look at him as his hand cups the back of your neck. The intimate touch steals the breath from your lungs. It’s easy to concede when his touch reads so obviously wanting of your company. Jing Yuan stares down at you amused. Long lashes resting on his cheek as you feel his thumb trace along the skin.  

His eyes demonstrate his desire clearly from where they peer at you. You feel your skin grow warm, looking away from him as if to discourage it. Jing Yuan only chuckles under his breath, amused at your will to fight him on it. With one swift movement, he shifts from his side onto his back - and drags your form along with him. You make an indignant sound as you rest your full weight onto him. Bodies pressed together, you rest your chin on his chest with furrowed brows. Jing Yuan wraps his arms around your middle and holds you to him.  

You open your mouth to protest but Jing Yuan does not give you the chance. He kisses you. Open mouthed, tongue slipping against yours in the way that makes you melt. You feel something hard and invasive pushing against you as you lay ontop of him - but Jing Yuan makes no move to relieve or pleasure himself. As if it doesn’t concern him at all.  

You pull away from him, knowingly. A sixth sense for his whims you’ve come to sharpen in your time as both solidier and wife. “You want something. What is it?”  

Jing Yuan almost looks guilty. You’re sure if he was capable of such a feeling, it’d be that way. He tilts his head, his hands coming up to hold your ass. You can feel him squeeze and somehow - some part of you already knows what he’s after. You sigh.  

“May I at bathe  first?”  

“You underestimate my appetite. I’d prefer not to waste any time,” Jing Yuan says plainly. You frown. “Come. Sit,”  

You give him a flat look as his hands reach into the waistband of your bottoms, sliding them off. You sit up on your knees, straddling his waist after you wiggle to take them off. Jing Yuan tosses them to one side of the room aimlessly. You hit his chest as he laughs. Any combative words or even teasing die as you look down at him again. His hand on your thigh, thumb tracing patterns into the skin. The look in his eyes so hungry, so voracious. You frown and hasten yourself, feeling flush. Arousal makes your skin sheen with sweat.  

Jing Yuan lays back and pushes you forward until you’re just nearly straddling his face. You’re sat back with your knees on either side of his head. He gives you look from between your legs, delighted to see you in this state. You tug at his hair and his eyes merely flutter. It would almost make you irritable, if it didn’t send heat pouring through your core. 

It’s his want for you, so obviously and so continuously, that leaves you so flustered no matter how long you’ve been together. You’ve been under his command for years. Loved him for most of that time, only to find out it was reciprocated. So long had he been nothing but a distant object of your affection and so long had you respected him that desiring for him filled you with shame and grief. You would not dreamed of him returning your feelings in all your life.  

Your honorable General becoming your kind, warm-hearted lover feels like something out of the girlish novels they used to read in the barracks. Yet, here he is. Always making it seem like his want for you is the most sensible thing in the world. What can you do but push back on it? 

You shake out of your thighs as he kisses your knee. Jing Yuan once again urges you forward until your pussy hovers just above his mouth. He pushes your panties to one side in a practiced motion - pressing a warm kiss to your clit before he takes his tongue through your folds and eats.  

You’re not under the impression this is what he was after from the start. The sentiment of missing you, of not wanting to part with you frustratingly sincere. You know your husband well enough to know he’s doing this on a whim. Once the mood strikes him, however, it’s hard for him to be swayed from wanting anything else. An unselfish man, a clever and thoughtful lover - laying between your legs and making love to your cunt with his mouth is the sort of thing he does with an obstinacy undeserving. The kind that makes your chest ache since its so solely for you. Should it be showing his appreciation, or asking for your forgiveness, or wanting to wake you with something pleasant.  

He’ll find any reason at all to lay here like this for hours. Strong hands grip onto your thighs and force your weight down until you’re seated completely on his face. His fingers grip, dimpling into the fat as his nose bumps against your clit.  

Jing Yuan laps at you open mouthed. A shattered groan escaping him as the taste and scent of your wet heat suffocates his senses. Relentless and impatient with a tempered ruthlessness  - the sort of frustrating persistence that feels intrinsic to him. Second nature to a creature atop of the food chain, always reserving energy for when it’s next meal strikes and hunting it into exhaustion.  

Your thighs tremble as Jing Yuans tongue slips through the slick folds of your pussy, tongue lapping against fluttering hole before settling at the tender bundle of nerves desperate for attention. Pleasure strikes you like a match as Jing Yuan finds an easy pace. He knows your body like the back of his hand, knows all the places that need to be touched to bring you to your climax quickest—knows exactly how to tease them to keep you over the edge. 

You find the thoughts of protest and discontent from your missed morning routine disappear increasingly as something hot begins to coil in the lowest pit of your belly. Your hands find themselves rooting in soft grey locks of hair, threaded between each finger as your body chases the subconscious pleasure out.  

Morning light filters through the windows, warming already hot skin as the feeling ricochets through your nerves. Jing Yuan hums appreciatively as your hips rut against his mouth in impatient ask - not bothering to slow you down or control the pace. He lets you use him as a vessel. Acts obedient to your desires, sucking and licking diligently. Focused on nothing but your body, his own cock surely neglected.  

Held onto you with both hands and not letting go, you find yourself meeting his own pace. You work in perfect tandem. Through a cloud of hazy thoughts, tension melting through your limbs  - an idle and distant part of your brain considers the reversal of roles. Solider and General, you’ve accustomed yourself to be at the mercy and disposal of the man you so respect. As wife and husband though, Jing Yuan submits himself to you without a modicum of shame. As if this change is natural and expected. You’re unsure if you will ever be completely adjusted to how eager he is to give you reign on him, how willing.  

At the very least, you meet him in the middle by allowing him to do what he pleases. Perhaps you’d have more in it to fuss about, if he didn’t do everything so completely in devotion.  

The familiar, creeping tension of an orgasm tenses up all the muscles of your body. Sweeping through each of your nerves, the coil inside of you wound tight begins to unravel. Slowly first, but then all at once - until your orgasm crashes into you in what feels like one go.  

You hiss, back arching and hands gripping tight as you fuck Jing Yuans face unknowingly - using him to ride out your  high while he moans against you blissful and contented. Your whole body locks up from the shock until the first waves pass, leaving you trembling. Shaking like you’ve just  been drenched in cold water.  

Your eyes flutter open, exhausted as you pull away from Jing Yuan. You feel flush as you look down at him. Red-faced with your slick running down his chin and neck, he swipes along his lip with tongue and grins— pressing a kiss to your thigh and following it with a bite.  

“See?,” He says, all too smug. “Aren’t you glad you stayed?”  

You roll your eyes at him. You are, though you keep it to yourself. “I’m not sure. I wonder if it was worth my precious time.”  

Jing Yuan grins, pleased. Reading between the lines of your return affection. A silent understanding that makes you feel melted from the inside. “ 

I’ll do my due diligence then. In making sure it was worth while.”  

Phainon exhaled a soft chuckle, voice smooth as silk as he traced lazy circles over your damp skin. “Worn out already?” His touch, so firm moments ago, had turned delicate—fingertips ghosting along your spine, pressing warmth into the lingering soreness. His other hand smoothed over your thigh, massaging away the tension he’d forced into it.

He shifted beside you, pulling you closer, his bare chest solid and warm against your back. “You take me so well,” he murmured, lips brushing the shell of your ear. His fingers drifted lower, skimming over the bruises his grip had left behind. “Should’ve been gentler.”

His tone was soft, but there was something almost pleased in the way he kissed your shoulder—like he loved seeing the evidence of himself on you. Still, he took his time now, easing you down from the high he’d dragged you to. He adjusted his position, letting you rest more fully against him, his cock still slick and heavy where it pressed against your thigh.

“Breathe,” Phainon murmured, stroking his hand through your hair. “I’ve got you.”

Your breath was still shaky, body still thrumming with the aftermath of him. Phainon held you close, his arms wrapped snug around your waist, his touch a stark contrast to the way he’d handled you just moments ago. His cock still rested heavy against your thigh, slick and warm, but he made no move to continue—just held you there, pressed against him like you belonged nowhere else.

You swallowed, voice coming out soft and tired. “You really wore me out,” you murmured, resting your hand over his where it lay against your stomach. His fingers twitched, then curled slightly, as if savoring the plushness of you beneath his palm.

