later is the best time to do anything anyway

damian wayne and his orange cat gf, who refuses to leave him alone until he accepts her apology.

first, it's the coffees. somehow, you know exactly how he likes his coffee, and you'd show up at the most random times, beaming, handing him a cup of hot coffee with a "sorry :)" scribbled on it. you'd smile at him apologetically, and then look like a kicked puppy when he'd answer it with a glare.

but it doesn't stop there even after he eventually accepts your apology, you start accompanying him to his classes in your free time, walking him like he's your girlfriend. he glares at you the entire time as you yap his ear off about anything and everything, wildly gesturing with your hands and your eyes wide and twinkling. he was not aware anyone was capable of talking this much.

you soon start bringing him sweet treats, having figured out he had a sweet tooth. every time you'd try a new flavor of a snack you both liked, you'd get him one as well. he'd grumble when you'd insist he have one as well, but eventually he'd accept.

damian wayne and his orange cat gf, who has him convinced that she was made in a lab just to ragebait him.

the yapping, he has grown used to. the flailing and running and jumping, he has grown used to that too, no matter how annoying it is. what he can't get used to, is first of all how hellbent you are at annoying him, and second of all, how touchy you are. you have no sense of personal space!

you give him a bear hug if it's been longer than 3 days since you've last seen him, casually hold hands and swing them back and forth while walking (even after he screams and curses at you, baffled and embarrassed), or link your arm with his. you smack and slap his arm when you find something funny, or shove him in mock offence if he says something mean. the constant sidehugs, the lack of respect and consideration for his personal space, it drives him insane. he flushes and freezes up, his heart pounding loudly in his chest. it's only annoyance and discomfort, he tells himself. nothing more.

don't get him started on how idiotic and clumsy you are. you once fell flat on your face trying to slide down the staircase railing. you're constantly running around, plotting some mischief or purposefully annoying him. you just can't sit still.

damian wayne and his orange cat gf, who's constantly leaving him baffled and confused.

it just doesn't make sense. you're not naive. he's known you for long enough to come to the conclusion that you're not naive. yet somehow, you're always so optimistic, brushing upsetting things off with a laugh, always searching for good in people. even him.

he knew the moment he fucked up. knew it from the way you flinched, the way your smile dropped, and your eyebrows scrunched together. the silence is deafening. he didn't mean to snap at you, he really didn't. the last thing he wanted was to be mean to someone who makes his day better with just her big smile and pretty eyes. it kind of just happened, and he immediately feels guilt and regret choking him, making him forget why he was so agitated in the first place.

damian doesn't do apologies. sorry isn’t even in his vocabulary. but the look on your face has him stumbling over his words, panic lacing his tone as he grabs your arms, rushing through giving an explanation, an excuse, and apologies. sorry's and and 'it's my fault' and 'you didn't deserve that' spill from his mouth, eyes wide.

you simply in agreement, yeah, you didnt deserve that, and he's sure this is it. you're going to walk away, realise he's not worth it, leave him alone, but you just slip your hand in your pocket, place a chocolate in his hand, and tell him he's gonna have to make it up to you by treating you to ice cream, already smiling at him.

his heart is racing and he can only stare at you. why? he didn't deserve your understanding, he didn't deserve your affection, or adoration or love. (yeah, he knows. he's not blind, he knows you like him.) he pops the chocolate in his mouth, and decides he's done being scared. there's no way he can let someone like you go.

damian and his orange cat gf, who has him whipped and wrapped around her finger.

glaring at anyone who dares to be mean at you, baring his teeth whenever he feels like someone's taking advantage of your kindness, carrying around extra bandages that he has to restock every week because you're always getting hurt doing something stupid, trying new cafes with you and cooking your favorite dishes because he adores the way your eyes gleam and your face brightens when you eat, letting you use him as your personal pillow while his ears redden, letting you hold his hand in public and kiss his cheek even though he despises pda, that's just his life now. and he really wouldn't have it any other way.

damian and his orange cat gf, whose love language is bothering and annoying and playfighting with him.

and damian who reciprocates it. he is delighted to find out he can get under your skin the way you get under his. he finds himself matching your energy, pulling smug pranks, attacking you with tickles, annoying you whenever he can, rough-housing with you. he only smirks when you whine about his unfair strength advantage.

he finds himself getting into stupid messes and troubles with you, and he surprises himself by not minding it. he doesn't mind it, no. he has fun with you. he finds you funny, and fun to be around. he loosens up and finds himself becoming an accomplice in your usual mischiefs. he doesn't know how he made it this far without you.

thank you for reading!!! as usual likes, reblogs, comments are encouraged and appreciated <3 some orange kitty crumbs for u because they're gen so funny and adorable 😭

Not that Sirius dislikes you, quite the opposite. It does, however, annoy him when James prioritises you over their obviously very important pranks. 

“Fine, okay. But we can’t postpone until next weekend, that’s too far away, Prongs. Why don’t you just bring your bird?” Sirius replies, not sounding too pleased about the idea himself.

That’s when James shoots him a look. That look that says Sirius has just said something he really didn’t like to hear. Also a look that Sirius has never seen on his best friend’s face before. 

“She’s not my bird, Padfoot. She’s my girlfriend, the love of my life, and more importantly, a human being. You saying that dehumanises her, it’s objectifying and—”

”Wow, alright. Since when do you know what those words mean?” Sirius retorts, looking confused. 

Remus is snickering into his morning tea, and Peter looks quite surprised as well. James has never particularly cared in the past. Hell, he used to speak exactly the same. 

James takes a bite of his scone.

”Since y/n taught me all about that kind of stuff. You wouldn’t believe the horrible things some of the guys here say about girls. I mean, we need to treat women like human beings, like equals, right? But that seems to be too hard for most boys here,” he starts, his mouth still full. 

“And it really bothers her, so I’ve made it my personal mission to put a stop to it, obviously,” he adds with a determined grin on his face. 

And so it is. While James had never previously cared much to educate himself on women’s rights or inequality or casual sexism, you had often ranted to him after overhearing the ways some boys speak about female students behind their backs. And if James Potter hated one thing in the world, it was definitely seeing you upset. If making you happy meant ending sexism completely, he wants to be the man for the job.

“Interesting,” Remus just says quietly into his mug, still looking amused more than anything else.

Sirius just shares a look with Peter.

“What a pile of rubbish,” he mutters, unfortunately loud enough for James to hear him.

James shoots him a cross look again.

”It’s not rubbish, Pads. And it’s not hard for us to change the way we speak about girls, is it?”

Sirius, Peter and Remus are quite surprised how serious he’s being about this.

”No, I guess not,” Sirius replies begrudgingly, even if it’s mostly just to make James relent.

When the Hogsmeade weekend finally comes, you do end up tagging along with all four of the boys. You’re walking ahead with James, both of your arms linked, while Peter, Sirius and Remus are walking together behind you, also talking among themselves. 

You split up to do some shopping first, leaving the boys to plan their pranks while you go into the sweet shop, and then reunite for a drink at The Three Broomsticks. The boys are already there by the time you enter the little pub which is bustling with other students and a few professors. 

“I already ordered you a butterbeer, love,” James says when you take a seat and carefully slides over a glass bottle before giving you a soft peck on the lips. 

“Thank you, James,” you reply and take a large sip. The familiar drink immediately cools you, especially after rushing around Hogsmeade in the warm weather. 

For a while the five of you sit and chat, share a laugh and just relax after the exhausting week of classes until a conversation from a nearby table catches your ears. 

“What a bitch,” you overhear, and, upon looking over, you see a table with two boys from another house that a girl is just now walking away from.

”Must be her time of the month,” the other replies, and they both break into snickers. 

The girl in question doesn’t react, probably no longer able to hear them over the noise of the pub. 

A chair scrapes the floor beside you, and, before you can react and say something yourself, James is already standing up and making his way to their table. 

“Did I just hear you call a woman a bitch?” 

He stops in front of them, looking very obviously ticked off. 

Sirius sighs beside you and stands up as well, mumbling something like ‘here we go’. There’s no way he’s going to let James get in a fight by himself. 

The two boys turn to look at them, not looking too happy that their conversation is being intruded on. 

“Wh—Yeah, so? Mind your business,” the first guy says, looking annoyed but also a tiny bit embarrassed.

”No,” James deadpans and takes a step closer. 

“You don’t get to speak about women like that, it’s disrespectful.”

A few people at tables surrounding them have started to look over at this point. 

“Like I said, mind your business. We were just playing around and she got all mad, alright? Chicks can’t even take a joke.”

You observe as the guy who’s doing all the talking rolls his eyes and the other one just nods.

James looks personally offended by now.

”First of all, she isn’t a chick. Secondly, I don’t know what your joke was, but it probably wasn’t funny. Saying something misogynistic and then reducing a woman’s reaction to her being hysterical reinforces a gendered stereotype. She isn’t a bitch, you’re just sexist.”

That pretty much shuts both of them up. Clearly they’ve never been confronted by another guy before when it comes to this.

James is about to return to your table when he turns back to add something.

”Oh, and so is asking a girl if she’s on her period, by the way. You don’t get to reduce a woman’s emotions to hormones, especially when her reaction was completely justified. My girlfriend says so.”

To your surprise, Sirius pipes up as well.

”Exactly, it’s objectifying.”

Not entirely true, but you can’t help a small, amused smile tugging at your lips. It seems like your influence on James has started to rub off on the others as well. 

When they both return to your table, leaving the two boys humiliated and confused, James shoots you a proud smile. 

“Did I say everything right, love? Or did I forget something?”

You squeeze his hand when he slides it into yours as if making sure you’re not upset. He knows that things like this can sometimes tick you off.

”No, that was good,” you reply, this time not feeling annoyed or angry in the slightest. It’s nice to see that your conversations with James are actually sticking and he takes what you say seriously. 

Remus finally pipes up, looking equally as amused as you.

”You’re really taking this seriously, aren’t you?”

James finally lets go of your hand, only to throw an arm over your shoulders instead.

That's why it's been utter agony navigating the aftermath of yours and Teddy's chance encounter. Of course, Slughorn and Flitwick each assigned the heftiest essays of term in the week leading up to the Slytherin-Gryffindor match this weekend. This week usually meant house rivalry traditions, doting on your boys, and for you personally, seeing to it that Theo has everything he needs. Instead, it's entailed brutally long evenings in the library, migraines even Pansy's stash of potions can't solve, and worst of all? Solitude.

You've been so busy that you haven't seen Theo, least of all spoken with him about where you stand now, after crossing that platonic line with him into something hotter, filthier, and utterly irresistible. At least that's how you feel about it. For all you know, he could be disgusted. Traumatized. Feeling entirely different about you from now on.

These thoughts ran rampant--alongside their filthier counterparts--like loose Cornish Pixies in heat. That was until, after finally submitting your final scroll of parchment to Slughorn late Friday evening, you return to your dorm to a gift on your bed: Theo's Quidditch jumper, tied with a comically lopsided bow. A torn leaf of paper from Theo's journal, folded in a neat square, is tucked beneath the yarn. You open the note, a small grin forming against your will with anticipation.

For my number one fan. Don't study too hard principessa, I'll see you tomorrow.

P.S. Hip feels perfect.

You huff a giddy sigh, falling back onto your bed. He doesn't hate you. How he does feel, whether it's platonic or holy fuck let's do that again, time will tell. Either way, you damn near sleep the whole evening with that grin etched into your features. Your Teddy still loves you, and you still love him.

The final whistle on the pitch is blown, a wave of emerald green erupting in boisterous cheers. You and Pansy, situated like royalty in the front row of the rickety bleachers, are already plowing through your housemates towards the stairs to meet your boys down on the pitch. You reach Theo just as he's landed from his broom, jumping up in his muscular arms in an embrace without a second thought. It's habit, of course, so you didn't bother to consider the dreaded what are we now that I've stroked your cock conundrum.

Luckily, he yields to you immediately, his arms wrapping around the stretch of thigh just under your ass as he lifts you in the air, spinning you in a circle.

"Merlin, you were bloody brilliant Teddy!" You squeal into the crook of his neck. Your skirt flutters as Theo spins you, nearly exposing your backside to the pitch before he plants you back on your feet. His calloused hands remain on the curve of your waist, yours tangled in the tendrils of hair at the nape of his neck.

"And you are my good luck charm, tesoro." His grin is slightly lopsided and makes him look utterly charming, that dimple you love oh so much coming out of hiding. His hands, sure and steady, shift to your shoulders. His grin suddenly faltered, his brow furrowed.

"Your back feels like Devils' Snare, Y/N."

Right. That.

"I was a little stressed this week with assignments. I'm fine."

He gives your shoulders an experimental squeeze, causing your breath to hitch with unconcealed pain.

"Oh really?" He taunts with a skeptical expression. Another experimental squeeze of his strong hands almost forces a traitorous whimper from your bitten lip. "I'm working on this for you as soon as I wash up. You're tense as a coiled spring."

"Teddy, no. The girls and I already spent hours setting up the team's victory party in the common room. Sweets, music, your favorite Ogden's..."

"And I won't be able to enjoy a single moment of it knowing you've got boulders burrowed beneath your shoulder blades."

"But Teddy, the party--"

"Will wait." He finishes your sentence with a note of finality. His expression softens, his sharp features melting into that of the young boy you've loved for all of these years. "You work yourself too hard bellissima. Let me take care of you for once."

And if any ounce of you thought you could resist him before, that nickname does you in.

Theo shuts his dormitory door with a soft click. You've been in his space--his sanctuary, the intimate glimpse into his inner world--more times than you can count. Never have you ever been this nervous before. Theodore, bless his heart, senses your unease immediately. His hands find your shoulders, helping you shrug out of your wool peacoat.

"Okay if I take this off?" He murmurs softly near your ear, his tall frame looming behind you. His hands still, waiting, at the hem of the Quidditch jumper he gifted you. You tilt your face to look up at him, giving him a small smile and a nod. His warm hands slip beneath the fabric, pulling it up and over your head. You're left in a black unlined balconette bra with a single pink rosette between your breasts. Before you can get self-conscious, Theo lays a fat kiss to the side of your head, making you giggle, before giving two playful taps to your hip bone.

"On the bed, bella. Before you topple over."

You climb up onto his four-poster without hesitation, lying on your stomach with your face buried in his navy velvet shams. You feel his thighs bracket your hips and weight settle over your ass, his warm hands finding your spine. Before he can ask, you reach behind yourself and unhook your bra, allowing him access to the full expanse of your back. You shimmy your arms carefully out of the arm openings, sliding the flimsy scrap of fabric out from under you. You don't see it, but Theo's gaze turns heated as the dainty lace garment lands on the other side of his bed.

"There she is." He murmurs, his voice taking on a huskier tone than moments prior. "Just relax."

The booming of the common room party's music is audible now, vibrating the halls. Theo pays no mind as he oils up his canvas, working it into your smooth skin in broad, sweeping circles. His hands, usually so sure, tremble slightly with the access you've given him to your beautiful body. Several minutes of meticulous kneading later, your shoulders are noticeable more relaxed. Theo continues massaging, working his way from your shoulders to the rest of your spine. His fingers become much more sure, and all the while, the feel of his hands on your bare skin becomes more and more intoxicating.

His fingertips graze the side of your breasts, still bare and pressed against his duvet. The feeling of his fingers, so close to your taut buds that are needy for his attention, has you exhaling a shaky sigh. Theo definitely notices.

His attention shifts again, moving down your body to massage the backs of your legs. His thumbs stroke the innermost part of your thighs, each stroke of his hands inching higher and higher. You're so aroused by him--his touch, his proximity, the smell of his sandalwood cologne, the murmured praises he's been uttering--that you feel your panties growing damp. These teasing, fleeting touches only contribute to the sensation growing between your legs. It's enough to drive a new fear within you--that with each passing motion towards your inner thighs, Theo will be able to feel how wet he's made you leaking out of the thin scrap of fabric that's barely containing your puffy lips.

"Turn over for me darling." His gruff voice, tender yet intent, releases you from this spiral of thoughts. Your hand, which was tucked beneath your cheek, reaches out in an attempt to grab your discarded bra across the duvet. You're stopped when Theo gently grasps your wrist, looking down at you with those pleading, hungry eyes.

"You don't have to cover up, bellissima. It's me." He's so sure, so honest, that you know he would never think poorly of the way you look. With a hesitant nod, he clears space for you on the bed to turn over.

And if you could frame the look on his face when he finally sees your tits, plush and soft with pale pink peaks, you would die a happy woman.

"Mio Dio..." He exhales as he settles back over you, legs on either side of your hips. Your nipples pucker even further under his gaze, aching with the need to be touched, squeezed, licked...

Theo doesn't make you wait long. With a reverent, sure motion, his hands cup your aching tits, thumbs flicking over your nipples. You moan instantly on contact, the soft, feminine sound making Theo's dick throb in his trousers. He's been hard from the moment he got his hands on you, and now? He's practically biting the inside of his cheek to keep from blowing his load.

"Teddy..." You exhale in a breathy tone reserved for you, yourself, and your vibrator. He's barely touching you and you already feel every nerve in your body alight with pure, unadulterated need.

That does it. He surges forward, hands still kneading your tits as he captures your lips with his. One hand moves from your breast to thread in your hair, tilting your head back to deepen the kiss.

"You're all I've been able to think about this week Y/N." He rasps against your lips. "Every single day and night. Especially night. Merlin woman, you've damn near driven me to madness with one handy."

You smile against his lips. "I was that good, huh?" You murmur playfully. Your sassy remark devolves into a moan when his lips wrap around your taught peak, sucking with the perfect amount of pressure without even trying.

"So fucking sensitive..." Theo mumbles approvingly against your tit, nipping the flesh gently. His hands skate down the curve of your waist as he continues his delicious ministrations, finding the zipper of your skirt. You comply with his unspoken request, lifting your hips as he slides the fabric down and throws it aside.

Though the skirt was barely hiding anything to begin with, he looks at you now like you're a masterpiece conjured by Da Vinci himself. Creamy soft skin, luscious curves, and a magical triangle barely covered by dampened lacy fabric. Theo looks like he's salivating at the sight.

"Sweet Merlin Y/N...you're everything. Everything." He whispers, almost worshipping. His thumb moves to sweep over your clothed cunt, feeling how desperately you want him--need him. "Fuck...you gorgeous, gorgeous woman." He practically moans into the crook of your neck, thumb moving with more intent over the fabric, causing you to arch up into him. He lavishes your neck in hot, wet kisses as his fingers hook into the barely-there waistband of your thong.

"T-Teddy...wait." You pant, feeling inclined to share with him something you've never shared before. "Before you start, I just...I've never..."

"You've never come?" He whispers, brows knit tightly together in poorly concealed horror.

"No! No, god, I came about six times this week alone to the thought of your cock. What I mean is...I've never come by someone else's doing. I--I just...don't want you to get your hopes up, or feel like you've failed."

His expression shifts, from cocky to lamenting to something hot enough to make your toes curl--determined.

"Can I still try?" His thumb strokes the bare skin at your hip, his eyes set unwaveringly on yours. "If you want me at any point to stop, I will. But...I would really fucking love to touch you Y/N. Please let me." He murmurs pleadingly.

And what kind of woman would you be to refuse the man, practically begging to worship your pussy?

After a moment of contemplation, you catch your plush bottom lip between your teeth, nodding gently. "Okay." You whisper.

Theo doesn't waste a moment. Your panties are pulled off promptly as that single word of consent leaves your lips. His hands find purchase on the inside of each of your thighs, spreading you wide and settling in between them. For a long moment, one that should make you nervous, he just looks.

"You have the prettiest fucking cunt I've ever seen."

Before you can preen under the compliment, his lips find yours again, his dominant hand cupping your mound. He groans into your mouth when he feels your slick, using a digit to spread it throughout your folds. You whimper as he strokes against your bare clit, pulsing and needy for him.

"Let me hear you, cara." He purrs against your skin. Like all things, Theo is precise, observant, and utterly tuned in to your every reaction. He notes when your breath hitches and an especially loud moan slips from your rosy lips. He notices what motion makes your thighs tremble and attempt to close around his wrist. He's learning your body like an instrument, and Merlin is it singing.

Just as he pulls away and a disappointed whimper bubbles in your throat, the sensations get hotter, wetter, as Theo kisses a wet path down your stomach. Only when he nips playfully at your hip, his strong hands spreading you wider, do you find words.

"T-Teddy...you don't have to..." You murmur, feeling newly exposed and vulnerable by how close his face is to your sopping pussy.

"Y/N...there isn't a world where I would ever--" He kisses your inner thigh. "Ever--" He kisses the other thigh. "Ever, turn this down."

Any response you could muster dies into a needy moan the moment he licks a firm stripe from your hole to clit. You swear he can feel it pulse against his tongue. He eats your pussy like he needs it to breathe. It's almost as though he's getting off on this as much as you are.

"You taste--nghh--like fucking heaven." He moans into your folds, hips twitching against the bed.

That's when you feel it. That tightly wound ball of energy nestled deep in your gut, the one that signals you to turn up your vibrator or speed up your fingers when you're alone. Yet here you are, completely at Theo's mercy, surrendering that control to him. It's the closest you've ever felt to finishing with a man, no doubt a product of the deep trust shared between you and Theo.

"I know you're close cara. I can feel you soaking me." He murmurs huskily, slipping a finger, then two, into your fluttering hole while his mouth focuses entirely on your clit. "You're doing so well for me. I know you can give it to me." He encourages against your flesh before closing his lips around your clit and sucking hard.

"Fuck!" You buck your hips further into his mouth, fingers flying to his hair as you use him for your pleasure. He moans heartily into your folds, doubling down his efforts, all the while his hips jut helplessly against his duvet. Your legs tremble violently on Theo's shoulders as he slurps shamelessly at your arousal, his fingers hitting that spongey spot inside you with pinpoint precision. You can barely form words, whispered curses and Theo's name spilling aimlessly from your lips.

With one more hard suck of your clit, you absolutely shatter.

Your back arches, your legs tremble, your chest heaves with overwhelming pleasure like you've never felt before. Sure, you've given yourself some fantastic orgasms--especially this past week, supplied with that gorgeous mental image of Theo finishing all over your hand. But something about this moment of absolute surrender to the man who knows you inside and out, who loves you so deeply, makes the pleasure multiply by tenfold. You've never felt so sated in your life.

It seems that Theo is feeling your pleasure all the same, moaning in tandem with you as you reach that beautiful peak. After working you through your climax, fingers slowing inside of you as he presses soft kisses to your inner thighs and hips, he makes his way up your body. He kisses you deeply, letting you taste your sweet musk on his lips.

That's when you feel damp fabric pressing against your bare thigh where Theo's body covers yours. You look down for just a moment--long enough to see the wet patch on the front of Theo's trousers.

"Teddy? Did you...?"

"I..." He swallows deeply, his cheeks flushing a precious shade of pink. "Yeah." He chuckles self-deprecatingly. "It's just...that was the single hottest thing I've ever seen in my life, and I must've gotten carried awa--"

You don't let him finish that thought, pulling him into a brutal, heated kiss. Teddy, your Teddy, just got off on giving you pleasure. Came in his pants without you laying a finger on him. It felt like a fantasy you were bound to wake up from at some point.

"Well..." You murmur against his lips with a small smile. "Maybe we should get cleaned up together before we head down to the party, hm?"

"Maybe." He responds sheepishly with a devastatingly charming smile. "Or...maybe I can get you messy one more time before we clean up." He says with a devilish smirk, hands already wandering.

The others obviously know it, even if you two don't. Draco snickers every time you fuss over Theo, looking at him dotingly while brushing the hair off of his forehead. Pansy elbows Blaise every time they catch Theo watching the sway of your hips and glimpse of your ass in your size-too-small uniform skirt. It's an unspoken, accepted dynamic. You and Theo are more than friends, less than lovers.

That's why, when you see your brooding prince hobble into the common room, worry etches across your features, your brows furrowing. You stand, instinctively darting towards him to steady him. His sharp features relent, softening, as soon as you come into his line of sight.

"What happened T?" You look up at him, black-painted fingertips running soothingly along his forearms.

"'s nothing darling. Don't fret." He says in that utterly quiet tone reserved for you.

"It's not nothing. You're limping Teddy. Did you get hurt at practice?"

"It's fine. Just a bit of roughhousing on the pitch. I'm fi--"

"No. Not fine." You cut him off, giving him that persistent, stubborn look he always falls for. "Where does it hurt?"

He doesn't respond, his jaw ticking once.

"Theodore."

"Hip. Hip--Merlin, woman. Stubbornest witch of our age."

You muster a small smile, victorious in your pursuit. It disappears again when he winces, taking his weight off of his right leg. "Can I work on it for you? I have this soothing salve that Madam Pomfrey gifted me, and I have that enchanted oil from Christmas last year."

He finds your concern, and subsequent rambling, charming and flattering. He'd never admit this, for fear of being labeled with an unruly Oedipus complex, but being taken care of by you is nice. Especially when it comes to your magical fingers, which for years of Quidditch, have eased shoulder knots and joint injuries seemingly before they manifest. Theo gives you a grudging smile, brushing your cheek with the calloused pad of his thumb.

"Okay principessa. Only because we play Gryffindor this weekend, and I can't afford a bum hip."

You smile up at him, giving his forearms a little squeeze before leading the way to your private dormitory. The space is a cozy sanctuary for Theo, who often spends more time here than his own room. He makes himself comfortable before you can even close the door.

"Mmmnngh...hurts like hell." Theo grumbles, finally free to be vulnerable now that you're in private. His gruff voice is muffled by his face being in your pillows, lying face-down on your silk duvet.

"I know love, I can tell it's killing you." You coo, already gathering materials from your bathroom cabinets. You return a moment later, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Can you show me where it hurts?"

He doesn't respond with words, just grunts and points. He gestures a path from his glute, wrapping around front to his hip flexor. You take a deep breath, the thought of digging your fingers into his plump ass...

Stop. This is Theo, your best friend. You've massaged him plenty of times, and it's clear he's in pain. You cannot make this weird by your lustful fantasies. Keep it platonic. Keep it helpful.

"Can I pull these down a little?" You ask almost clinically, your fingertip hooked gently in his belt loop of his trousers. Theo, again, grunts in response, before snaking his hands beneath himself to unhook his belt. He does so deftly, pulling his trousers down and kicking them, petulantly, off of his legs. It almost makes you chuckle, if not for the new sight bared to you--Theo's ass in oh-so-small boxer briefs. Damn Italians. There's a flutter in your stomach that travels south between your legs.

Once he's settled, you straddle his thighs right below his glutes, your mini skirt fanning over your legs. You start to heat up the oil between your palms, your heart traitorously skipping in your chest. You carefully, slowly, peel back the waistband of his boxer briefs, revealing the creamy skin of his right cheek.

"Okay?" You murmur softly, making sure he's still comfortable.

"Yeah." He responds. Perhaps you imagined it, but his tone has taken a gruffer, huskier tone. It must be your lust clouding your senses. But Merlin, does it make your clit throb all the same.

You start massaging the tender area, noting where he's sore and murmuring soothing charms under your breath to ease the muscles. You know his body almost better than he does, which is why you can tell that he's tense. Too tense.

"Am I hurting you?" You ask suddenly, worried your body weight is too heavy on his legs, or your pressure is too strong...

"N-no. Not at all principessa. 's good." Far too good, he thinks to himself.

You sigh a little in relief. Maybe you're overthinking it. Maybe you're the one who's tense, paranoid that your best friend can smell the arousal that's been collecting in your thin cotton panties. You push the thoughts aside (unsuccessfully, but worth a try) as you pull the waistband of his boxer briefs back to its original position.

"Flip over for me, I'll get your hip flexor too."