A quiet chuckle rumbled in his chest. “I could tell,” Phainon murmured, his lips brushing against your shoulder. “You always try to keep up, but by the end, you just let me take what I want.” His fingers traced idle patterns over your skin, following the curves of your waist before dipping lower to your hip, where a faint bruise was already forming beneath his touch.

You huffed, shifting against him just enough to glance back at his face. “You don’t have to sound so smug about it,” you mumbled, though your voice lacked any real bite.

Phainon smirked, his grip tightening ever so slightly. “Can’t help it.” He shifted, pressing a slow, lingering kiss to your shoulder before trailing his lips along the side of your neck. “You’re just too good for me.”

You sighed, letting yourself melt against him. His hands roamed lazily, smoothing over your soft thighs, ghosting over the marks he’d left on your skin as if he was trying to memorize every inch of you. He always did this after—touching, tracing, holding you close Like he never wanted to let you go.

His touch was different now—gentler, reverent, like he was savoring you instead of taking you apart. His fingers pressed into your softness, his palm spreading over your stomach again, rubbing slow circles against the plush skin. You felt his breath against your neck, warm and steady, grounding you in the quiet intimacy of the moment.

“You okay?” he murmured, his voice softer now, the teasing edge from earlier fading into something more tender.

You sighed, relaxing further into him. “Yeah… just sore.” Your hand found his and gave it a small squeeze. “You really don’t know how to hold back, huh?”

Phainon chuckled, low and pleased. “Not when it comes to you.” He shifted slightly, pressing his lips to your temple, his other hand continuing its slow, wandering path over your thighs, your waist, anywhere he could touch. “You can take it, though. You always do.”

You scoffed, though you couldn’t fight the warmth creeping up your neck. “You say that like I have a choice.”

Phainon smirked against your skin, nipping lightly at your shoulder before soothing the spot with his tongue. “You could tell me to stop,” he murmured. “But you never do.” His hand slid lower, squeezing the soft flesh of your thigh, as if to emphasize his point.

You shivered but stayed quiet, because he was right. Instead, you turned your head just enough to press a tired kiss to his jaw. “You’re so cocky,” you muttered.

“And you love it.” His voice was warm with amusement, but his hands never stopped moving—slow, lazy, possessive.

You exhaled, shifting slightly in his grip. “You’re not gonna let me move, are you?”

“Not for a while.” He pulled you in closer, his cock still pressed against your thigh, twitching slightly despite the tenderness in his touch. “Just stay like this.” His fingers traced over your stomach again, dipping lower, but not with any urgency—just enough to feel you, to keep you close.

You sighed, letting your eyes flutter shut. “Fine… but you’re carrying me to clean up.”

Phainon laughed, pressing another kiss to your shoulder. “Deal.”

✰

－୨ৎ MYDEIMOS；

The warmth of Mydei’s palm lingered on your skin, a soft sting left behind from the gentle spanks he’d given you earlier. He hadn’t been rough—not really. Just enough to make your breath hitch, to have you shivering against him, to leave the faintest warmth on your thighs and the curve of your ass. Now, though, his touch was nothing but soothing, tracing over the spots he’d struck as if to erase them. His cum oozing out of your entrance, as a little smirk formed on his lips.

You shifted in his lap, still catching your breath, your body spent from everything he’d done to you. His cock, still slick and heavy, rested against your thigh, a quiet reminder of how thoroughly he’d ruined you. Mydei sighed, pressing his forehead against your shoulder, his arms snug around your waist.

“You okay?” His voice was softer now, his usual sharpness dulled by the haze of exhaustion and afterglow.

You hummed, your fingers drifting up to play with the ends of his hair. “Mhm… just sore.” You paused, shifting slightly, feeling the warmth of his hands smoothing over your stomach, your hips, grounding you. “You really like spanking me, don’t you?”

Mydei huffed, his breath hot against your skin. “You react too well to it.” One of his hands left your waist to cup the curve of your ass, squeezing gently before rubbing slow circles where he’d spanked you. “Besides… I never do it too hard.”

You scoffed, pressing your face into his neck. “Still stings.”

“Tch.” He clicked his tongue, but his hands never stopped moving, kneading your soft skin, tracing over every mark he’d left behind. “Want me to kiss it better?”

You huffed a laugh, wiggling slightly in his lap, feeling his cock twitch against your thigh in response. “You’re ridiculous.”

He let out a quiet grunt, but you could feel the way his grip tightened just a little, the way his lips brushed against your temple, soft despite the roughness he always carried. “You’re the ridiculous one,” he muttered, shifting you slightly so you rested more fully against him. “Can’t believe you let me do this to you.”

You exhaled, letting yourself sink into his warmth, your fingers tracing lazy patterns over his chest. “You take care of me after,” you murmured. “You always do.”

Mydei was quiet for a moment, his arms tightening around you, his touch lingering where he’d marked you. “…Of course I do,” he said, as if the idea of doing anything else was absurd. His lips brushed against your shoulder, lingering. “I’ll clean you up in a minute,” he murmured, his voice lower now, quieter. “But stay like this for a little longer.”

You sighed, pressing a tired kiss to his jaw. “Yeah. Okay.”

You felt Mydei exhale against your skin, his breath warm and steady as he held you close. His fingers dragged over your thighs, then up to your waist, smoothing over the softness of your stomach before drifting back down again. His touch was lazy now, slow, as if he wasn’t ready to let go of you just yet. You didn’t mind. Being in his arms like this—after everything—felt grounding, safe.

“You always get so soft after,” you murmured, shifting slightly in his lap. His cock twitched against your thigh at the movement, but he didn’t react beyond the slow rub of his hands over your hips.

Mydei huffed, his lips brushing against your temple. “Only for you,” he muttered. His voice was quieter now, lacking its usual bite, like he’d poured out the last of his sharp edges into you and was left with nothing but warmth.

You smiled against his skin. “Good.”

His grip tightened slightly, fingers pressing into your softness before he let out a slow breath, forcing himself to relax again. His thumbs smoothed over the faint marks he’d left on your thighs, his expression unreadable as he traced over them again and again. You could tell he was thinking about them—about how hard he’d spanked you, about whether he’d gone too far.

“I’m okay, you know,” you murmured, tilting your head to press a soft kiss to his jaw. “You didn’t hurt me.”

His eyes flicked down to you, golden and unreadable for a long moment. Then, he clicked his tongue, his fingers giving your hips a small squeeze. “You’d tell me if I did, right?”

You nodded without hesitation. “Of course.”

Mydei studied you for a moment longer before exhaling through his nose, like he was only half satisfied with that answer. Still, his grip softened again, his hands trailing over your body in slow, grounding touches. “Good.”

Silence stretched between you for a while, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. You let yourself relax against him, your body still tingling from everything he’d done to you, from the aftershocks of pleasure that still pulsed through your limbs. His cock was still there, pressed heavy against your thigh, but there was no urgency left in either of you—just warmth, just the quiet hum of shared exhaustion.

“…You like seeing the marks, don’t you?” you murmured after a while, your voice laced with amusement.

Mydei stiffened for a fraction of a second before scoffing, turning his head slightly so you couldn’t see his face. “Tch. Don’t start.”

✰

－୨ৎ AVENTURINE ；

Aventurine’s touch was slow, teasing, as he traced his fingers over the faint warmth he’d left on your thighs. He had spanked you just enough to make you shiver, just enough to leave a lingering sting that had you clenching around him, whining so sweetly for more. But now? Now he was all indulgence, all slow, soothing touches as he massaged the tender spots, rubbing circles into your skin as if he hadn’t been the one to mark you up in the first place.

His cock still rested heavy against you, still slick with everything he’d done to you, but he made no move to do anything else. He was enjoying this part—holding you close, letting his hands roam over your softness, feeling you tremble under his touch. His voice was smooth as silk when he finally spoke.

“You always get so needy after, don’t you?” he murmured, pressing his lips to your temple. “Clinging to me like you can’t get enough.” His fingers dipped lower, smoothing over your stomach before sliding back up again, appreciating every inch of you.

You huffed, shifting slightly in his lap. “You’re warm,” you muttered, your voice muffled against his chest. “And you feel nice.”

Aventurine chuckled, the sound vibrating against your skin. “I do, don’t I?” His palm smoothed over your stomach, fingers spreading out to squeeze the soft flesh there before drifting lower, rubbing gentle circles into your sore thighs. “You’re so warm too, sweetheart,” he murmured, his voice dripping with satisfaction. “So soft… you fit in my lap perfectly.”