That is when I feel him tense, undoubtedly.

"Teddy?"

"Y-yeah. Ahem--yeah. Um, hip flexor. Let's...um..."

You temporarily dismount him so he can turn onto his back. You straddle him once more, and that's when you see it. His monstrous cock, straining so tightly against his briefs that you can practically trace the veins.

You'd heard rumors about your best friend, of course. Locker room talk and drunken hookups, all sharing the same sentiment: Theodore Nott, your Teddy, is hung like a horse.

So you rationalize. Maybe he's not hard, maybe he's not as painfully, achingly aroused as you are right now. Maybe this is just what he looks like flaccid in his briefs. That is a terrifyingly delicious thought, but one you're in no position to entertain right now.

One accidental brush of your wrist against him dispels that rationalization real quick. Hard as fucking steel. You gasp and Theo hisses in unison at the unintended contact.

"Sorry!" "Ffffuck."

"Principessa...I, I'm sorry--"

"No, no...Teddy. Don't be sorry." You say soothingly, extinguishing any embarrassment before it arises. You sweep your thumb across his cheek, tempted to trace his plush bottom lip. Your eyes go slightly hooded, gaze darkening as you look down from where you're still perched on his lap and register his clear signs of arousal: dilated pupils, uneven breathing, gaze that flickers to your open neckline, and of course, the straining cock resting against your thigh.

Theo's breathing is coming in near pants. Your thumb continues its soothing ministrations on his cheek. You both feel it, this impending sense that you're at a critical crossroads, right here in your dorm.

"I can...shift my attention there. If you'd like." You say in an utterly feminine, sultry murmur that makes Theo's cock jump slightly beneath the fabric.

"Love, you don't need to--"

"I want to. More than I should probably admit." You bite your lip, thighs unconsciously trying to squeeze together as you remain astride on his lap. "Or, we can both take cold showers and forget this ever happened. Your call." You murmur, giving him the out, prioritizing his comfort.

"...F-first. First one. Definitely the first." He spits out between bated breaths.

You laugh softly, beaming at him as the mood lightens to this filthy, playful dynamic. "First one it is." Your melodic laughter is contagious, causing Theo to stifle a small, self-deprecating laugh full with anticipation.

"Just...tell me what feels good." You smile softly, determined to give him this new dimension of pleasure. Your world narrows in to him, him, and only him as you peel back the thin fabric of his boxer briefs, revealing his most intimate part to you for the first time.

Your jaw goes slack, your hands moving before words come to mind. You grip his shaft in your hand, feeling its weight, its circumference, learning every detail of Teddy.

And you are a quick study indeed.

Within minutes, you've completely uncovered how to make Theodore Nott a whimpering mess, his precum beading steadily on his pink tip. You've learned his body like a science in a short period of time, utterly tuned in to the way you make him feel. Whispering sweet nothings against his sharp jawline, I love how loud you are for me Principe...or squeezing his balls just so, or targeting that delicate area beneath the head of his cock that makes him moan so suddenly it surprises him.

"F-fuck, bella, I'm sorry...not--nngggh--usually this vocal."

That earns him a hot, searing kiss under his ear. "Never be sorry. It's so sexy baby..."

With lightning-quick reflex, Theo grasps the back of your neck and pulls your mouth to his in your first kiss together. The kiss is demanding, a toe-curling display of utter male dominance. When imagining what kissing Theo would be like throughout the years, you've dreamed up every variation--slow and cautious, playful and quick--but nothing, nothing compares to the pure eroticism of Theo moaning in your mouth while you steadily pump his cock.

"Tesoro, don't stop...d-don't stop..." He gasps out between lashes of tongue against tongue, dancing in a perfect rhythm.

"Come for me Teddy...please baby...show me how good I make you feel..." You whisper against his mouth.

Seconds later, he's spilling hot ropes of his release all over your fingers as his name tumbles from his lips like a litany. This single, beautiful moment will supply your mental spank bank for years to come. Both of you are panting, foreheads pressed against each other.

When you pull back just slightly to look at his blissed out expression, you can't help but bring one cum-coated finger to your mouth, sucking his release from it. He groans deeply at the sight before gripping you by the hips, flipping your positions in a show of strength so that he's hovering above you.

damian wayne and his orange cat gf, who refuses to leave him alone until he accepts her apology.

first, it's the coffees. somehow, you know exactly how he likes his coffee, and you'd show up at the most random times, beaming, handing him a cup of hot coffee with a "sorry :)" scribbled on it. you'd smile at him apologetically, and then look like a kicked puppy when he'd answer it with a glare.

but it doesn't stop there even after he eventually accepts your apology, you start accompanying him to his classes in your free time, walking him like he's your girlfriend. he glares at you the entire time as you yap his ear off about anything and everything, wildly gesturing with your hands and your eyes wide and twinkling. he was not aware anyone was capable of talking this much.

you soon start bringing him sweet treats, having figured out he had a sweet tooth. every time you'd try a new flavor of a snack you both liked, you'd get him one as well. he'd grumble when you'd insist he have one as well, but eventually he'd accept.

damian wayne and his orange cat gf, who has him convinced that she was made in a lab just to ragebait him.

the yapping, he has grown used to. the flailing and running and jumping, he has grown used to that too, no matter how annoying it is. what he can't get used to, is first of all how hellbent you are at annoying him, and second of all, how touchy you are. you have no sense of personal space!

you give him a bear hug if it's been longer than 3 days since you've last seen him, casually hold hands and swing them back and forth while walking (even after he screams and curses at you, baffled and embarrassed), or link your arm with his. you smack and slap his arm when you find something funny, or shove him in mock offence if he says something mean. the constant sidehugs, the lack of respect and consideration for his personal space, it drives him insane. he flushes and freezes up, his heart pounding loudly in his chest. it's only annoyance and discomfort, he tells himself. nothing more.

don't get him started on how idiotic and clumsy you are. you once fell flat on your face trying to slide down the staircase railing. you're constantly running around, plotting some mischief or purposefully annoying him. you just can't sit still.

damian wayne and his orange cat gf, who's constantly leaving him baffled and confused.

it just doesn't make sense. you're not naive. he's known you for long enough to come to the conclusion that you're not naive. yet somehow, you're always so optimistic, brushing upsetting things off with a laugh, always searching for good in people. even him.

he knew the moment he fucked up. knew it from the way you flinched, the way your smile dropped, and your eyebrows scrunched together. the silence is deafening. he didn't mean to snap at you, he really didn't. the last thing he wanted was to be mean to someone who makes his day better with just her big smile and pretty eyes. it kind of just happened, and he immediately feels guilt and regret choking him, making him forget why he was so agitated in the first place.

damian doesn't do apologies. sorry isn’t even in his vocabulary. but the look on your face has him stumbling over his words, panic lacing his tone as he grabs your arms, rushing through giving an explanation, an excuse, and apologies. sorry's and and 'it's my fault' and 'you didn't deserve that' spill from his mouth, eyes wide.

you simply in agreement, yeah, you didnt deserve that, and he's sure this is it. you're going to walk away, realise he's not worth it, leave him alone, but you just slip your hand in your pocket, place a chocolate in his hand, and tell him he's gonna have to make it up to you by treating you to ice cream, already smiling at him.

his heart is racing and he can only stare at you. why? he didn't deserve your understanding, he didn't deserve your affection, or adoration or love. (yeah, he knows. he's not blind, he knows you like him.) he pops the chocolate in his mouth, and decides he's done being scared. there's no way he can let someone like you go.

damian and his orange cat gf, who has him whipped and wrapped around her finger.

glaring at anyone who dares to be mean at you, baring his teeth whenever he feels like someone's taking advantage of your kindness, carrying around extra bandages that he has to restock every week because you're always getting hurt doing something stupid, trying new cafes with you and cooking your favorite dishes because he adores the way your eyes gleam and your face brightens when you eat, letting you use him as your personal pillow while his ears redden, letting you hold his hand in public and kiss his cheek even though he despises pda, that's just his life now. and he really wouldn't have it any other way.

damian and his orange cat gf, whose love language is bothering and annoying and playfighting with him.

and damian who reciprocates it. he is delighted to find out he can get under your skin the way you get under his. he finds himself matching your energy, pulling smug pranks, attacking you with tickles, annoying you whenever he can, rough-housing with you. he only smirks when you whine about his unfair strength advantage.

he finds himself getting into stupid messes and troubles with you, and he surprises himself by not minding it. he doesn't mind it, no. he has fun with you. he finds you funny, and fun to be around. he loosens up and finds himself becoming an accomplice in your usual mischiefs. he doesn't know how he made it this far without you.

thank you for reading!!! as usual likes, reblogs, comments are encouraged and appreciated <3 some orange kitty crumbs for u because they're gen so funny and adorable 😭

But you stopped short when you got in the door and were met with that sonic wall of screaming. But as you looked around, there were no guests, no one unexpected, no source of the sound. The lower floor was empty aside from Ransom sitting on the couch, Lola held firmly on his lap as he gently petted her.

“What’s going on?” you shouted across the room.

Ransom jumped slightly, not having realized you were home, then scrambled for his phone. Immediately, the noise, blessedly, stopped. “Sorry,” he said, blushing a little, and for the first time you were pretty sure you were seeing Ransom self-conscious. “Lola and I have been working on getting used to the sounds of a baby when you aren’t around. Google says it’s a good way to prepare your dog.”

You didn’t try to stop the warm smile you felt taking over your face. “Oh yeah? How’s she doing?”

He let her off his lap, and she scampered over to you. “She’s doing good. Making a lot of progress. It isn’t so scary anymore, is it?”

Lola looked up at you and wagged her tail. “Good job, baby,” you said to her as you put down your bags and picked her up. “What else does Google say?”

“Uh,” Ransom scratched the back of his neck. He was embarrassed by how much work and thought he’d put into this. It made your heart melt. “We should be getting her used to the new smells too, so letting her sniff anything we buy for the baby. And we should introduce any new routines or patterns right now. Get her used to being taken care of by both of us, not just you.”

“You already do a good job of that,” you said sincerely.

He shrugged. “I’m trying.” He bent down to look through your bags. “Speaking of new smells, what did you get?”

“Oh, I passed by a little baby store on my way home, so I decided to stop in and see what I could find.”

Ransom took out a pretty lilac onesie and a soft sage blanket. He carefully held them up for Lola to smell. “It’s so tiny,” he said softly, reverently smoothing his thumb over the onesie.

“Yeah,” you answered, moving your free hand to your bump, which was big enough now that you felt like you could barely call it that. “I think she’s going to be even teenier than we realize.”

Ransom delicately put the baby’s things back in the bag and moved both of his hands to your stomach. You felt the baby shift in response, the way she did right before she was about to start punching you. Ransom had yet to feel her, and you knew it was bothering him, so you grabbed one of his wrists and moved it a few inches to where she’d started to press against you. “She’s right there,” you whispered.

Ransom pressed his lips together in concentration, and then his brow furrowed in frustration. “I still can’t-“ She moved again, and he froze. “Wait,” he said, so quietly like he didn’t want to spook her, and she kicked again, almost in response. “That’s her?” he asked, breathless.

“Yeah,” you grinned, “that’s her.” And then, feeling like your heart was cracking wide open, you added, “She’s saying hi to her daddy.”

You felt his breath hitch through his hands on you. He looked up, tears in his eyes and a scared, happy, joyful smile on his face. He moved one hand up to your cheek while the other stayed pressed to the spot where your daughter was, and kissed you, soft and slow and happy. So, so happy.

You were sharing the couch with Ransom, both reading quietly with Lola snuggled between you, when it washed over you. This had happened a few times now. Heat coursing through your whole body. Need. Out of nowhere. You knew it was normal. You’d read about it in your books. But that didn’t make it any easier.

The last time you’d tried to take care of it yourself while Ransom was at work, but you’d discovered that your belly was now too big for you to reach around and get to your core, even with your vibrator. So you’d cried alone in your bed until it finally passed. You didn’t know if you’d be able to do that again.

You looked over at Ransom over your book. God, he was so beautiful. It still kind of made you mad, even after all this time. The way your feet were pulled up onto the couch, your toes just barely grazed his thigh. You moved back quickly. As much as every part of your body was screaming at you to crawl onto his lap and make him fuck you, you couldn’t actually do that. You didn’t even know if he wanted it. Plus, you were pretty sure that if he touched you, you’d actually explode.

At your movement, he looked up at you. “You okay?” he asked, his brow furrowed the way it did anytime you displayed the slightest hint of discomfort or displeasure.

You smiled and hoped it didn’t come across as a grimace. “I’m fine, just a little uncomfortable.”

“Do you want me to go get you another pillow? Would that help?”

You shook your head vigorously. “Nope! I’m fine. It’s fine. Just ignore me.” You took a deep, slow breath as the need got even worse.

And the way he was pinning you down with his gaze wasn’t helping. “You don’t seem like you’re uncomfortable. You seem like you’re in pain.” He reached a hand out to you, and you shrank back, knowing that if he touched you, you’d lose all semblance of control.

“It’s not pain, Ransom, I promise. Please. Please just drop it.” You could feel the tears starting to gather in your eyes as your whole body felt like it was about to catch fire.

“I’m not going to drop it if there’s something I can do to help,” he said firmly, and you wanted to scream.

“No, it’s– It’s fine, I just–“ You closed your eyes as you struggled to breathe normally. Finally, you gave up. He was worse than Steve; you weren’t going to be able to keep hiding this from him. “It’s the hormones. I just get really horny sometimes. Out of nowhere. And it’s awful, but it’ll pass.”

You felt the way he went completely still and opened your eyes. He was staring at you, a smirk on his face. “Well,” he said, and his voice had dropped at least an octave. It shot right through you. “That sounds like the exact sort of thing I can help with.”

“Ransom–“You shook your head, not sure of what to say. Not trusting yourself to say anything.

The smirk dropped off his face, and his eyes got serious. “Do you want me to help you with this?” he asked. And it wasn’t teasing. It wasn’t sexy. It was a real question, and you knew that if you said no, he would leave you alone. Or maybe make you some tea. Find another way to help, to make you comfortable. But he wouldn’t touch you. And he wouldn’t keep asking.

Your eyes slipped closed again. “You don’t have to,” you answered, your voice small.

“Hey, look at me,” he commanded gently. You forced yourself to open your eyes, and he continued. “I know exactly what I do and don’t have to do. Do you want me to help you with this?”

With one more deep breath, you tried not to whine as you answered, “Yes. Please.”

And before the words had even fully left your mouth, he’d lunged across the couch and captured your lips in a deep, passionate, hungry kiss. It felt like he might eat you alive, and you wanted it. You wanted everything he could give you.

He had you flat on the couch, his body covering yours, even with your bump in the way. You took the opportunity when he came up for air to whine, “More. I– I–“

A gentle hand on your cheek grounded you. “I know, I know. I need you in my bed. Think you can get upstairs?”

A bed sounded nice with the way you were sagging off the couch. But you were also pretty sure that if he stopped touching you, you’d die. You clutched onto his wrist. “I think, but–“

“Yeah, I know,” he said, even as he peppered your neck with kisses, “I’ve got you.”

He helped you off the couch, never letting go of you. And as he moved you up the stairs, some part of him was always touching you. A hand wrapped around your wrist, another on your hip, his lips on the back of your neck.

Once in his bedroom, he stopped you before you could climb onto the bed. He kissed you again, breaking for just long enough to lift your t-shirt over your head and fling it behind him. One more kiss and then he was kneeling down beside you, working your leggings down your legs to the point you could kick them off your feet. Then, his hands moved reverently up your body—your ankles, your calves, your thighs—to your panties, which he pulled down with equal reverence. Then he continued moving up, placing a gentle kiss on your belly and then working to undo your bra. Once he’d freed your breasts, he took them in both hands as he buried his face in your neck.

“Ransom,” you whined, tugging on his shirt, as he still somehow had all of his clothes on. You needed them off. You needed them off right now.

You felt him grin into your neck, and then he pulled away enough that you could get his shirt off. You ran both hands up his stomach and chest. How was he fair? How was he yours? (Because he was now. He was he was he was.) You dropped your hands to undo his pants, but he stopped you, lifting them so he could kiss your knuckles. Then he very carefully laid you down on his bed, moving a pillow to support your lower back. He trailed kisses down your entire body before he stood back up and took the rest of his clothes off as fast as he possibly could.

Once he was finally naked, he paused for a moment at the foot of the bed, and you both just stared at each other. Even as you’d gotten to know him, gotten used to him, you’d never get used to the way he seemed like he was carved from marble. Or how his skin glowed. Or how–

“God, look at you,” his whisper interrupted your thoughts. “You’re so fucking beautiful.” And then his hands were back on your body, spreading your legs so that he could slot himself between them. He hooked one ankle over his shoulder. “That feel okay?” he asked.

All you could do was nod, and he immediately returned his lips to you, working his way up your inner thigh. With a jolt, you realized what he meant to do, and you reached out an urgent hand to him. “You don’t have to–“ you started but were cut off when he turned back to you with a playful glare.

“What did I say about that?” he asked, his voice so low.

He’d gone back to kissing up your thigh, and you had to force yourself to take a breath, to unfog your mind, to remember what he said. “You said–” you paused with a gasp as his lips got so, so close to the center of you. “You said you already know what you do and don’t have to do.”

“That’s right,” he muttered into your thigh. “And I want to do this. I’m desperate to find out what you taste like.” Then he lifted his head to make eye contact with you. “But if you really don’t want me to, I won’t.” You took another breath and opened your mouth, even though you weren’t sure what your response would be. “But please, please, let me taste you, baby. I’ll stop if you hate it. I promise.”

“What if you hate it?” you asked, voice small, even as you were desperate to just finally say yes.

He laughed and sent you a dirty smirk. “I can guaran-fucking-tee that I won’t.”

Your body was burning up again, so with a small moan you finally let go. “Yes, please.”

And just like that, his mouth was on you. You threw your head back on a gasp, like all the air had been punched out of your body. Your hands bunched into the sheets on either side of your head as he lapped at you like a man starved. You felt his tongue moving between your folds, getting to know you, searching for your clit. The second he found it, your eyes slammed shut, your body spasmed, and you felt more than heard his pleased hum. He experimented with licks first, before he wrapped his tongue around it and gave it a hard suck. You couldn’t help the lewd moan you released, and that seemed to be all the encouragement he needed.

You’d never felt anything like this. Not with the only other person you’d ever had sex with. And you’d certainly never let Ransom do anything like this before, not when getting pregnant had been the only goal and everything else had seemed like a waste of time. And definitely not by yourself. You’d never taken such care with yourself.

Your breaths were coming fast as you felt yourself climbing, climbing, climbing. A good, soft warmth was moving through your body as you felt his hands on your hips, firmly holding onto you. Keeping you from floating away. Your eyes slipped open; you weren’t sure why, but you were immediately met with Ransom’s intense gaze, locked on your face to take in every single nuance of your reaction. And the way he was looking at you, watching you…

That was what did it. That was what sent you over the edge. The way that he saw you. The look in his eyes. You came with a cry, your body shaking apart, only anchored by his hands on your hips, pinning you down to earth.

His mouth stayed on you through your whole orgasm and all the aftershocks. Drinking you up, like he couldn’t get enough. Then, slowly but surely, he began working his way back up you, his lips and hands moving in tandem as he traversed your whole body. Once he got to your neck, he nuzzled into you before meeting your eyes with a cocky smirk. “Feeling better?”

You tried to nod, but all of your bones were like jelly. And while the need inside of you was no longer so insistent, no longer hot enough to burn, there was still something simmering under the surface. Something that had made your legs clamp around Ransom at some point and now wouldn’t let him go. “I– I need–“ you tried to explain to him, but the words wouldn’t string together.

Ransom quirked an eyebrow, and his smirk turned dirty. “You need more, baby?” he asked, voice low. “It’s okay. You can tell me what you need, what you want.”

You felt your face heating up. Your eyes wanted to slip closed, to avoid the way he was looking at you, but you forced them to stay open. “I want–“ You tried to put what you were feeling into words, but everything just felt clumsy. You tried again, summing it up as best you could. “I want you.”

The smile that bloomed on Ransom’s face—you weren’t sure you’d ever seen it before. Cocky and hungry and happy, all rolled together. “I want you, too,” he said softly as he dipped his head down to kiss you, tender and eager with a thread of filth that you wanted to follow. But he broke it off too soon. “Do you want me inside you?”

“Yes, please,” you breathed, and he kissed you again. His hand landed gently between your thighs, one and then two fingers working their way inside of you. They were big and thick as they spread you, but they weren’t enough. “Ransom,” you whined, “I need– That’s not–“

“Hey, I know,” he cooed softly, still working you open with his fingers, “I’m just making sure that orgasm got you ready to take me. I want it to feel good.”

Suddenly you felt self-conscious; he’d already done so much for and to you, and you hadn’t even offered to do anything for him in return. You reached for his length. “I can help get you ready, too,” you said, a little embarrassed.

Ransom laughed, his head thrown back, but it wasn’t mean; it wasn’t judging. It was warm and playful. “Babe, I’m harder than a fucking diamond right now. I don’t need a goddamn thing to get me ready for you.”

“Really?”

“Really,” he said with a grin. “You’re so hot like this. Your taste on my lips and the thought of your warm pussy are all I need to get me going. You ready too? You comfortable?”

You flopped back down, giving in to your body and what it was telling you. “Yes, I– Yes.”

That was all it took for him to kiss you again, his body fully covering your own, taking special care to keep his weight off your stomach, as he carefully slid his fingers out of you. You whined at the emptiness, but the shortest moment later he was lining himself up and slowly filling you with his cock.

On instinct, or maybe out of habit, your eyes slammed closed, retreating inside yourself as you felt your insides stretch to try to accommodate him. But before you got very far, you were brought back by a hand, Ransom’s hand, squeezing yours gently.

“Hey, open your eyes,” he directed softly. You did, immediately, and found his blue gaze boring into you. “It’s okay,” he whispered, “You can be here, right now. I’ve got you. It’s okay. I promise. I’ve got you.”

You took a deep breath and nodded. You believed him. You trusted him. As he bottomed out inside of you, you wrapped your arms around his neck, holding him close. For a long moment neither of you moved, and all you could feel was his cock spreading you open and his stuttered breaths on your neck. And then he shifted so that his forehead touched yours and his lips brushed your lips as he said, “Fucking shit. You feel so fucking good. Tell me– Please tell me I can move. Goddamn.”

“Ransom, please, yes, please,” tumbled out of you as you felt so full you thought you might lose your mind. And it only got worse as he began to rock in and out of you. “Ransom, Ransom,” you chanted, your arms still wrapped around him. One of his hands came up to cup your cheek, and you felt electricity flow through you where he touched you.

He shifted his hips and hit a spot inside of you that had a cry suddenly tearing through you. “Yeah?” he asked with a proud grin. “Right there?”

“Please, yes, yes, yes,” you babbled as he kept hitting it and you were climbing again, up and up and up and–

“Let go,” he whispered in your ear, as his thumb began to press insistent circles on your clit, “go ahead. I’ve got you. I want to see it again.”

One more thrust and you did what he asked, sailing over the edge, shaking apart as you gripped him tightly to you.

“Goddammit, look at you, you’re so beautiful. You feel so fucking good,” he babbled as he fucked you through your orgasm, chasing his own. “Holy fuck,” he growled as he joined you not long after, filling you up and holding you tight.

The two of you stayed collapsed on the bed in a heap, just breathing heavily into each other’s necks. After several long moments, Ransom tried to move, but you couldn’t figure out how to move your limbs to let him go. “Hey,” he assured you softly, “I just want to get us cleaned up.”

“Not yet,” you whispered. “Just– Not yet.”

“Yeah, okay. Okay,” he soothed you, dropping his body back down so that he blanketed you again.

Focused on Ransom’s breathing, you slowly came back to yourself. Once the high of your orgasms slowly ebbed away, you couldn’t explain the loss you felt. You knew, intellectually, that it was probably all hormones, but that didn’t stop you from feeling a profound grief for everything that may have been. You were crying, you realized, too late to try to be able to hide it. And it wouldn’t have made a difference. Ransom was watching you too closely to not pick up on every little nuance.

“What’s wrong?” he immediately asked. “Did I hurt you?”

You shook your head. “No, no, you didn’t do anything. I’m okay. I’m good.”

“But something’s wrong?” His hand was tentatively running up and down your arm now, doing what he could to soothe you without knowing the cause.

“No, not really. I– I just–“ You took a deep breath, trying to stop yourself from crying harder. “I just didn’t know it could be like that. I wish it had always been like that.”

“Oh,” he said softly, under his breath, shifting so that he was no longer on top of you but still touching you with as much of his body as he could.

“And I know, I know that that’s all my fault. I know that I pushed and I pushed and– But I didn’t know. I just didn’t know.” A fresh wave of tears came, and you didn’t object as Ransom pulled you closer to him so that you could bury your face in his chest.

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re alright. There’s nothing to be sorry for. It wasn’t your fault. You were very scared, and we didn’t know each other. It wasn’t your fault.” He didn’t say anything else as he rubbed your back and let you cry it out.

After a few minutes, you pulled away, wiping the tears from your cheeks. “I’m sorry, I’m ruining the mood. It really was so good. You made me feel so good.”

That got the return of his cocky smirk. “Yeah? It sure seemed like you enjoyed it.” Then his smile softened significantly. “You made me feel good, too.”

“Oh?” You ducked your head, suddenly shy. “That’s, that’s good. I’m glad. I want to– I want to do more. Next time. I want to learn what you like.”

“Next time, huh?” he grinned. “Yeah, we’ve got lots of next times in front of us. If you want. Plenty of time to learn about each other.”

You scooted closer to him, to cuddle into his warmth. “Yeah? That sounds really nice.”

“It will be,” he said definitively, wrapping an arm around you.

You were both quiet for a long time, just enjoying this peace together, when he stiffened a little bit and shifted. You looked up at his face to find him looking thoughtful, hesitant. Without thinking, you reached up to smooth out the furrow between his brows with your thumb. “What are you thinking about?”

He grimaced, like he’d been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to. “I, uh– Shit. I’m not good at this.”

“Good at what?” you asked.

“Asking for something I want. Even admitting that I want something I don’t already have.”

“What are you talking about?” You felt like you’d missed part of a conversation he’d been having with himself.

He sighed, put out, then mumbled, “I want you to stay.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” you reassured him, a little confused.

“No, I mean–“ he sighed again and then turned onto his back so that he was no longer looking you in the eye. “I want you to stay here, in this room. I want it to be ours. I don’t want you to sleep across the hall anymore. And when we move into the new house, I want us both to be in the primary suite. I want it to be ours. I want everything to be ours.”

You could feel how big and round your eyes had gotten. “Oh,” was all you could say. But really, why were you so surprised? The part of you that believed that people only kept you around because they had to, that Ransom would rather have his life go back to normal but was stuck with you, had been getting quieter and quieter every day. Your husband had shown you how untrue that was in countless ways. So why couldn’t this be true too?

But Ransom seemed to take your shocked silence as resistance, so he kept going. “I know you want your own space, and I’m not saying that room has to go back to my gym, or– Or– It can still be yours. But I just– I miss you in my bed. Lola too, the little blanket-hogging jerk. I’m tired of sleeping alone. I miss you.”

Tears were pricking at your eyes again, but this time they were good tears. They were tears of feeling so wanted, and wanting right back. They were tears of belonging.

“Please say something,” Ransom whispered, finally turning back to look at you. And he looked so scared. Scared of being vulnerable. Scared of being rejected. Scared of a life lived separately.

“Of course,” you whispered back. “Of course, I will, Ransom. I’d love to.”