You huffed, squirming just a little, but he only tightened his grip, keeping you snug against his chest. His cock twitched against your thigh at the movement, still slick and heavy, a quiet reminder of how thoroughly he’d taken you. He let out a slow breath, nuzzling into your neck, his lips brushing the sensitive skin there.

“You were such a good thing for me,” he murmured, his tone deep and sweet, like honey drizzling over your skin. “Taking everything I gave you, letting me leave those pretty marks on you.” His fingers trailed over the spots where he’d spanked you, pressing just hard enough to make you whimper. “Bet you’ll feel them tomorrow.”

You shivered, leaning into his touch, heat pooling low in your stomach despite how exhausted you were. “You were the one who kept telling me to take it,” you muttered, voice still breathless. “Daddy.”

Aventurine groaned softly at the title, his grip flexing over your hips before he chuckled, low and indulgent. “That’s right,” he murmured, his teeth grazing your ear. “And you were so good for me. So sweet. Letting me spread you out, take my time ruining you.”

You whined softly, pressing your face into his neck to hide your embarrassment. He loved this—loved drawing out every little reaction, loved making you squirm even after he’d already had his fill. His fingers continued their slow, lazy path over your body, tracing the curves of your thighs, your waist, your stomach—anywhere he could touch.

After a moment, you sighed, your body melting further into his embrace. “You’re gonna clean me up, right?” you mumbled.

Aventurine smirked against your skin. “Of course, sweetheart,” he purred. “Gotta take care of my precious thing.” He kissed your jaw, lingering, his hands still roaming, still enjoying you. “But let me hold you a little longer first.”

You exhaled, sinking into his warmth, letting his hands and voice lull you into a hazy, blissful calm. “Fine… but I’m not moving.”

Aventurine chuckled again, kissing the corner of your mouth before resting his forehead against yours. “Didn’t expect you to, darling.”

✰

－୨ৎ FEI XIAO ；

Fei Xiao’s fingers traced slow, thoughtful patterns across your thighs, her touch featherlight as she smoothed over the warmth she had left behind. The soft sting of her palm lingered, a quiet reminder of the way she had handled you—firm, teasing, always in control. You could still feel the weight of the strap resting between your legs, still feel how deep she had taken you, but she wasn’t moving now. Just holding you, feeling you, her breath steady against your skin.

She hummed, the sound low and pleased. “You always go so quiet after I fuck you,” she murmured, dragging her nails lightly over your stomach before flattening her palm, rubbing slow circles into the softness there. “What’s on your mind, sweetheart?”

You swallowed, shifting slightly in her grip. “Just… tired,” you mumbled. “You really did a number on me.”

Fei Xiao chuckled, her arms tightening around you. “Did I now?” Her lips brushed against your shoulder, teasing, but there was something softer beneath it, something warm. She rolled her hips slightly, just enough to remind you that she was still inside you, still filling you even now. “You took me so well,” she murmured, almost to herself. “Made the prettiest sounds for me.”

Heat pricked at your skin, and you nudged her with your elbow. “You always have to tease me, don’t you?”

She only laughed, shifting to kiss along the side of your neck, her lips dragging slow, deliberate paths across your skin. “Wouldn’t be any fun if I didn’t.” One of her hands slid lower, smoothing over your thigh before squeezing lightly. “But I mean it—you were perfect for me.”

You sighed, letting yourself melt further into her touch. “You gonna clean me up, or are we just staying like this forever?”

Fei Xiao grinned against your skin. “Tempting.” But she was already pulling back slightly, brushing her fingers through your hair, tucking you against her chest. “Just a few more minutes, then I’ll take care of you.”

You huffed, but you didn’t argue. “Fine. But you owe me a massage after.”

Her laughter was rich, indulgent. “Anything you want, sweetheart.”

The game continues, cards and chips moving hands, and Aventurine loses after a stupid play he’d never make, and pouts.

“What a shame,” he says to himself, resting his chin on a glove you know is more expensive than the ruby velvet lining the table. “Dye like this is hard to find,” he once told you. “It’s almost impossible to get anything this dark. Only fools pay for red, but that’s why gamblers love it: it’s cheap and flashy.”

When the next round begins, he taps his fingers along the table, a tell he’d never let slip, one subtle enough not to miss. With barely-controlled eyes darting from player to player, he feigns nervousness and shuffles his chips to the center.

“Guess I’m all in,” he chuckles, letting his smirk waver for half a second.

The fools around you think he’s bluffing; they think they’ve got him. People tend to let their guard down when they think they’ve won, when they can’t see that the finish line has been moved. More chips rattle onto the table - they’d be idiots to not get in on pulling one over on the well-loathed IPC.

Again, you hear ‘bet on me,’ and for some stupid reason, you follow, clearing the space in front of you with a hesitant push of your own wealth (well, the IPC’s, of course) into the ever-growing pile.

On the neighboring stool, a man leans over, letting his scruff tickle the shell of your ear. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, sweetheart. Let that man lose his money, and when I win it back, I’ll spoil you.” He smells like cheap whiskey and cigarettes and you want to claw his throat out.

Across the table, one of the other gamblers lets out a shrill complaint of, “No coaching during the plays!” and the man beside you innocently raises his arms, not before winking at you, and you wonder if you were to kill him on this table how much the velvet would cost to replace.

Instead, you bat your eyelashes and lay your cards down. “Oh well, maybe I’ll win the next one,” you giggle, sending your chips toppling onto the others with one final shove.

The next moves happen rather quickly: Aventurine reveals his hand, people shout, the money is claimed from the table, and somebody grabs your arm. It’s only when cool cloth softly rubs your skin that you recognize the man dragging you towards the exit and let your muscles be pulled behind.

“Told you,” Aventurine whispers, his breath lighter than feathers.

He cashes out silently and guides you towards the elevators, this time with one palm placed on your lower back rather than wrapped around your wrist. Less possessive, you think - less likely to cause a scene.

The moment the elevator doors close, you turn to him.

“What the hell was that?”

“What?” He cocks his head to the side and lets that impish grin spread across his face, the one that’s nearly landed him with knuckles on his jaw in an attempt to wipe it off.

“You know that wasn’t what we were sent here to do.” You cross your arms, and he basks in the heat of your body, his wrists now fully snaked around your waist.

“Details, details,” he murmurs with a wave of his hand. “We got the information we needed. It’s not a crime to have a little fun afterwards.”

“It is a crime to disobey orders-”

Just as your annoyance begins to bubble over, the elevator chimes and opens directly into his suite. To break free from his grasp, your feet step forward and graciously carry you inside.

It takes a moment for your eyes to adjust, light bouncing off the white marble that lines every surface.

Of course Aventurine gets a penthouse for these missions. The IPC certainly has to keep up appearances, and with a man like him, anything else might as well fully blow his cover.

He lets you enter on your own, at least, as he waltzes behind you, with the saccharine smell of pride blooming from his skin.

“It’s nice, isn’t it,” he hums, and you want to smack that smug smile off his face.

Before you can, he tosses a cloth sack your way, the coins inside clanking with a sound you nearly don’t recognize.

“For you,” he says easily, leaning against the ever-opulent stone counter.

Something in the sound makes your head feel heavy, under pressure like you’re drowning. It’s familiar in a way you hate, in a way that you remember from the mattresses of shitty hotel rooms and men who smell like cigarettes and the way your tears look under the fluorescent lights of an unfamiliar bathroom.

You know what money like this means for them. And worse, you know what it means for you.

It’s just work, you told yourself the first time someone propositioned you to their room. A way to clear the debt, to push you a little closer to an ever-moving goal. It’s just a body, just a hole, just a few minutes. But it’s different when it’s Aventurine’s body, standing three feet away from yours, when the velvet smells like him and is still warm from his palm.

You don’t open it, you don’t want to. You can feel the metal sitting in your stomach, all too heavy. The act isn’t new, you suppose, but you never thought Aventurine would-

It doesn’t matter.

Now you see the point of his plan - involving you in it was sick, but the IPC must keep up appearances. It’s only fitting for them, you suppose.

So, you slowly make your way across the kitchen, sliding the pouch into your coat pocket. You don’t look at him, you can’t, not anymore. Standing mere inches before him, you lower yourself to your knees - they love the ceremony of it, they always do - and rest your hands along his waist. Practiced fingers begin unworking his belt - normally, at this point, you’d turn your gaze to the man above you, but you can’t.

It’s just work. It’s just work. It’s just work.