And he seemed so young when he beamed at you in response. So hopeful. “Thank you,” he breathed, and kissed you on the forehead, because that was the part of you he could reach first. “Thank you,” he said again, and then pulled you into a soft, grateful kiss.

Tag List

@stargazingfangirl18 @yenzys-lucky-charm @thezombieprostitute @jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory @bval-1 @km-ffluv @texmexdarling @ladyvenera @roxyfan14-blog @darkserenity24 @midnightramyeoncravings @whiskeytangofoxtrot555 @ronearoundblindly @brandycranby @steviebbboi @missaprilt23 @thiquefunlover63 @hisredheadedgoddess28 @stellar-solar-flare @alexakeyloveloki @kmc1989 @awkwardgiraffe726 @watermelontidewater @alicedopey @lokislady82 @sassybearfire @mencantaleer @thecrandle @1000plants @remussbitch @rach2602 @dragon-of-dreams @mommad @cookiesandwhimsy @venigrantrogers @bartonsparrow25 @blobfishlol @emerald-writes @cakesandtom @buckets-and-trees @alyssinwunderland-blog-blog @perdidosbucky-yyo

You shake your head as you sit alone by the tiny oasis, a reflective puddle in a sand ocean. You hiked south at dusk for water and to put more distance between you and the remaining tributes, but now you’re wondering how you’re going to keep warm with no fresh bloody camel skin and no friend to huddle against for warmth. Dimly—not daring to hope for it too much—you had wondered if Roosevelt might meet you here again, but there’s no sign of him.

Aemond can’t be wrong. Aemond is never wrong.

He’s right about the curse of the pharaohs, and he’s right about the strategy for you to win, and he’s right about the fact that there’s another world out there beyond Panem and he’s going to find it. And maybe…if you win…in a decade you’ll have your own glass tomb of treasures piled up to the ceiling, and the Capitol will have rubbed off every sparkling fleck of you, and you can flee and cross the ocean and meet Aemond someplace where you can both be free.

You put on poor long-dead Calico’s sweatshirt and shiver under the moonlight as the pyramid calls to you from across the desert, promising you obvious things—warmth, shelter, food, survival—but also riches that cannot be put into words. It is bewitching. It is hungry.

Because of what Aemond once told you, you know that burrowing under the sand will only make you colder. Instead, you rip branches from the low scraggly shrubs that surround the oasis and make a crude cot to sleep on, then stuff a layer of parched greenery into the space between your two sweatshirts for more insulation.

You curl up and tremble as the night wind blows over you, and after a while a vulture delivers you a blanket, thick fleece, blue like a sapphire.

Here’s who is still alive: Brookite from District 1, Roosevelt from District 2, Tendo from District 3, both tributes from District 4, Gotha from District 9, and Montgomery and Isla from District 11. One third of the field is left, but that number will fall precipitously now.

“Get some sleep, Aemond,” Aegon says, yawning. He just woke up from another nap, snoring with a throw blanket covering him up to his chin and his sandals kicked up onto the back of the chair in front of him. “I’ll wake you if anything happens.”

Aemond ignores this and stares intently at the screen, his elbows on his knees, his chin resting on his long, interlaced fingers.

“It’s going very quickly,” Charm muses as she sips champagne. With her other hand, she twists absentmindedly at the silver Loch Ness Monster pin fastened to her dress. She’s had a few outfit changes; she is currently wearing a short gown made of gold lace starfish, glittering fabric, large cutouts revealing perfectly tanned skin. Her earrings are fishhooks speared through live brittle stars that wriggle and slap at her throat with their skinny arms. Charm pretends not to notice. It’s the only way to survive here; learn how to sparkle, and do it without complaint. She always gives the District 4 tributes the same advice: You could waste your time being bitter about the cards you’ve been dealt. Or you could have a good attitude about it. Work hard. Be productive. Be grateful.

“Aemond, go to sleep!” Aegon says again. He waves for a servant to bring him dinner. A young man approaches with two plates to choose from: prime rib and a potato or a whole lobster and a corncob, served with a ramekin of melted butter. “None of the other kids are anywhere near her, she’s fine!”

“They won’t let her stay there,” Aemond murmurs, still gazing at the screen as it rotates between the remaining tributes. Presently, Isla is stalking the slight District 9 girl, Gotha, as they both approach the pyramid. If any of the other mentors have realized that it’s the tomb that is killing those who enter—the black marks that appear on a victim’s fingertips and slowly spread upwards, the rot, the curse—they haven’t figured out how to communicate that to their tributes in a way they can understand.

Aegon has opted for the prime rib; he gets lobster at home. The servant begins to leave when Charm calls out: “I’ll take the lobster, boy. Yes, thank you. And another round of champagne for everybody, please. And more popcorn. And napkins. And do I see that Citadella has lovely plump maraschino cherries bobbing around in her champagne? Why does she get those and not us? Fetch me some too...”

“I think she’s okay until morning,” Aegon tells Aemond, his meat bleeding as he cuts it.

“They need to force her towards the pyramid. They need a show. She’s made herself a main character, the audience will expect a full arc. And they need to do it while there are still competitors alive for her to fight. So they’ll do it soon. I’m just trying to figure out how.”

The cannon fires; Isla has caught Gotha and slit her throat with her short curved sword. Under the moonlight of the arena, the blood is black instead of red as it soaks into the sand. Across the Amphitheater, the District 9 team rises from their chairs, sighing and somber. They leave in defeat, taking their plates of lobster and prime rib with them. Briefly, Aemond scans the rest of the seats; Jack catches his gaze and grins, cold eyes and shark teeth. Commodore is still alive, and healthy, and he has a spear. Aemond turns away.

“You’re lucky that Roosevelt kid isn’t still hanging around her,” Aegon says. “Or she’d be spilling all your secrets again.”

Aemond shakes his head. “No. Not now. Not anymore.” The end is near, and she wants to live.

Charm says brightly: “I’m just relieved Hawk finally dropped dead. Thank God for his lousy kidneys. I was worried Commodore was going to carry him all the way to the finish line, and then play rock paper scissors to decide who gets to win.”

On the green display screen mounted beneath the landline phone that connects each team to the Control Center, Aemond observes that her funds are running low. He was too generous with the gifts, probably. He couldn’t help it; he couldn’t stand to see her suffer. “I need to get her more money,” Aemond says.

“Do you?” Charm replies, her voice slurred with champagne and soft with sympathy.

“Yes.” He takes the red mobile phone out of the pocket hidden inside his black suit jacket. He begins scrolling through his contacts, deciding who to ask first. He does not consider the debt that will be incurred, the cost that will come due later, flesh and moans instead of gems and gold. He’ll pay anything.

“The blanket was a bit extravagant,” Charm mutters. A servant brings a fresh round of champagne—Aemond does not partake, but Charm and Aegon always drink his share without complaint—and she fishes out two glistening cherries from the gilded carbonated sea. She eats them, delicately dabs red juice from her lips with a napkin, tugs at her Loch Ness Monster pin again. Charm notices that Aemond is watching and smiles ruefully. “I always say I won’t get attached.”

“I know the feeling,” he replies, and begins making calls.

Through thin shivering dreams of the rumbling of the ocean and the gentle bobbing of fishing boats, you hear the cannon and know that now there are seven tributes left. You clutch the blanket around you and think, only half-conscious: How did I get here? Why can’t I go home?

Something thumps against your hip, and you startle awake. The vulture is already vanishing into the starlit indigo sky, its parcel delivered. You open the burlap sack to find not food or water or pineapple juice, which was both your expectation and your preference, but swim goggles.

You stretch the thick rubber strap and peer through the small transparent lenses, bewildered. “Aemond, why goggles?” you whisper.

You won’t be doing any swimming here, which means he must think you’ll need eye protection.

You stare out into the barren expanse to the south, flat and endless. You look back to the pyramid that beckons you with a radiant silver beam that streaks across the sky like the tail of a comet. The Gamemakers won’t let you stay here, not until the very end. What kind of a finale would that be? Six more booms of the cannon and then you are triumphant, sitting beside your miniscule oasis or cowering within the ruins? No, there must be a show. They are offering a mirage, the same sold to countless children before and after you: wealth, fame, safety, freedom, power, love. You won’t get it for free. You have to sparkle for them. You have to kill for them.

Jack killed many tributes in his arena, and he did it gladly. Sirena had to kill a Career. Aemond had to kill Sapphire. And you will have to kill whoever is left at the end.

Roosevelt? you think, heartsick, horrified. Brookie? Commodore?

The breeze is frigid as you stay cocooned in the blue fleece blanket Aemond sent you, shivering, bits of dust and sand stinging in your eyes.

How will they force me north towards the pyramid?

You contemplate the goggles, and you think you know.

I can’t escape the pyramid. But however it devours people, it must do it slowly. I don’t have to resist it forever. I just have to be the last one inside.

The cannon booms through the night. Six tributes left. At the very edge of the horizon, the sky is just beginning to lighten to lilac. You hang the goggles around your neck like the chain that holds your filleting knife. You drink as much water as you can from the oasis, scooping it up to your lips with cupped hands; the rubber band is still knotted around your ring finger. You go to roll it off, then decide not to. It might be the closest thing to a wedding ring you ever get. You begin to trek northeast towards the ruins, where there will be shade.

As you walk, the sky turning from hues of wildflowers to shades of blood, still clutching the blanket around your shoulders until the air is again stifling and golden, you hear voices following you like a shadow across the bluffs.

Baby screaming as he lunges with his hammer: I have to, or I can’t leave!

Monty asking: Will you stay with him?

Roosevelt shaking you awake beside the oasis: Don’t fall back asleep. I won’t be here.

Isla smiling: Good luck.

Pluto clasping your hand as he hemorrhages from his lungs flayed raw by underworlds of coal and sand: I won?

But no one ever really wins. They survive, they don’t win.

“That’s enough for me,” you pant as the heat makes you wilt and sweat, as you leave the blanket to the wilderness because you’re too weak to keep dragging it.

The first words you ever said to Aemond: How do I win? I don’t want to die. How do I win?

Roosevelt’s voice again, sly and grinning: You have to want to live more than you want anything else.

You pass a cactus, and you know you can’t cut it open and drink its noxious juice, but there is a hole in it with dry sprigs of shrubs sticking out. You check the hollow and find three eggs, each a little smaller than your palm. With the hilt of your knife, you crack an egg open and lift away the top of the shell to find a quivering lake of white albumen and a lush yellow yolk. You slurp it down—thick and warm and mineral-tasting—and force yourself not to lose it, digging your fingernails into your forearm to distract your brain from the slime that clings stubbornly to your tongue and your throat. You do the same with the second egg, and while your stomach is nauseous your mind is sharper, and you feel less afraid, and your muscles are withstanding the punishing heat.

You tap the last egg with the mother of pearl hilt of your knife. Instead of opening neatly, it shatters and fills your hand with its grisly cache: clotted blood, tiny dismembered bones and feathers and eyeballs. You yelp and fling it away, wipe your skin as clean as you can with the dead girl Calico’s sweatshirt that is knotted around your waist, resume your expedition towards the ruins.

You have just stumbled into the shade of the columns when the cannon blasts, and the ground beneath your bare feet quakes, and the dust is shaken from the mud bricks and the hieroglyphics and the crouching statues of Anubis.

Five tributes left, you think, leaning against a crumbling column to catch your breath, scanning the sky in vain for the sweeping black wingspan of a vulture. You know you’ve used up a lot of the sponsors’ money, but you can’t silence the fantasy of a bottle of pineapple juice, sweet and ice-cold and slick with condensation.

The reverberation of the cannon fire doesn’t dissolve away but seems to warp, rumble, transform into the baritone growl of ocean waves. Your brow furrows; there are no tides here, no surf, no ships. Still breathing laboredly, you look towards the pyramid and see nothing unusual: only the ever-present silhouette of the structure, the cloudless cerulean sky. You glance back towards the oasis. The sky there is no longer blue but filling up with churning, suffocating sand, a wall that rises through the atmosphere, a monstrous impurity as hostile to your lungs as water or coal.

Sandstorm.

“Please no.” You put on your goggles, still watching the southern horizon, still hoping Aemond might be wrong. The wind is picking up. Shards of sand begin to pelt your face. You spin towards the pyramid and start running.

I’m not going to make it, it’s too far—

You have to make it, you HAVE to.

I don’t want to die. How do I win?

The gales grow stronger, tearing your hair loose from Salem’s handiwork, clawing at your sweatsuit. You careen through the rubble, break out of the shadows and into the sun glare, slide down a shallow embankment and then find your footing again. The roar of the sandstorm is deafening now, swallowing you like the viscera of an egg; it’s getting difficult to see. Without the goggles, you’d be blind. You rip Calico’s sweatshirt off your waist and press the bloodstained cotton to your face to shield your nose and mouth; you gasp through the fabric as you sprint across the desert. You taste copper and salt and decay. You breathe threadbare life and certain death.

It’s too far, it’s too far—

The cannon explodes, so loudly you stagger and almost fall into the dry shifting sand.

Four tributes left.

You regain your balance and chase the ghost of the pyramid, skirting just east of the immense dunes that surround the obsidian obelisk where the Games began. The air is thicker, hotter, an oven, an ocean, and if you don’t reach the shore you will be drowned. There are gusts like riptides, threatening to drag you into a grave, a tomb. In the fierce wind, walls of sand roil and collapse, flooding dune slacks and burying anyone who sought shelter there. The cannon bangs like a drum.

Three tributes left!!!

Who is still alive? Who will you have to fight, who will you have to kill?

Your bare feet slide in sand so dry and so fine it’s like the powder Charm keeps behind the mirror in her glittering gold compact. You swipe manically at your goggles to keep the lenses clear. Even with Calico’s sweatshirt thrust against your face, you are hacking up the sand that steals into your lungs like seawater into the breached hull of a ship. You are dizzy, you are choking—

The soles of your feet hit stone, and you stop for only a second to see where you are, to make sure the next requiem of cannon fire won’t be for you. You are on a long straight walkway of bricks, alternating tan limestone and red clay. The path is perhaps three feet wide; on either side is a drop down into something that is golden like sand but rippling like water. In it, you can just barely glimpse a tangle of human limbs.