But something about this, something about it being him, makes your stomach turn, makes you want to vomit up the metal taste that sits in the back of your throat.

Too busy in your mind, you don’t notice the way Aventurine tenses, nor the panic in his hands as he wraps them around your wrists.

“What the fuck are you doing?” The words come out fast, blended into a single breath.

“I’m – I’m doing what you paid me for.”

Finally, you look at him, and see the sheer horror raging behind his eyes. The smooth mask of a practiced liar doesn’t chip easily, but if you listen close enough, you could hear its pieces falling to the cold tiles beneath your knees.

“No. No.” Pulling you from the ground, he doesn’t let go of your shoulders as you rise. “That’s – that’s not what I’m paying you for.”

“Oh.”

Desperately he searches for something in your face, some hint of the rage that burns beneath his skin, but he finds nothing, just glossed-over eyes and a practiced smile. It’s just work, after all - he of all people should know best.

For a moment, he nearly lets his questions get the better of him - What sick fuck is paying you? Is this a part of your contract? Who do I have to kill for making you think you’re nothing more than a body to be used like this? - but easily, he slips the silk mask back on (he wouldn’t want to frighten you with anger; he wouldn’t forgive himself).

“That money is for you. Just you.” Gloved hands smooth the wrinkles along your collar. “It’s the first installment for the debt you owe - in three months, you’ll be rid of the IPC,” (and me, he nearly says), “forever.”

“Aventurine,” you rasp - you aren’t sure why the words get stuck in your throat, now, after all this time. You aren’t sure why they taste so hot - maybe it’s the burning that lingers in your knees. “You can’t.”

“I can. And I did.” The flash of his smile nearly blinds you again. “You can thank me later, but for now, let’s celebrate-”

“No.”

Your eyes sting, and that pit in your chest is back, heavier, threatening to swallow you whole. It aches and makes your head spin and you want to spit it out, let it claw its way from your insides and take your blood and bones and viscera with it.

“The debt was mine to pay off.”

“Well, no offense, but you were doing a pretty terrible job of it,” he laughs, hesitantly. In all his calculated planning, in the hours and days and weeks and months he spent dreaming of this moment, he had a vision of how you’d react, how you’d smile and sigh and wrap your arms around him and kiss his cheek and how he’d get to hold you, pick you up like you weighed less than air, free from the chains that kept you down, beneath him.

“It doesn’t matter. It was mine.”

Boiling tears stream down your cheeks, leaving trails of steam in their wake, and you want to collapse into yourself, you want to let the pressure build up until you explode and take out this entire building, this entire planet for all you care.

“You can’t – you can’t just buy people, Aventurine,” you choke, the words landing in the room like smoke.

For the first time, his smile falters. “I wasn’t-”

The coin purse finds its way back into your hand, and then to the ground below his feet. He doesn’t reach out to grab you as you turn away.

You’re grateful that the bar is rather empty, aside from a lone stranger on one end with his head down and an empty bottle beside him, and a couple trying to consume one another in the corner. Most other patrons seem too engrossed in the thrill of throwing their lives away, you suppose; that’s the nature of a casino, the price of feeding its hunger. Empty chairs have become quite a comfort over the years, separating you from those who would grab too tightly, or beg for a kiss, just a kiss, or slide a pile of coins your way and wait for you by the elevators.

And yet, when he approaches from behind you, you don’t flinch (you’d know his steps anywhere, you think - they’re too evenly timed to belong to anyone else).

“Is this seat taken?” he grins, but makes no move to sit until you gesture him forward with a wave of your glass.

The two of you let the silence settle, even though Aventurine feels he may choke on it, even though he wants to speak and speak and speak until you forgive him and tell him it’s alright and tell him he’s not evil, he didn’t hurt you, he didn’t mean to. Instead, he silently orders two drinks and lets you sip yours slowly.

“I’m sorry,” you finally say. “I know you were trying to do something good.”

There are words sitting on the tip of his tongue begging to be let free, but he swallows and lets them burn his throat.

“I didn’t plan to work for the IPC this long. I didn’t plan for any of this, really.” You chuckle, a dry sound, and wash it down with the liquid in your cup. “But my debt just kept growing, and they kept saying they needed me - ‘just one more job,’ - but it’s never really just one more, is it?”

“No, it’s not,” and he lets himself laugh.

The casino’s sounds settle atop you, those of victory and highs and pride left to sit out for too long, until it starts to rot.

“The IPC bought my debt,” he says to the empty bottles behind the bar. “It was a long time ago, longer than you’ve been here, I’m sure. It was selfish of me to try and do the same to you.” (Nobody should be owned like that, he almost says. The mark on his neck aches and itches and pricks at his skin like hot iron. He ignores it.)

His empty glass sits on the table, its wet ring bleeding into the wood. A wiser man would have used a coaster, or perhaps, a poorer man, one who couldn’t afford to erase the marks he leaves behind.

“The money is still yours, of course. You don’t have to take it, but I have no use for it.” My debt is too grand to be counted and held in velvet, he thinks.

When your gaze meets his, his pupils dilate - one of the few tells he can’t control.

“Well then,” you hum, the ice clinking against the glass as it swirls in your hold, “I suppose I should use my new-found wealth.” Setting your cup upon the table, the condensation makes it slide towards his, and you grin, an unpracticed one, unpolished. Your cheeks pull back unevenly and you let the cracks in your lips show. “Can I buy you a drink?”

He laughs and you wonder if this is the same sound that plays from the slot machines lining the walls, if this is the bell that rings for victory, the one that makes people willing to throw their savings away for the chance to hear it just one more time.

“Well, I’d be a fool to say no.”

He’s lighter now that your forgiveness has settled on him, kissing his cheeks like a butterfly’s wings, in a way that tickles and doesn’t make him brush it off, a way that reminds him of spring and flowers, of his home and of you.

“Do you remember that job we worked on Belobog?”

“The one where I had to pretend to be married to you?” you laugh, nearly falling off the back of the barstool before Aventurine’s hand catches you in the dip of your back.

“It wasn’t that bad,” he whines, letting his lips turn upwards.

“I just never took you for someone so…comfortable in public.” There’s a glimmer of something sparkling behind your eyes, more than just the neon lights flashing overhead.

Leaning forward, he’s so close you can nearly smell him, wood and liquor, smoke and velvet. Rich in all the ways he ought to be, in all the ways he pretends he is.

“I was just selling our cover,” he purrs, and a part of you wonders if this is dangerous, to be letting him in like this, to tilt your head until the heat radiating from his skin gets trapped in the space between you.

“Yeah? I didn’t know you had orders to pull me onto your lap and kiss my neck every second we were around someone else. It was a bit much, don’t you think?”

“A little overkill never hurt anyone,” his eyes narrow and he wants to open his mouth and swallow you. “Besides, you certainly didn’t seem to mind.”

Your face grows warm, but you don’t back down, don’t turn away, not when you hold the winning hand. “I guess I just took you for someone more private, Aventurine.”

“Oh, you have no idea how I am in private.”

“No?” your glass lands heavily along the bar, and he straightens his back as you stand. “Then why don’t you come back to my room and show me?”

And he’s on his feet in the time it takes to blink.

Your room is smaller than his, of course; the two of you nearly fill the hallway, swelling until every inch of it is consumed by your bodies, leaving imprints of your flesh along the walls. It’s not opulent, it's not marble or pillars or gold, but it’s yours, and now, his.

He ushers you inside first, and the moment the door closes, you press into him.

You don’t speak, and neither does he; you don’t have to, not anymore. When your hands trail up his sides, the breath in his throat catches, a beginner’s tell, one he should have outgrown by now, one he knows better than to let slip. The lilting chuckle he lets out, too, tells you all too much.

When your lips meet his, it’s soft at first, all feathers and butterflies. Hesitant and nervous, but yearning.

In a moment, he lets the silk mask slip.

Then, he’s starving. Hands reach around you and grab and beg and hold, trying to tear off pieces of you so he’ll never have to leave this behind. Your teeth sink into his lower lip and he groans into your mouth and you’re grateful for the wood door as you lean every ounce of your weight against him.

“You have no idea how bad I wanted you,” he sighs, and his breath melds with yours until you’re exhaling one another, until the only thing you can feel and hear and taste is him.

“I do.” Blown pupils meet yours, decorated with stars and constellations. “You’re easier to read than you think, Aventurine.”

“You just know me too well,” he smiles, and his lips are back on yours, hungry and gnawing.