Quicksand.

Coughing, gasping, you follow the walkway towards the pyramid. The phantom of it fills your vision now, a dark shadow beyond the spiraling wind and sand. The storm is still strengthening. Squalls yank and shove at you, threatening to wrench you off the path. You think of the walkway in Aemond’s arena, tiles that sank into depths until the water was red with tributes’ blood. You think of narrow aisles of land through the bayou; you think of jetties that stretch out into the sea. You hit steps and crumple down onto them, crawl skyward on your palms and knees, drag yourself like a dying animal into the black mouth of the pyramid.

You leave the sandstorm behind you. The howling of the wind fades away. You pass through a narrow dark tunnel and then you are inside, and you take your first deep unobstructed breath of air that tastes stale and cold, and the clock has started.

You snap off the goggles and drop Calico’s sweatshirt, press your spine to the wall so no one can sneak up on you, look and listen with instinctive prey-animal focus. The pyramid is hollow inside, well-lit by golden luminance like sunlight. In the center is a lake of quicksand. To your right is a high wall made of limestone bricks; to your left is a footpath, following the perimeter of the interior of the pyramid, gradually climbing upwards via ramps and staircases, perhaps all the way to the capstone. You can see the underside of the path when you peer up into the structure. You can hear strange noises: stones shifting, metal clanking, thumps and squeals, inanimate machinery, meatgrinders and war hammers.

You don’t see anyone alive, but there is a body sprawled on the platform where you stand, right at the edge where the currents of quicksand lap at the stone. Cautiously, you step towards her, blonde and broken. It’s Brookie, her hair streaked with blood, her eyes glazed, her head twisted nearly all the way around. One of her axes rests by her outstretched hand, still embossed with her initials: B.B. She appears to have fallen from a great height, but you remember how she and Roosevelt raced effortlessly past you on the obstacle course in the gymnasium, always nimble and lightning-swift, never losing their balance.

Again, you scrutinize the pathway that snakes around the inner wall of the pyramid, like how muscles hinge to bones. How’d you fall, Brookie? you think to her ghost. Again, you notice the sounds of stones scraping against each other. Or were you pushed? By someone or something?

Your eyes return to Brookie, one last parting glance, and you see that she’s been cursed. She wears only her sports bra, and so the stripes of rot are stark like the bloodline of a fish. Her hands are black with gangrene, all the way up to her wrists; ropes of decomposition were climbing her like ivy when she died, circling her toned upper arms, scaling her shoulders to strangle her throat. You stare down at your own hands. It’s begun, just barely: the tips of your fingers are dyed pitch black like the meticulous jots of ink in Aemond’s notebook.

Only the Capitol can save me now. The only antidote is to win.

You grip the hilt of your knife and start up the path. You step lightly, cautiously, silently. You stay close to the wall, skimming your empty palm across it. You twirl your knife, making sure your fingers remember how to gut, how to flay. Your bare feet ascend the first set of steps, hesitating on each to test it for a trap of some sort. There is a long level stretch of a pathway, then another staircase, a ramp, a flat section, a third set of steps. You remember Brookie lying broken on the platform below, and you examine the limestone bricks of the wall and the floor, searching for cracks. Somewhere above, rocks are grinding and hissing. Someplace close, you hear a moan.

You crouch low and creep towards the sound, still clutching your knife. The path gapes like a wound—a trapdoor that was triggered, a hatch that sprung open—and had he been healthy, he could have leapt out of the way, you’re sure, because he was always so fast. But he wasn’t healthy. He was already dying. When you peek over the ledge, you see Roosevelt lying on his back, three metal barbs impaled through his belly, each perhaps two feet in length. They are serrated and painted with gore, muscles, blood clots, organs. You climb down to him.

“Don’t come down here, idiot,” Roosevelt rasps, blood on his lips, freckles dark from the sun. His red hair is matted with blood and bleak, futile sweat, the salt of the dead. “Keep the high ground.”

Nonetheless, you kneel beside him in the shadows, examining his injuries. You can’t move him. The barbs will rip him up all over again, but worse from that direction. You smooth back his damp hair from his forehead, touch his cheek. Needle-thin threads of black rot are spreading there. He gazes up at you with his murky eyes, not sharp or cunning but only in pain.

I hate them, you think with fanged viciousness. I hate what they’ve done to my friends. I hate what they’ve done to Aemond. I hate what they’re doing to me.

“There’s something wrong in here,” Roosevelt says. “I think they’re poisoning us.”

“I know.”

His eyebrows go up, just a little bit. “Aemond is good at this.” Then he gets a better look at you. “Aw. You sweated off all your sparkles.”

You manage a smile. “They’ll have to call me something else now.”

“Like your real name? No fucking way. Too normal, too boring. I have a winner’s name.”

“Who’s left?”

“Your monster. Commodore.” He nods towards where the path continues skywards, into the highest point of the pyramid. “Up there somewhere. He went by me, I didn’t see him come back down.” He coughs, spews up crimson and decaying black ruin, moans again.

“He left you like this?”

Roosevelt barks a weak laugh. “What was he gonna do? First aid?”

You ask gently: “How can I help?”

He sighs, then his eyes drift to where your filleting knife swings by its silver chain, flashing blade, iridescent mother of pearl hilt. “You’re still good with that knife, ain’t you?”

“Yeah,” you answer, your voice strangled, tears burning in your eyes.

“Oh, stop,” he scolds you; but he’s smiling, blood on his teeth. “I got it for you, remember? You owe me.”

“Okay,” you whisper.

“I assume Aemond taught you how to find the carotid.”

“He did.”

“Good. I don’t think I could manage that under the present circumstances, being as unfortunate as they are.”

You pick up your knife, but you can’t fathom using it this way. You press your fingers to the putrefying flesh of his throat and locate the spot that is rigid, throbbing, flush with septic blood.

“I can’t believe I chose to volunteer,” Roosevelt says, and he’s not smiling anymore. His eyes are bloodshot and faraway. “I can’t believe I could be at home right now. I should have known my place. I should have known it was too good to be true.”

“You were brave,” you insist.

“Tell my mom she was right. This was a stupid idea.”

You shake your head, and although he said not to you’re crying again, and your lungs are full of blood and death and misery and youth that will never grow content and wise, love that will never be felt, children that will never be born, worlds that will never be marked by the imprints of their footsteps, beautiful things that will never be written or spoken or carved.

“And tell her I love her, okay?”

“I will,” you swear.

“I hope you win, Sparkles.” Roosevelt grins, crooked and clever, and in his last moments he is himself again. “We’ll always be friends.”

You blink your tears away so you can see well enough to place the blade against his throat, but you can’t bring your hands to exert the required pressure.

He closes his eyes and murmurs, like he’s falling asleep: “Do it before I get scared.”

You think of goliath groupers and fillets and bloodlines and scales and bones, and you cut deep and sure. It’s not instant, and it’s not painless; but as Aemond once promised you, it is very quick. You hold Roosevelt as he convulses, drenched in his blood, and within thirty seconds the cannon booms and the pyramid shudders. And then the only sounds are the mechanical entrails of this stone tomb, gnashing and crushing, digesting your skeletons, etching your doomed names into the hieroglyphics.

You look up into the pyramid, your skin covered with blood and dust and sand, your fingers turning rot-black, and you can tell that you’re beginning to lose feeling in them. And you have been infected, but not just by the curse of the pharaohs. There is rage like you’ve never known before in your veins. Your arteries carry vivid oxygenated wrath. And you are certain that you can kill, not just in self-defense, not just by omission, not just as an act of mercy, but cruelly like an animal: you can cut your fangs on flesh, you can put your blade through the vulnerable places Aemond showed you.

Solar plexus. Achilles tendon. Knee. Temple. Zygomatic arch. Eyes. Carotid artery.

You climb out of the pit and follow the stone path. Your deadening fingers probe the wall for cracks; your eyes scan the floor. You stop when you see a small dark crevice in the stone, just a few inches in front of your feet. You go down to the ground, lift the silver chain holding your knife from your neck, and toss the knife like you’re casting a fishing line. As soon as the hilt bangs against false floor, the trapdoor opens, revealing a bed of razor blades underneath.

I hate them, you think, you seethe, seeing faces in your skull like a mirage: Roosevelt, Brookie, Isla, Pluto, Monty, little Babylon forever trapped at twelve years old, Commodore who volunteered so someday people might love him, Jack in the mountains, Sirena in the trees, Aemond stalking Sapphire under rippling blue light that floods red. And I won’t let them kill me.

Just like Roosevelt’s trap, there is a narrow aisle of the walkway still intact, right at the edge. You put your chain back on and balance on the shelf, pressing forward, coasting like a shark. As you leave, the trapdoor closes again to await its next victim.

You go up a staircase on all fours, blood drying on your skin, blood coming from somewhere inside as the curse takes hold. You taste metal and salt and catastrophe. Your mind shifts into something animal and innate, but you hold the leash, you can’t let go completely. You have to remember what Aemond taught you so you can win.

You have to want to live more than you want anything else.

And you do.

You find a crack in the wall and stand back, watching. So much time passes—blood running into your eyes, ink-black poison nipping at your palms—that you begin to suspect you’re wrong; then a portion of the wall juts out, sudden enough to knock even an athlete as adept as Brookie off the walkway and down to the death waiting below, pulverized against the platform or drowned in quicksand. You stay where you are so you can count how often the trap springs, and sure enough it’s a set interval, once every 210 seconds. When it recedes again, you steal past it and the demise it had designed for you like a phantom.

There is a ramp, a wall trap timed to strike every 35 seconds, another set for 90 seconds, a staircase, a floor trap filled with whirling hammers, a ramp, a wall trap, a staircase, a hallway, a ramp so steep you couldn’t climb it if not for the metal rungs hammered into the stone. When you glance down at the base of the pyramid now, the ocean of quicksand looks like a puddle. When you gaze up, you can see the individual bricks that form the apex of the tomb. You’re so close. There are ropes of rot ascending your forearms, black pooling in the scar tissue that sealed the wound from Kista’s crossbow. Your lungs fill with thick maroon fluid and ache like you’re dying, because you are.

What if he’s not here, what if Roosevelt was mistaken, what if Commodore is safe and I’m poisoned, I’m cursed, I’ll never leave this place—?

You claw your way up a staircase and there he is, collapsed against the wall with his spear still clutched in his gargantuan, gangrenous fist. He must have been here for a while, because the rot is very bad: up to his face, dark vines and weeping sores, his eyes bleeding, his short flaxen hair falling out.

“Did I count right?” Commodore wheezes when he turns to see you. “Are we the only ones left?”

You don’t know how to answer. He lurches to his feet with a groan rattling with viscid poison, and he’s so big he fills up the earth and the sky, and even if he can barely feel his hands anymore he can still use them well enough to keep hold of the spear.

He jabs at you once—halfheartedly, like he’s warming up—and you duck out of the way, clinging to the wall. You tiptoe backwards down the steps. You are clutching the handle of your knife, but how can you get close enough to use it?

Commodore stabs again, more confidently this time, and you scream as you lunge out of his reach; but he’s approaching rapidly, gaining momentum, pursuing you down the narrow walkway. If he knocks you off the ledge, you’ll die at the base like Brookie.

How did I think I could kill him? I always knew I couldn’t kill him—!

“Only the Capitol can fix me,” he says, low and choked and guttural.

One monstrous sneaker takes a step down the stairs, and you are back in the elevator at the Tribute Center, and Aemond is touching you tenderly, kindly as he teaches you how to win.

Solar plexus. Achilles tendon. Knee. Temple. Zygomatic arch. Eyes. Carotid artery.

You plunge forward and bury your blade in Commodore’s right knee. He roars—thunderous, furious—and grabs the back of your sweatshirt with his free hand. You rip the knife from his muscles and ligaments, slash his Achilles tendon through his clothes, twist out of your sweatshirt as you retreat and leave him holding only the thin bloodstained cotton. Then you understand how to get close enough.

Commodore bellows, looking brainlessly—childishly, helplessly—down at his hemorrhaging wounds as if even now he still can’t believe he’s here, and in the few seconds this takes you yank off your sweatpants and ball them up as tightly as you can, stuffing the legs through the halo of the elastic waistband. Crippled and savage, Commodore reels forward and thrusts his spear at you, his mutilated leg buckling under his weight. You impale your sweatpants on the point, dulling it, gelding it. You follow the length of the spear like the spine of a fish when you’re cutting out the bloodline. Commodore’s massive fingers close around your empty decaying hand, and only an instant before he can break your wrist you bang the mother of pearl hilt against his temple. He is stunned, and then he is spurting blood that bathes you like a hot red surf because your blade slices through his carotid artery. You know exactly where it is. You’ve had practice.

You stagger backwards until you hit the wall and watch him bleed out. You gasp for air as your dying lungs rattle, still gripping your knife. There’s blood pouring down your face, soaking your bra, painting your belly and your thighs, defiling all the places people will pay to touch you.

Good, you think. Let them see what they’ll buy. Not lust, not love. Death and violence and gore.

The cannon booms one last time. You drop your knife and it swings from its long silver chain. Then you realize what you’ve done, and what you’ll spend the rest of your life sending children into, and you cover your mouth with your bloodstained hands and wail into the empty pyramid, where your voice echoes and multiplies, and scalding tears wash the blood from your eyes.

A great creak like unoiled hinges, an apocalyptic thunderclap, and white light cascades in from above as the capstone of the pyramid is lifted away. You huddle against the wall, nearly naked, drenched in blood, thinking: They can’t be gone. I can’t have done this.