With needy hands you drag him from the entryway and towards the bed, the only real piece of furniture inside, luckily.

There’s a practiced ease as you fall to your knees once again, and a gentleness to his hands as he lifts you where you stand.

“Allow me,” he hums.

Softly, he kneels before you, and he can’t bring himself to look away from the warmth radiating from your face. He’s a flower planted beneath you, watered with your smile and grown by your fingertips; you can step on him, if you’d like, or leave him here until his petals kiss your ankles and pluck him so he may stay in your heart.

He undoes your belt and he tugs your waistband down, too impatient to let gravity do the work. Your shirt’s buttons prove a similarly fluid task, despite the way your hands shake as you rush to undo his. Jewelry and accessories drop to the floor before they’re kicked away, lost to the depths of cloth and fur. Finally, he removes his gloves, tugging off each finger with polished teeth.

“Lay down for me, would you?” he asks in that sweet, silky voice, the one that tastes like wood and liquor, that you want to pour down your throat and swallow with heaving gulps.

The bedding is cotton and scratchy and you don’t even mind, not when he leans over you and you feel his skin on yours, soft and bare. It’s the first time he touches you, truly touches you, with his hands, no expensive velvet or obligation or orders in the way, just his flesh and desire.

You know how much his time is worth, the mental tally of credits summing in your mind with each passing second, and yet, his fingers trail patiently downward, resting at your ribs, your hips, your thighs; his lips follow, marking a path along your body, a map he can return to when he inevitably gets lost and must be found.

Settling between your legs, he inhales and fills his lungs with you, with the salt and sage that blooms from your pulse points. Expensive, but not gaudy - the IPC certainly knows how to maintain an appearance.

His tongue is quick and deft, and he nearly misses the way you tense. When he searches your face, he finds furrowed eyebrows and a frown that a more foolish man would pass off as pleasure.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” you say. How do you respond to a question you’ve never been asked, one you’d never prepared for? “I think so, yes.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“No!” The sound makes you flinch. “No, just…”

What more is there? It’s just work, you’d say; Use me, he’d say.

“Here.” Intertwining his fingers with yours, he lets his palm sink into the crater of your own. “Squeeze my hand if you want me to stop.”

You nod and smile, crooked and sweet, and he sends one back in return. Slowly, the haven of your thighs welcomes him once again.

He’s softer, now, as he savors you, the way your skin lands on his tongue, the way your hips shift into the mattress. When he presses a finger to your entrance, you gasp and nearly grip his hand, but he pauses, he lets you breathe and relax your knees and stomach. When he pushes further in, a moan falls from your lips and he thinks he’d bet his life savings, go in debt a thousand times over just to hear it again. He knows his luck is true when he adds a second finger and he’s graced with it once more.

“Aventurine,” you breathe, your muscles tensing as the heat in your core builds. You worry what your body will do when it finally overtakes you, when the flames kiss your skin half as kindly as him, so you dig your palms into his hair instead. It’s soft, impossibly so, as you knot it around your knuckles; he groans when your nails scratch along his scalp.

He lets you pull him in, swallowing every sound and touch you’ll grant him with an eager throat. You cry his name when you come undone, and he wonders what fate he owes a debt to for the chance to taste you, hear you, feel you like this.

When he finally leans away, the depths of his pupils have drowned the vibrant cyan and violet that normally kiss their shore, and his chest heaves like a man just saved from the sea. He’s damp like one, too, sweat-slicked hair clinging to his neck.

Light catches on his shoulders and he glows, rising above you as though gravity wouldn’t dare touch him. He kisses you again, and he passes along the ocean and salt and stone, a secret message a fool would miss, but one you can read: I crave you.

There’s no nervousness left as you guide his tip to your entrance, no fear or duty or chains, just his hips and devotion.

“Are you sure?”

Your palm interlinks with his once more, and you grin. “Of course.” The soft, warm skin of his neck finds its way between your teeth, letting it rest behind your canines, and he chuckles eagerly.

“You’re going to be the death of me, you know,” he sighs into you.

“What a wonderful way to die.”

Wrapping your legs around his waist, you pull him forward. Cool air blesses your spine as your back arches from the bed, more gentle than feathers or a butterfly’s wings, and you welcome him with ease.

He shudders when he bottoms out, cold in spite of the heat emanating from your skin, trapped in the single layer of atoms between your bodies.

A moment passes, then two. And you realize, in the still seconds, that he’s waiting, restraining. A hand held out, an invitation.

Tentatively, your hips circle his, and a golden whine flows from his lips. It drips from the corners and you lap at the fountain of his wealth.

He lets you guide him, then, lets you move and lead and make a show of what you want, what you like. There’s a rhythm he settles into, an angle, a single spot that makes you claw at his back and drink the air from his lungs. And he, an ever-grateful actor, is more than happy to perform.

There’s a control to it, though. A mask.

“Let go,” you whisper into his open mouth.

He chews the words but barely swallows. “What do you mean?”

Your eyelashes flutter open to find him staring down, blinded by the spotlight of your presence; he blinks to clear the flashing. “You’re holding back; let go.”

It’s a miracle you’ve never noticed until this moment, until you’re this close to him, but his grin is a bit uneven, too, the right side of his smile curving ever-so-slightly higher than the left. You wonder how hard he’s had to work to hide it; you wonder what it would take to see it again.

“If you insist.”

His lips crash into yours and you wonder if this is what drowning feels like, to have something in your lungs and your stomach and on your skin and dragging you into it; you wonder if the sea has ever felt this greedy.

Each swell of his pelvis is another wave, crests with no rhythm, an unpredictable high and low. Boats have been lost to less; perhaps they would have been saved if only they’d had his hands waiting to catch them. His, meanwhile, dig into your waist, holding you just under the surface.

Moans blend into each other, and he hits so deep inside you that a cough to dispel the water lodged inside would surely have his name in it, not that you’d ever want to; you want him in every part of you, seeping into the cracks and living there, forever. You inhale and inhale and inhale, until you can’t tell the difference between him and air, until he’s the thing keeping you alive.

The bed shakes, its cheap wood headboard bouncing against the chipping paint of your shitty hotel room, leaving behind damage that you’ll surely have to pay. But how lucky you are to be with a man who can afford to erase the marks he leaves behind.

“I-” he starts, but you already know what he’s about to say (he’s not that hard to read, after all - not when his entire body begins to shake, when his whines strain higher, when he lets his smile fall crooked).

“Don’t stop,” is all you have to say; not that he could, with the way your legs wrap around him; not that he would, with the way you bloom and writhe and swell beneath him.

When he comes undone, it’s accompanied by the most beautiful sound, the most beautiful flush of his cheeks and arch of his back.

And yet, all he hears is you as you hold him, as you follow him under and kiss him through the brine, as you clench around his length and let him twitch and shake and tremble.

It takes a moment for him to still inside you (the sea is never quiet right after a storm). When he does, his eyes search for yours immediately. When they don’t find a smile, he begins to panic - Did he hurt you? Are you scared? Will you hate him? - but in an instant, they crinkle at the corners.

“Well,” you say, breathless.

“Well?” he mirrors, trying to hide the water that still rests in his chest.

“I have to be honest with you,” you hum pensively, letting the practiced control slip back into your voice, letting him worry for half a moment before you continue, “I can now say with confidence, you are exactly the same in private.”

His face stalls for a moment, and then he laughs, and you’ve found a new currency, one you’d happily be indebted in for the rest of your life. “So I take it you’d want to do this again sometime? In spite of the overkill?”

“You doing okay? you seem like you’re struggling.” You ask innocently as Sunday comes to stand opposite you. You immediately feel the weight of his hand on your lower back, and if that in itself doesn’t give away his sudden neediness— the way it squeezes you closer to him does.

“Hah, you are so funny, my dear. And who should I hold responsible for my wavering composure, I wonder?” His words are almost squeezed through clenched teeth, maybe even a little sarcastic, and you watch the way his wings seem to stiffen alongside them, shuddering as he lets his fingertips trace along the silky fabric of your dress.

“Had I known you were going to wear this dress, well then maybe I would’ve better prepared to be tormented.” It was true, Sunday did enjoy you in this dress— you knew that better than anyone.

Which is exactly why he’s finding himself to feel quite stuffy beneath his usual garments himself, letting his free hand come up to pull at the collar of his shirt as he tries to feign composure.

But you can’t help that seeing him in such a state makes you feel a little smug. You hum, “Well, you were busy beforehand so I couldn’t exactly go over my outfit with you.” You let your hand rest over Sunday’s arm as you push it up the length of his jacket — squeezing at his skin through the fabric as you hear him swallow loudly.

His gaze is sharper now, lidded as his body stiffens with your touch. For someone who took great pride in being in control— he seems to lose it quite easily when it comes to you.

And in such a public setting, how shameful. Sunday clears his throat as he tries to bring back some sort of power to himself.

“Fret not, it seems I’m no longer preoccupied and I feel it is time to bid farewell to our guests for the night. Should you not wish them to see your true intentions that is.” To seduce him— is what he is implying your intentions are, but you both know you’re quite capable of doing that with little to no effort at all.

That much is obvious now as he feels his cheeks burn with your close proximity and his growing want. The bulge in his slacks could become quite obvious if you keep this up.

“Blaming me? Not fair.” You lean in as you tease him, and that’s enough for Sunday to suddenly flush— instinctively bringing his wings up to curl around his cheeks as he finds himself looking around the room. Unable to meet your gaze for a moment, and checking that nobody is watching him waver like this.

His fingers at the back of your dress twist into the fabric, and you feel them trace shapes into your skin a moment later — resting lower on your back until it’s almost dangerous.

Sunday glances back at you, and you’re smiling when he does. The expression makes him frown, like he’s trying to cover up his reaction to you a moment ago. “Heh, well.. I think that is quite an understandable accusation.” And it takes everything in him to pull himself together before he’s giving you a darker look that you know means trouble.

“Though I can’t help but wonder which course you shall take now that you’ve been discovered, my angel. Surely repentance is due.”

It’s not like he’s going to let you off lightly after this little display.

But before he can drag you away, you hear someone call for him from over his shoulder as another patron approaches, and part of you expects his hand on your lower back to retreat. But you’re surprised when he opts to raise his free one instead, urging them to halt on their heels as he sends them one of his polite, colder smiles.

“My apologies. If you could excuse us for just a moment, I have something to tend to at once.”

⭒ JING YUAN

Though some may argue that the general always appears to be needy when he’s in your vicinity — you know more than anyone that there are a few certain tells to look for that ultimately give away when he really is.

Jing Yuan was always touchy with you, that much was a given — especially as you rest opposite him on the couch now, catching him up on your day while he’s been at work and you doing your own thing. He offers you an affectionate blink as you ramble, and his hand seems to be resting quite comfortably on your thigh as your legs rest over both of his own.

It’s comfy, innocent— to begin with atleast because then you just need to do something seemingly mundane; a flutter of your lashes, a pout of your lips, and suddenly the general across from you can’t focus on anything.

Well, anything but your sweet mouth, or the warmth of your skin beneath his palms or the shape of your body in your clothes.

And then suddenly you ask Jing Yuan a question and all he can do is hum. It’s an attempt to make sure he’s paying attention but it’s quite obvious he’s not as his amber gaze seems to busy itself elsewhere. He’s so shameless as he checks you out, accompanying each lidded blink with a squeeze of his palms as they stroke up your thighs.

You narrow your eyes at him, though he doesn’t seem to notice when his fingertips are too busy palming at your skin. They squeeze you affectionately, and he’s quite entranced by the give of your body when he does — soft beneath his fingertips as he hums to himself this time.

That’s when you find yourself stopping your conversation for a moment— and at first Jing Yuan doesn’t seem to notice as his touch presses up even higher. Until he’s grabbing at the underside of your thigh— dangerously close to your ass, and the way his lips seem to curl when you react with a shudder makes you scoff.

But that sound alone makes his cock throb from where it rests against his thigh.

“Since you’re not listening, I’ll just stop talking then.” You pout, flicking your fingers against his chest and it makes him lift his gaze to finally meet yours.

“Whatever do you mean, my dear? I am simply admiring my wife, is that worthy of such a punishment?” The smirk Jing Yuan’s wearing makes you roll your eyes, but then his fingertips are making their way higher up your thighs. Teasing at the hem of your shorts and almost pressing beneath to touch the hem of your panties, and it makes you smack playfully at his hand when he gives you another squeeze.

He chuckles at that, “Though if my punishment is by your hand. I shan’t find reason to complain too much.”

His teasing make you grumble. “You! Cut that out.”

But Jing Yuan’s words have made you feel suddenly warm beneath his gaze as he narrows his eyes at you. The handsome look he’s wearing is not only insufferable, but it’s hard to deny — which makes it even worse. It makes you want to bury your face into your hands so you don’t need to look at him.

But when you move to, he seems to quite quickly use his free hand to move them away again. “Oh? Don’t tell me the idea of punishing me has you so flustered?” His words drawl again and he uses your sudden embarrassment as a means to pull you closer. His palm pinching at your hips as he guides you onto his lap and unfortunately, you let him.

But this only gives him even more of you to play with.

“I think it’s safe to assume you seem to be much more distracted than even I, what shall we do about that now, hm?” Jing Yuan asks lowly as his both hands come to rest on your hips now.

He had an insufferable way of turning his need round onto you. To imply that you were the one that started all this, like you can’t feel the heavy throb of his cock beneath where he’s got you spread out on his lap. The bulge beneath you is quite obvious afterall, yet he’s palming and stroking at your body like he’s the one doing you a favour.

“Should you ask nicely, I may humour your little proposal.” His hands curl around where your hips meet your thighs and he squeezes. Even going as far to groan as he uses the skin as a means to rock you into him. He really was not discreet when it came to what he wanted. But still he’s smirking, smug. “Though first, I’d like to hear what you have in mind, my dear.”

⭒ DR RATIO

Despite what others may believe, it was quite impossible for Ratio to hide his want for you. Well, after a certain point that is — not only did he seem more irritable — something that others may assume was just the way he was, and more a fault of their own. He always seemed to be almost in denial that he would succumb to temptation so quickly. In turn— you always came to know faster than anyone what was really bothering him.

Like now, as you rest in Ratio’s quarters and you almost feel like you’re being scolded in a way— though you’re not too sure what for yet. He can barely look at you from where he’s leaning back in his seat at the desk, one of his legs balancing over the other as he pinches at the space between his brows.

But to him, there’s almost too much to say. Yes, he finds it quite adorable that you went out of your way to visit him while he busied himself with research, but on the other hand… You cannot be unaware of the effect you have on him.

As soon as you had walked into the room, Ratio immediately felt his focus wavering, not only did you turn the heads of the few idiotic researchers in your path— but he could barely read the text infront of him when he got that first smell for your perfume. He’d almost immediately rushed you both out of there before anyone could even blink.

And now it’s much the same. Suddenly he can’t focus on anything except the insistent throb in his cock that beckons him to reach out and touch you. The realisation of his predicament makes him scoff to himself, muttering an “Oh please.” beneath him breath.

And you can’t help but assume that’s it’s aimed at you ofcourse— as anyone would considering most of Ratio’s internal debate is going on inside of his head, and last he checked you couldn’t read minds. So innocently, and as pretty as always, you close the distance to lean over his desk and ask.

“Is everything okay?” You hum, softly as a means to diffuse the stuffy tension between you both. But as soon as the man across from you lifts his lidded gaze to meet yours, he feels something in his cock twitch and it makes him click his tongue. Frustrated at such a banal reaction before he’s turning in his seat away from you.

Ratio scoffs, “Quite the opposite.” But still, he thinks it’s probably best to explain himself. Well, while also trying to ignore the way even a glance at you makes him burn as he twists his neck to stretch.

He turns in his chair again, and it almost pains him to look at you when you meet him with such a cute reaction. But he conceals it to the best of his ability before he opts to speak, “One might even assume you’ve deliberately sought out to disturb my efforts with such an enticing ploy. Though I do commend your determination, how would you expect one to react?”

Ratio’s words make you tilt your head at him, and even that look makes him want to bundle you into your arms and keep you close. His gaze ultimately falls down to your lips as he awaits your response, then your jawline, your shoulder and your collarbone. The places that his lips are most familiar with. And in turn he can’t help but give himself another groan as he feels a headache coming on.

“I don’t think I understand what you mean.” You eventually respond, but you do think you understand something now as you watch him. Not only is his unease now noticeable, so is his bulge when he ultimately urges himself to stand from his seat.

Still, you let Ratio speak as you try to hide your smile at the realisation.

“Don’t play coy with me, I know you are no idiot. You are well aware of not only your captivating presence but that of my admiration for it. Hence, your scheme could be considered quite admirable were it not so obvious.” He manages to bring himself around to the other side of the table as he rambles, bringing himself to stand over you as he does.