A craft descending into the pyramid in a gale of cold wind, metallic doors opening, people in guiltless white dragging you through the threshold. The doors close with a hiss and a puff of cool fog, scented like vanilla and coconut, perfumes to cover the blood and the rot. Someone drapes a small blanket across your shoulders. Another jams the needle of a syringe into your thigh, and pushes down the plunger, and instantaneously your lungs are clear again and the ink-stain infection vanishes from your skin. People keep touching you—asking you questions, trying to give you something to drink, turning your face towards a camera—and you scream and push them away. They do not relent.

“Stop touching me!” you shriek, you snarl. You’re a killer now, and they shrink away from you because they know it. You try to cover yourself with the blanket, but it’s not big enough. You sob and know the families of those twenty-three other tributes are watching you, that sponsors are toasting champagne, that an auction is being arranged and men are preparing to place their bids. There’s blood in your hair and under your fingernails. There’s blood on your lips, salt and copper, and you know you’ll be bleeding forever.

The craft docks and the doors sigh open, and Peacekeepers seize you like they once did on Reaping Day in District 4 by the seaside. You try to rip your arms free, you try to brace your bare, sand-coated feet against the frigid tile floor. If people don’t stop touching you, your mind will break like glass; but your body isn’t yours anymore, and it never will be again.

The Peacekeepers shove you roughly into a room, and you realize it’s your pod, and the prep team is here with beaming smiles and raucous applause to welcome you back from the valley of death. They haul you onto the table and ignore you when you try to stop them from scrubbing the grime and gore from your skin, and so you’re fighting them and screaming when Aemond comes in wearing his black suit, breathing heavily like he ran here.

“Out,” he commands the prep team, and they hesitate. “Get out!” he roars, and then they disperse, chattering conspiratorially amongst themselves, casting him resentful glares. He comes to where you are trembling on the high metal table, and he grabs the showerhead and tests the water until it’s hot and then begins to clean the ruin from you, and he says in a whisper as he smooths back your hair from your face: “Shh, shh.”

Charm appears in the doorway, her ankles quivering in her gold heels and winded from her sprint through the corridor. She is crying; her left hand clasps at the silver Loch Ness Monster pin affixed to her dress, as if reaching for something she can’t get a grip on. She says, hushed and with great pity: “Aemond, you can’t be alone with her.”

He pitches back: “Then stand in the fucking corner!”

And Charm does, covering her face and weeping softly. The partition stays open, and you see white glimpses of Peacekeepers lurking outside, but now you aren’t thinking about them.

Aemond cuts away your rubber band of a wedding ring, tacky with blood. He rinses the red from your hair, carefully, making sure not to snag his nimble fingers on the knots. He lathers your skin with pearlescent soap, and you watch a river of sand and blood disappear down the drain. He takes off your knife and sets it on the rim of the table, and you begin to sob again, and Aemond stops so he can hold you.

Surprisingly, it was your cousin, Daeron, who offered you the most kindness. He was the only person you could yield to in the entire Hightower base. You could only pray he wasn’t relaying every conversation you’d had back to the Lord Ormund Hightower.

Everyone else treated you like you were common. Specifically Ser Gwayne Hightower.

He was rude—and vain—and arrogant. He was irritating. When he would try to make conversation, you would always end up in a fight. And it was just your luck for him to be the one instructed to take you on a multiple-week-long journey from the Reach and back to your rightful home in the Red Keep.

He was the one to tell you that your mother had taken King’s Landing back. You assume your mother saw it fit to have the Queen Dowager’s brother be the one to accompany you, because maybe she has something in store for him when you make it there. Perhaps a beheading? He could do without the ability to speak.

Then he was the one to tell you that you would join her in King’s Landing. That you were finally going home. It was the only thing to come from his mouth that made you joyful.

You overheard chatter that by you departing the Reach as soon as the letter was received, and by you making it back unharmed, House Hightower would be granted something close to immunity for their role in the war. You knew it was something a lie. Your mother and stepfather would never let the Green beasts live with what they had done—not only to you, but to her son too. To your mother herself.

The thought of what your mother might be doing to the Dowager Queen now gave you anxiety from being excluded. You should expect that they’ll be calling for Daeron’s capture too, though perhaps you will be able to put in a good word for him—get him sent to the Wall instead of hanged.

Speaking of Daeron, he was already somewhere distant when you had finished gathering your belongings, even though the things you owned in the encampment were scarce. You had said your goodbyes to each other not long ago—he claimed he had to prepare for something with Lord Ormund, and that he would not be available the next morning, for your departure.

You were, as expected, ready to leave. You had wanted to lie down and rest so that the next morning would come sooner, but Ser Gwayne had called you into his tent for one final word.

“There was something else written in the letter. Something I believe should have been saved for a calm moment, such as this,” he begun, and held up the refolded parchment which illustrated the clemency that would be provided to House Hightower upon your safe return to King’s Landing. “Would you prefer to read it, or shall I?”

The glint in his eye was one of compassion. You did not like it.

You shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. “Proceed.”

He raised his brows, pressing his lips together before giving a heavy sigh and opening the parchment back again. The fingers that gripped either side of it seemed to waver. His eyes quickly found the line he had so desperately wanted to read.

He inhaled a heavy breath. “The Prince of Dragonstone and heir to the Iron Throne Jacaerys Velaryon was slain in battle against the Triarchy Fleet. He was struck down by crossbow fire alongside his dragon, Vermax, in the waters off the Gullet.”

Gwayne let his hands drop slowly, and he sealed the parchment back. He looked back up at you.

Your head was shaking back and forth. Denying his words, maybe. The movement had come naturally, and you could not stop it.

“Is this a jest?” you exhaled a small laugh, hoping it would work to quell the distress already coursing through your veins.

You knew it was not a jest.

You knew if the war did not end soon then he would die in some violent, gruesome way, but to hear it confirmed was something entirely different. To hear it confirmed by a Hightower was something worse. The primal need for the man before you dead, perhaps in such a way your own brother was killed, washed over you in an instant.

He remained silent at your question. "It pains me, though your brother's death does not alter our course,” he said instead. “We shall depart at first light.”

It pains him?

You will show him something that pains him.

There was a lengthy distance between the two of you already, but you quickly closed it as you rushed across to smack him across his cheek.

Your hand stung, yet you did not wait for his reaction. Instead, you turned on your heel and left the tent.

Jace did not hit you until the fresh air did, and you let yourself shed the tears that you had pushed back into your sockets. The tears that you could not—would not—let fall in front of the enemy.

day one

You never liked Gwayne. He was arrogant, and he would treat you as if you weren’t the daughter of the Queen—or more importantly to them, the granddaughter of King Viserys, and the niece of their usurper.

The ride up the roseroad so far had been silent. He had tried, but you did not speak a word in response. It pains me, he had said, and then he practically told you to get over it and go home! He is moronic, and conceited. It pains you that you have to make this journey with him.

If need be, you could be doing this by yourself. You’re fierce enough to ride alone—gods, you’re essentially already riding alone, Gwayne’s useless self.

Your brothers taught you to be fierce, in spite of their age. Jace had always insisted on letting you spar with them in the yard of the Red Keep, and you learned quite well from it. You certainly couldn’t beat a knight with your skills, but it had helped you gain a certain confidence that princesses tend not to have.

Aegon had never liked you practicing with them. Neither did Ser Criston. You did beat the usurper once—caught him off guard and swept him out from under his feet—which must have bruised his ego in the process, as he felt it just to push you to the ground when your back was turned right after. That earned him a clout in the ear from Ser Harwin.

You chuckle to yourself recalling the memory—specifically Aegon’s stupid face when he realized who had hit him, and more specifically when Ser Harwin did not get in trouble for it—and you notice Gwayne looking at you in your peripheral. The smile is wiped clean off of your face.

“Does something amuse you?” he mutters.

When you look over to see him, he is glowering at you, his upper lip lifted with judgment.

“I understand you may not have many fond memories to look back on when times are tiresome, but I do.” You look forward at the road ahead.

He scoffs out a laugh. “I have many fond memories.”

“Tell me one,” you counter.

All you can hear is the wind blowing through the trees. Ser Gwayne Hightower, the parentless knight, no recollections to look back on fondly.

Gwayne sucks in a breath. “I do not have to.”

“That is what I thought.” You smirk to yourself, and lightly kick the side of your horse, forcing it forward and ahead of him.

day two

You were unsure if you should speak the words you did, but they had just slipped out at a certain point.

“I take it you did not care much for Jace.” Your gaze had already been trained on the head of your horse. It seemed hard to look anywhere else.

You and Gwayne had been mindlessly trekking forward all morning, both of your eyes still heavy with the slumber that you had lacked, sleeping in an inn on top of stiff beds.

“What makes you say that, princess?” he asks.

“You are a Hightower. Your sister is the Dowager Queen. Your nephew is the usurper. You kill for them—” you look over to him. He has been staring at you the whole time, and he looks quite furious.

“I believe you will find I do not have much of a choice in the matter,” he interjects sharply.

Your head shakes. “Everyone has a choice.”

He huffs. “What do you reckon I do? Desert my army? Get caught and hanged for treason?”

“I would.” You look back at the road ahead. “I should.”

Gwayne sighs, and returns his attention to the road as well. “We both have duties, my princess. Duties one cannot simply run from once they get to be too demanding.”

“Essos is said to be nice this time of year.”

A short laugh escapes him. “Essos is said to be nice all times of the year.”

You let out a heavy, deflated sigh. “Would it not be nice? I’m sure they don’t care about who we are there. We could be free. You could be a sellsword, and I…” your thought trails off. You cannot think of what you would be somewhere like Essos.

“You could be a scribe,” Gwayne says sincerely.

You nod. “I could.”

The idea of a life in Essos, perhaps with Gwayne, seems appealing at the very moment. The lack of sleep much be getting to you.

It does seem nice. Abandoning your name, as much as you are loyal to it, could be the best decision that you have made. He seems to want the same, if you convince yourself his words weren’t just tactical, some way to earn your empathy so that you will convince your mother to spare him once you reach the Red Keep.

If the war would not come to an end with her taking of the throne, you would have to escape there yourself. And if Gwayne wanted to come with you, if he was still alive by the time you left, you might just be willing to take him with you. Silverwing—who had surely made it back to Dragonstone—was large enough to saddle two.

day three

The inn you would stay in tonight would be much worse than the last. Not only because of the stiff beds, but because of the lack of them too.

Gwayne knew of the ones that would not ask any questions while not costing all the coins in his possession. So far they had been shit, but they had been true to their history of keeping quiet with matters that did not concern them, as far as you both knew.

You would remain outside with your cloak hood pulled tight over your head and your body facing a wall until Gwayne would come fetch you to take you to the room.

He would refer to you as his squire to the innkeepers and guests who questioned your presence. If they had questioned your demeanor, he would call you reserved and paranoid. Nobody had asked anything past that, but if they did, he was prepared to tell them that you had been tormented by some childhood event.

When Gwayne had taken you to your room that night, you had not expected to be faced with a singular bed.

“Have you gotten your own room?” you had asked, not realizing until you had drawn off the cloak from your head that there was only one mattress before you.

Gwayne only shrugged. “It was all that remained. The innkeeper told me that puppeteers are traveling in town, and all seem to be staying here.”

You could not contain your fury at the thought of sharing a bed with him. Or making him sleep on the floor. “How many fucking puppeteers are there?” you demanded, body tense with unreasonable anger.

He scoffed out a laugh. “My princess, it isn’t exactly the largest inn.” He had already begun shucking off his armor, as well as ridding himself of his gambeson and chausses. “You will live. I will sleep on the floor.”

“Are you sure? Can’t you speak with the innkeeper?”

“There is no need to draw any more attention to us. And what, princess, will you be sleeping on the floor in place of me?” he mocked, already in knowledge of the answer. “Do not fret over it. I have slept in worse places.”

You were silenced at that, and had called him for help with undoing your dress. The whole ordeal was strangely impersonal. He had done it the night before, and you felt nothing. Perhaps it be the exhaustion both of you had carried.

The two of you had retired to your respective sleeping areas shortly afterward, both clad in just your smallclothes.

Later that night, you found yourself wide awake, shivering in the relentless cold that seemed to break in past the shut windows.

Gwayne had been sleeping on the floor furthest from where you were lying on the bed. You assumed he was sleeping as well, but it was strangely silent. You had expected to hear the soft breathing of someone consumed by their slumber, though all you heard was the whistling of wind outside.

And your heart still held unpleasant sympathy for where he had been forced to rest. If your thoughts were true, he was not sleeping at all.

“Ser?” you whisper.

“Is something wrong?” you hear from below.

You smile at his voice. No, at being right. You do not smile at his presence, you smile because you like being right. You rolled over then, the mattress groaning beneath you, to stare at the dim expanse of the side where he lay.

“Are you comfortable there, on the floor?” you question, smile piercing through your words.

He scoffs. “You jest, princess, but I have no doubt that this floor is just as soft as the mattress you lay on.”

You were hit with a flurry of breathless laughter at his words. It must be your lack of sleep. You could hear him chuckle too after some point, but both of you had been slowly silenced as the seconds passed until you could only hear the commotion outside again.

Perhaps you should invite him to sleep alongside you. You are not without mercy. Of course, it would be strictly unromantic, not like how a wife and her husband might find one another on restless nights such as this one.

“Would you like to put that to the test?” you say without a second thought.

Gwayne clears his throat. “I would not want to invade on your solace, princess.”

“There is plenty of room for you.” You crawl across the bed to see him.

Your eyes find him as he thoughtlessly fiddles with the edge of his chemise, and as he freezes once he meets your gaze.

You beam down at him again. “And it would bring me solace, knowing you were sleeping the slightest bit easier.”

“Are you sure of it?”

“I am.” You think it is the sleep deprivation deluding you. You would never act like this normally. He can sense it too.

He slowly rises from his position on the ground, and multiple bones crackle once he stands.

You roll back over to your side of the bed, watching as he joins you. He seems tense, especially as you join him under the covers.

The two of you lie in bridled silence, neither one of you able to fall asleep. A chill runs through you from the temperature, and Gwayne’s head swivels to look at you.