But it seems Ratio’s body has come to terms with what he desires before his mind can accept it as such, and his hand almost grips the edge of his desk until it shakes as he blinks at you.

His eyes narrow, and his voice lowers sinfully, “Do you understand now? Or was my previous flattery misplaced? Do reassure me that that is indeed not the case.”

But because you’re quite familiar with Ratio’s mind— well, most of it, you opt to give yourself up despite your innocence. Afterall, you think this way of doing things may wind up being what’s best for both of you in the end. So you press yourself closer as you give him an alluring blink, and you feel his body stiffen when you fingertips graze along his chest.

“Maybe you’re right, Doctor.” You hum, quietly— you know he’s not one that’s easy to fool. But, you know he’s not one to deny himself of life’s pleasures either. You just happen to be his.

“Then I need say no more.” Ratio scoffs in response, and just as quickly as you allow him a little of your touch— you retract it. Opting to turn on your heels with the intention of putting distance between you both.

“If you’d rather I come back—“ You begin to say but it’s quite quickly, almost instantly actually that your lover cuts off your timely exit with a hand reaching out to grab you gently. Though you’re reminded that his muscles are not only for show when he makes quick work of pulling you back into his chest this time.

He swallows, and it was quite a rare occurrence to see Ratio look at you with such a look as his hands come to cup at both of your cheeks. He keeps your head tilted up towards him as he looks down at you, trying hard not to let his gaze fall to your lips once more. “Nonsense. Since you have went through the trouble of coming all this way. It’s best for me to revisit my research when I can give it my utmost attention.” His words cause you to blink up at him.

His voice seems more gentle now, though there’s an undercurrent of want still wrapped around it. It almost makes you feel warm as you press yourself closer, and you feel the way his cock seems to strain against you as you do.

It earns you a hiss from Ratio over you, “Until then, it seems I’ve been enticed by something far more worthy of my efforts.”

⭒ AVENTURINE

Whenever Aventurine caught himself needing you, which was most of the time, he always found himself wanting to have fun with it aswell. Sure, he loved to tease you at the best of times as it was already, but this only gave him another opportunity to bring you into a little game of his choosing.

It’s like a game to see which of you will break first.

You can see it first in the way his eyes lock on your figure as soon as you enter the room. Aventurine never had any problems pulling you into his lap, whether that be at the betting table or in the comfort of his own home. Today being the latter as he beckons you over with a grin and a quick flick of his fingers.

“Something wrong?” You ask as you draw closer and the gambler beneath you seems to answer by spreading his legs a little wider, as if making room for you as he outstretches his hand. It’s an invitation you take quite naturally, and he pulls you to straddle him when you come close enough to close the distance, taking a place over him that you seem to fall in to quite easily.

“What? I can’t just call you over for a little company?” Aventurine answers, but you can tell by the alluring glow of his gaze that he’s keeping his cards close to his chest. You’d be silly to think that that was the only reason for calling you over here. But you’re already quite comfortable from your place in his lap, and even despite your suspicions — you both know that you’re not planning on leaving.

Especially when his hands rest on your waist and squeeze so convincingly, “There’s no need to be suspicious.” His smooth drawl seems to climb its way along your spine — pulling you closer as you feel yourself slink up against his body. It’s almost embarrassing the effect that his words alone have on you, he knew exactly the tone to use — even just the smooth complexity of his voice makes you arch.

But you had your own ways of dealing with him after so long together too,

“Can you blame me? You’re such a schemer.” Your eyes narrow down at Aventurine, but still you let your fingertips press into his shoulders to squeeze. Letting them scratch through the soft hair at his nape and you feel him shudder at the touch. Despite how much he schemed and played with you, he himself could be quite sensitive if you knew where to start.

And that knowledge alone is what makes you such a great opponent for his little game.

“Haha, you’re so kind.” The sarcasm almost drips from his tone.

But then Aventurine narrows his eyes up at you, and his touch begins to crawl over more of your body as he really begins. It’s soft at first, squeezing at your waist before its smoothing lower— to trail over your hips and palm at your body. He gives you just enough affection until you’re beginning to melt, fingers shaking against the back of his neck as you bite down on your lower lip and he watches you.

Purring. “You’re sure to turn heads in every room. There’s no need to act so humble when someone appreciates that.” His efforts wind up urging you to push yourself close enough to feel the now obvious bulge in his slacks. The realisation makes you almost gasp as your thighs squeeze around both of Aventurine’s own.

And suddenly his intentions are now clear as he exhales his next breath along the nape of your neck. “But I gotta find my ways to claim what’s rightfully mine, wouldn’t you say?” Leaning in close to make sure you can almost feel the vibration of every syllable.

Your head drops back as his words seem to pour along the sensitive spots in your throat, followed closely by a soft press of Aventurine’s lips as he follows that same path. The gentle affection, paired with the steady caress of his hands makes you keen. Shuddering, “Did you call me over just to tease me? I’m not in the mood for games.”

Your lashes flutter when he closes his lips around a particularly sensitive column of your throat, suckling lightly at the skin there before he’s letting it pop free and he hums as he sees the blotch raise dark. His next squeeze of his hands is a little rougher as he looks up at you, letting his tongue lav over the blooming mark for a second longer before he’s meeting your gaze from beneath pretty lashes.

“There’s no need to be so nervous. Your chances seem pretty good if you ask me.” Aventurine’s tone is just as smooth as it always is. Seemingly unaffected despite the way his cock is all but leaking against the inside of his slacks. He is being honest when he says your chances are pretty good— afterall, the effect you have on him is the reason you’re both playing this game in the first place.

Which is why you’re so familiar with it, and exactly why you find yourself drawing closer as your arms loop around his shoulders to squeeze. With your next look, you’re chest to chest and you half expect him to kiss you when he looks at you with so much heat in his gaze— you’re surprised it doesn’t spark light.

Infact, Aventurine even sets you up for such. Starting at your jawline first as his lips tease along the skin— making you arch again as his fingertips trace down the length of your spine and you almost whine. Would it not be an obvious sign that he’s getting to you, you probably would.

He kisses the corners of your mouth next, twice— for good luck. And then he’s exhaling across your lips for the finale and it’s enough to make your eyes close and your thighs tremble. You wonder if he can feel the way your pussy does too.

But as soon as Aventurine gets close enough to do just that, he pulls away — opting to satiate you with a kiss to your cheek instead. Until he’s giving you another eager squeeze at your hips, bringing them flush against his clothed cock and you’re both biting back groans as he gives you another lidded, consuming look.

The heat of your cunt has become quite apparent now that it’s pressed against his own intimate skin, and it seems you’re both on equal standing for the next round.

“Heh, seem’s you’re not one to back down. Well.. how about we up the stakes?”

Seems he’s just getting started.

⭒ DAN HENG

It’s quiet on the express as you and Dan Heng rest side by side on one of the rogue sofa’s in the parlor car. You’re enjoying the time relaxing while you find yourself pressed up against his side and he’s busy scrolling on his phone while you do much of the same. Were you to look around you’d most likely come across Himeko or Welt — but for the most part it’s quiet besides the both of you.

But just because it’s quiet, doesn’t mean that you’re relaxed. More so, your lover is having a particularly hard time at remaining any sort of composed.

It was unlike Dan Heng to lose control of himself in this way, which is why he’s basically mastered the art of the poker face. Well, almost. With your close proximity, he can feel the way your body warms him as it pushes up against his chest, and he would be lying if he said it didn’t have some sort of effect on him.

It’s just how it is — but that doesn’t make it any easier. Even in the moments when he finds his gaze drifting from the screen of his phone to glance over at you instead. He feels like he’s short on breath, and were he to focus long enough he’s sure he’d end up with the flush of his cheeks giving him away. Which is why instead, he’s satiating his sudden want for you with quick looks every now and then.

But it’s only so Dan Heng can admire the pretty pout that’s resting on your lips as you rest comfortably. Were he to go as far as to lean down just a little bit more, he’d be able to press a kiss into the side of your features and maybe after that he could—

“What’s wrong?” Your voice calls him from his almost dream-like state and it makes him suddenly clear his throat before he’s snapping his attention back to his phone screen. To act like he wasn’t just completely staring at you… though the pink flush on the tips of his ears say otherwise.

“It’s nothing.” He answers almost suspiciously quick.

But if anything, that makes you even more curious as you opt to turn more of yourself towards Dan Heng. Until you’re leaning into him a little more and letting your fingertips rest against his chest. “You sure?” You ask softly, and that doesn’t do much at all to help his current predicament. He feels every syllable in his cock.

Infact, it almost makes his next words stutter— so he swallows loudly as a means to conceal it. “I said it was nothing.”

But that response only makes you smile even more before your fingers begin to shift, leaving featherlight touches along his chest next and teetering softly as you hum curiously.

And suddenly Dan Heng can’t focus on anything except the press of your fingertips. It feels like you’re toying with him, almost deliberately — pushing your body into his until you’re squished up against him, almost lying across his lap as you try hard to meet his gaze.

It makes him sigh before he’s locking his phone and resting it down to his side, “It seems you already know what you’re doing.” He says carefully, finally opting to meet your eyes and it makes you lean over until your cheek is resting against his shoulder.

Dan Heng’s gaze is darker now, more lidded than what others may be used to — but it does something to you everytime you see it as you watch it drop carefully to look at your lips. Just for a moment before he’s looking at you again.

You quite like that side of him.

“I don’t know what you mean.” Your voice sings innocently but he can see right through you as your fingertip draws careful shapes into his chest. Every flick feels like it burns him, stinging at the tips of his ears and behind the hug of his slacks. Were someone to see you both, the implication of what you were up to could be quite obvious given Dan Heng’s current state.

“Be as it may, I have a hard time believing you.” He beckons his voice lower as he tries to send you a carefully neutral look. Though the softest of pink that’s beginning to spread across his features is doing little to make you want to stop. Instead, it only makes you continue your movements— from his chest, to his abdomen, to the waistband of his slacks and that makes his hips twitch at the subtle press of your touch.

You hum, “I’m not even doing anything.”

And for a moment you believe that maybe Dan Heng is just going to leave you be when he sighs out an, “As you say so.” But by your next blink, he’s got his fingers wrapping gently around your wrist and he’s guiding you both off of the sofa until you’re headed out of the current parlor cart.

“Let’s go somewhere else.” Is all he offers you at first, until you pry ofcourse.

“Hm? Where are we going?” The burst of pink across Dan Heng’s features seems to be a lot more obvious now as you try to sneak a peek at him from where you’re scurrying behind. But still, his voice doesn’t shake when he answers.

“To my room. It seems I’ll have to try harder if I want to gain the upper hand.”

Afterall, were you to continue your movements for a moment longer, he would’ve had to have dealt with the embarrassment of having a noticeable bulge in his slacks. And he would rather avoid having to give an explanation.

you can feel the press of his accessories against your body. though protected, you can still feel the bite of cold from the metal that crests on his chest. if you turned around, not that he’d let you when he’s so triumphantly caught his prey, you’d see that he’d loosed his tie upon seeing you in his office, fussing over his desk.

clearing your throat you admit, "i thought you were busy this morning. clorinde said you wouldn't return until noon."

"my dear, it is noon,” he hums. you hesitate, surely it couldn't be, you had come to drop off the box nearly half an hour before... you were distracted by his messy desk. his gift sits in front of you, and with the way wriothesley crowds you into his desk, there’s no hiding it from him.

"so, care to explain what you're doing sneaking around places you're not supposed to be?" you know he's staring down at the box on his desk, eyes tracing over the delicately tied ribbon that tops it off.

you roll your eyes and straighten when he doesn't let you move away, "i came to drop this off. it's a gift for you.”

"i can see that."

you're going to give clorinde a piece of your mind the next time you see her. you should have known not to trust her nonchalance. she had smiled upon you informing her about the surprise gift you wanted to leave for the duke, shrugging when you added that you were going to sneak in his office while he was gone. of course she knew this was going to happen.

"well, are you going to give it to me?" you can feel his hands itching to pluck the gift from your hands. with your back to his chest and his hair falling onto your clothes his expression is hidden from you, but knowing wriothesley, you can imagine the smug expression on his face. the ends of his lips must be curling up in triumph as you sigh in defeat. he steps back to give you space, waiting as you turn with the box in hand to present to him. before he takes it, he motions for you to sit up on his desk, one hand helping you balance yourself as he steps closer, your knees brushing against his thighs. you offer him the gift again and to your surprise, he doesn’t take it. instead he stares at it for a moment before looking back up at you.

“but i can think of a better gift,” wriothesley’s wolfish grin is triumphant as you inhale sharply at his words and try to suppress the smile that tugs at your lips. 

you fail to scowl at him, “you’re shameless. some duke of the fortress of meropide you are.” wriothesley laughs loudly in response to your words. despite the cold of his office from being unused for the morning, wriothesley fills it with warmth. you let your fingers find his loosened tie and tug him forward. the look he gives you beneath his lashes is nothing short of what could be described as adoration. his hands find their way to rest on his desk, caging you in and tempting you at the same time. he’s all sly words and gentle touches, teasing with his actions and goading you into giving into his antics. 

“you can have this gift first,” you bring the gift up between the two of you. the duke sighs dramatically but takes it from your hands nonetheless. he tries to weigh it subtly, running his mind through any possibility of what it might be. it’s lighter than he expected, but he wastes no time in unpackaging it. nimble fingers undo the ribbon, which he teasingly tosses over your shoulder, murmuring about reusing it later, for another gift. 

it’s a tea flight set, with specialties from the nations across teyvat. wriothesley laughs softly and looks up at you, his expression giving away his excitement over the variety of new options. he tries to think if there were any signs that he had dropped about looking for new teas but he can’t think of any, as far as he could remember, he had only thought it to himself. perhaps he had written it somewhere and lost it in his pile of papers, the same papers that you seem content to help him organize every once in awhile. 

“thank you, dear,” the features on his face soften. you return his smile and reply that you’d been looking for something special for him, for all the hard work that he’s been going.

“and besides, with the colder weather coming around, i’m sure the fortress will get a bit chillier,” you explain. wriothesley is quiet for a moment. and the moment you see him perk up you know something is coming.

“well i can think of—“ you promptly shut him up with a kiss, and wriothesley, cheeky as ever, can’t help but smile into the kiss. if this is what it’s like to receive a gift from you, he’ll have to tell clorinde to give you a wrong time to come by. this time was by chance, but next time, he’ll be more than prepared to catch you off guard and maybe with a gift of his own for you. clorinde can share some of his special teas if she can make this happen again. after all, it’s more than worth it to have you wrapped up in his arms like this.

first stolen work is ren's oneshot "drunk words, sober thoughts!" for aventurine here.

as you can see, it was posted on June 15th, a little over two months before hxveneru posted their own oneshot.

for reference. hxveneru is a new blog and all of their posts are in the month of september, proven here via their archive.

and here's the two oneshots side by side, with ren's on the left and the stolen one on the right.

notice how the oneshots are exactly word-for-word except for the title and synopsis? even the author's note is exactly the same. obviously i can't fit the whole thing here, but this should be enough.

honestly it's. i have to laugh at the audacity to just copy and paste like hello???

and here's the second work that was copied, with hxveneru's "diff scenarios w hsr men" taking from drabbles from two of ren's works.

these are the two fics that were stolen from, with their dates attached. both are posted far before september. links are here and here if you want to double check..

now let's look at the drabbles that were - once again, copy and pasted. first is blade's, again with ren on the left and the stolen one on the right (ren's is circled bc they didn't take the hcs part).

and here is the sunday drabble that was stolen.

so far, those are the only works posted on their blog. i was also informed that they had apparently stolen from @/exuvianen's post here but deleted it, but since said post is deleted, we don't have evidence for that so take it with a grain of salt.

but yeah! just wanted to let yall know out there, especially since the plagiarized works have already gained some traction and have 100+ notes on them. i've talked about them vaguely on my blog before, so if this sounds familiar, yeah this is them.

plagiarism is shitty, i shouldn't have to say that. it is not that hard to just write your own stuff. i know validation and publicity make you feel good, but stealing someone else's hard work is not the way to go. writers already have enough to deal with. just don't do it. what's the point of getting validation if it's not even your work?

again, don't send death threats, please. that's a bit far, and they likely won't even do anything since the plagiarizer has already been called out before and this was their response.

not a single ounce of remorse or shame. people have gotten way too comfortable on here.

also "who the hell is ren anyway" bestie you blocked her 😭😭 and ignored her ask to you. that's why ren can't dm her to sort it out privately btw, in case you were wondering.