You turn over on your side to meet his gaze, expecting him to say something. He does not, and looks back up at the ceiling instead.

Your brain, clouded by the fact that you are simultaneously freezing cold and devastatingly fatigued, opens, then pauses as you search for the words.

“Are you cold as well?” you mumble.

Gwayne shrugs nonchalantly. “Slightly.”

You chuckle mirthlessly. “I am.” The sheets suddenly feel rough against your skin. “More than slightly.”

“I can ask the innkeeper for another quilt.”

His earlier words flash back to you. “There is no need to draw any more attention to us,” you repeat.

You see the corner of his lip turn upward. “What do you reckon I do, then, princess?” he asks, and you reach out to touch his arm.

The muscle quickly tightens under your hold.

“You’re warm.” You move closer to him. “If we lie close together, we might just make it through the night.”

That is how you ended up huddled next to Ser Gwayne Hightower for the rest of the night.

You were unaware of the fact that he was lying frozen next to you, and that he did not get a wink of sleep, especially as you mindlessly slung an arm around his middle in your slumber. And as your nipples, solid from the cool breeze that had seeped in through the windows, brushed up against him as you shifted throughout the night.

day four

Gwayne had stopped to relieve himself when you heard them.

The myriad of chirps from some kind of birds had caught your attention, and you had jumped from your horse in an instant, following the sound.

You found yourself on the edge of an open field, behind some bushes, as you looked down to some small yellow birds that weren’t flying away. You deduce that they must like your presence.

It wasn’t long before Gwayne anxious voice interrupted your calm, calling your name just moments before stumbling upon you.

“What are they?” you whisper.

“Chicks,” he responds, in a normal tone. At your silence, he continues, “baby chickens.”

“Truly?” you question, head cocked to the side, watching them.

Gwayne stares at you. “Have you… never seen chicks before?”

“No, only…” you turn your head to him, “chickens.” You shrug.

He shakes his head with a theatrical sort of despair. It would have seemed real if the corners of his lips were not upturned.

“You truly are a princess,” he mutters, and crouches down to the ground.

You stoop down alongside him, watching as the chicks run past one another, chirping quietly.

“Can I touch one?” you mumble.

He gestures with a chin toward the chirping bunch. “Go on, then.”

You reach down to one of the animals, but you can’t quite seem to get a good grip on it. You don’t really try to grip it. You do not find the chance to. Instead, your hand just lingers hesitantly above the crowd of them.

Gwayne’s hands come down to meet yours. He grabs one of them, effortlessly and gently, cradling it in his hands.

Your hand is still lingering beside his, still in a motion as if you were going to grab one, as he did, so he brings the chicken in his hands to yours. You bring your free hand to join the other and cup them together.

He lets one hand release the chick into yours, and it comes down below the two of your hands as if to hold it steady. The other covers the chick to prevent it from jumping out of your hold.

The hand that is under yours touches it, and urges it to close. “Gently,” he murmurs, and you’re holding the chick on your own now, gently and effortlessly, just like he was.

His hands withdraw from yours. He watches as your lips curl up, a pure joy that he had yet to ever witness fill your face, do exactly that. His own mouth mirrors something similar.

You shudder nervously as the chick twitches around in your grip. It comes out half in the form of small chuckles and half in struggled exhales.

Your brows draw together. It seems impossible to relax them, and you feel a panic settle in at nothing in particular. Perhaps it be that your brothers are dead, maybe because you are with a man that you have such complicated and mind-boggling feelings for, or that you were just held as a prisoner for the Greens, and that man is a Green, he is the Green, the Hightower Green you have been conditioned to hate—

Gwayne has stopped smiling. You feel tears running down your face. The chick flies out of your grip once you try to see it closer, and you try your hardest to catch onto your breath, to catch it as it runs from you, but you cannot. You are sobbing before you get any sense to stop it.

“My princess?” he leans closer to you, a wavering hand inching dangerously close, and you push yourself from off the ground. He follows.

“I’m sorry,” you manage through heaving breaths, smoothing down your now wrinkled dress. Why are you apologizing? You do not know why you are apologizing. He is a Green. He should be apologizing to you, for being on the side of the war that killed your brothers—oh, gods, your sweet brothers. Your sweet, young, desperate, dead brothers.

“It’s all right,” he mumbles. His hands, still, are reaching toward your arms, yet not touching. Never touching. Just hovering near yours, always, like he wants to touch you, but he doesn’t.

You wipe your eyes, but the tears keep falling. You mutter something again. Sorry, you hear yourself say again, and then your body moves for you. You wrap your arms around his neck in an embrace so tight you might be strangling him.

He stumbles back slightly, arms still hesitating beside you, and then finally you feel it. He folds them gently around your waist. As gentle as he held the chick.

“Don’t cry,” he comforts.

You do not obey. You would if you could, but for now, you remain in his hold. You, regrettably, enjoy it.

day five

Gwayne did not like to see you cry.

He had first seen it the moment you realized you were captured by the Hightowers. You hadn’t been conscious enough when they found you to care about where you were being taken. He hadn’t enjoyed the sight then, not as his belligerents did, and he does not like to see it now.

He was the one to convince his fellow commanders to spare your life and to instead take you as a hostage. He was the one to have you held in a tent next to his own in the encampments with his two most upstanding soldiers posted outside, and not in those grimy cages fit for animals. He was the one to have you ride your horse directly next to his when on the road with the rest of the army—much to your dismay—as to prevent any dishonorable conduct from occurring. He would never tell you these things, of course, but they live with him.

Gwayne would tell himself that he did all of these things because it was right, that he would do it to any other female prisoner-of-war, given the shocking lack of honor among his knights who vowed to defend it. He had done a good job separating the wheat from the chaff when he became a commander, but there were only few he truly trusted to never harm the young, an innocent—and those who cannot protect themselves. Like you.

You liked to put on a front. And it somewhat worked with others, but not with him. He wishes it would, for some odd reason. Maybe he would not see you the way he does, if it did. He would still treat you with mercy, but it would not be to the level it is. He would never have accepted your hug. He thinks he would have pushed you away.

He wouldn’t have, but he believes he would have.

Since he had finally felt your touch the afternoon previous, the road to the Red Keep had been as quiet as the first day of your journey together. He suspected you had been embarrassed after letting him see your emotions, as you had been combative toward him every day since you had woken up from your comatose state.

He had expected it to come at some point, the unveiling of your feelings, but not in that way. He had expected to hear you sniffle from beside him while on your horses. He would have stayed silent, and he would have let you cry. He believes he would have let you cry on your own if you hadn’t come to him for comfort first.

The fact that you did had brought him joy. It made him hopeful, in some strange way he did not feel himself familiar with.

“You are betrothed to Lord Samwell Blackwood, are you not?”

You look at him, puzzled. “He has been with the Stranger since the war begun.”

Gwayne nods curtly. “So I’ve heard.”

“Then why have you asked?”

He inhales a heavy breath. “I feel it my duty to tell you of this.” He clears his throat. “Before your mother took the throne, there was word among our commanders to betroth you to your cousin, Prince Aemond.”

“You jest.”

“I do not.”

You cock your head to the side, wetting your lips. “And what did you have to say in the matter?”

“That is unneeded for you to know.”

“Why? Because you encouraged them to?”

His voice picks up immediately where you left off. “No, because I fought against it.” He scoffs a laugh. “The One-Eyed Prince is… he is mad.” At your gawking laugh, he turns his head to you. “You must know it too. He is simply and utterly mad.”

“You are his uncle.” You would never tell of his treasonous words to any other, but you feel you must remind him.

“Are you going to betray me and inform my army of the fact?”

“I do not have loyalty to you, though I will not speak of the words to another.”

“Good. Now you tell me something in confidence,” he presses.

You shake your head at the sheer audacity of him. “Why would I do that, ser?”

“What else will we converse about? It is a long and arduous road ahead of us.” His eyes peer into yours, and you feel a sudden urge to tell him everything you have ever kept from him.

“Alright then,” you look to the sky in mock ponder. “When I was young, I would pray to the gods each and every night for a gallant and true knight to take me away from the Red Keep and off to some distant land. There was this one knight, he had belonged to our Kingsguard, who I absolutely adored.” You sigh on the memory, oblivious to the fact that a true and gallant knight was riding right alongside you. “I was just a girl then. It was a silly dream. And the gods do not always play in my favor.”

Were you jesting? Or were you truly so oblivious?

“Do you remember his name?” he asks.

“It has lost me. But I remember his face. He was gorgeous, that one, and very gentle, too. Back then he was the same age as my brother is now.”

He does not let you sit with the fact that you mentioned your brother as if he were alive. “That’s quite young, isn’t it?”

You nod. “Indeed. He was the youngest of every knight in the Keep. Perhaps the youngest in history.”

“What happened to him?”

You exhale a breath, and look down to your horse’s head. “He was in the fire that killed Ser Harwin. I do not know why he had been called to Harrenhal, and I suppose I shall never know. Are you yourself betrothed, or married, ser?”

He huffs. “Gods, no. I was, and remain, of little use as a political pawn for House Hightower, my father being the second son.”

“Therefore if you were to wed, you would do so for love,” you state.

“I suppose so.”

day six

The hood of your cloak was pulled tightly over the upper half of your face, seemingly ritual for whenever you made it to inns, and you felt a tap on your shoulder.

You turn, expecting to see Gwayne, but in his place stood a knight in armor, donning a Hightower sigil on his gambeson.

It is your luck to see Gwayne rushing up from behind him to fetch you.

“Squire, let us retire to our room, yes?” he says, and you nod eagerly, pulling the hood further over your face. The two of you attempt to move forward, and you make it past the knight—

“That is no squire,” the man interjects, grabbing onto your wrist, stopping you. “That is a girl.”

Gwayne steps in between you and the knight, forcing him to release your joint from his hold. His gaze flicks down to the man’s gambeson.

He takes a step closer to him and lowers his voice. “If it pleases you, she’s my distraction for the night, ser. Not worth your notice.”

The knight clears his throat, and Gwayne steps back.

“Blessings upon King Aegon.” He smiles, turning back to the inn entrance.

His hand guides you forward, lingering on the small of your back, surely for the sight of the knight behind you. And then it trails down, over the curve of your back end, and you feel the slightest grip onto it before the door behind you closes, and his hand immediately falls away.

The walk to your room is silent.

Gwayne swallows painfully once you make it to your room.

“I’m sorry—” he begins.

“How may I distract you tonight, ser?” you interrupt, smiling stupidly at his lie, and he sighs one of relief at your lack of offense.

He breathes out a laugh, and swiftly moves to shed himself of his armor. He has been struggling on his own each time he has done so. You only noticed it the last night, and offered help, but had been rejected.

You would not ask this time, you would simply do. Your fingers were desperate and untrained in their efforts, but they did the trick in time for him not to deny you, and he was rid of the metal captivity.

You turn as he does, ridding yourself of your heavy cloak and pushing your hair out of the way of the laces of your dress. He pulls them loose without a word, and the warmth of his body behind yours would surely prove the most effective thing of the night, you decide as you gaze at the thin quilt on your bed.

As your gown slides down your body, you can hear the shuffling of Gwayne removing all but his linens behind you. If you took just a step backward, you would be touching him.

“It is a terrible coincidence, the Hightower army resting here,” you mumble, your hands fiddling with the light cloth around the your wrists.

“It is,” he agrees solemnly.

You retreat from his warmth and sit on the edge of your bed, your back up straight and your fingers clasped together in your lap. You weren’t particularly tired this night. Maybe it be from the surge of adrenaline at the knight outside, and it had already raged through your limbs, rendering them restless the moment the door to the inn had shut behind you.

Gwayne’s hand was close to you then, to an area you regarded as most private among you, a maiden. The memory of it twinged deep in your stomach. It was an unfamiliar feeling.

He had joined you in sitting on the edge of a bed, albeit his own. His own stature had mirrored yours. All tense and surged with the possibility of a fight.

“It is rather cold this night,” you mutter.

Gwayne nods curtly. “It is.”

Your gaze lowers to watch your fingers be relentlessly picked on by those of the other hand. “I fear one of those knights will bust through the doorway, and take me away with little fight, you being so far from me,” you whisper. The night was silent enough for him to hear it.

“I fear the same.”

You look up at him. “If he were to do so, it would certainly raise suspicion if your whore was sleeping in a bed adjacent to yours.”

He takes a turn to meet your eyes. “If you wish to sleep in the same bed as I, you need only ask.”

Your tongue darts out to wet your lips. “May I sleep in your bed tonight, Gwayne?” you muster.

“As you wish, my princess.”

day seven

Your horse stops before you instruct it to.

In the distance lies a field of flowers, pink and purple, some yellow, and all illuminated by sunlight. It was nearly time for it to set.

You cannot still be in the Reach, you think. It has been much too long, but thank the gods if you are. What a sight to see.

You want to see it closer. Gwayne will be okay with it, you declare, and you hop off of your horse and begin walking in the direction of the field.

“No, princess,” he says, exasperated. “We cannot go off trail again.”

“The flowers,” you breathe. “It is beautiful.”

The scent in the air is intoxicating. It is rather pungent, the closer you get to it, and the air seems more sultry than just moments before.

You remove your cloak from your shoulders, letting it drop behind you as you continue forward. It is the slightest bit relieving from the heat, but your body quickly acclimates to it again, and the sweat begins beading. It is no wonder. The sleeves under your dress are long. It makes you question why you decided to wear such a stupid thing, in this climate.

Once you make it to the field, it envelopes you. The fever. It starts in your lower abdomen in a heavy thrum and travels up the rest of your body.

Where is Gwayne?

You turn around. He is just a few steps behind. He has been trailing behind you the entire time. It was hard to notice, with the pull of the meadow, but now that you are here, he is all you can think about. All you can focus on. You do not like that.

His hair illuminates in the sunlight, much like the flowers. Your skin tingles.

He froze in his movements the moment you did. You continue further into the field. His feet fall in step with yours, and you think you can hear his breathing, all shaky and uncertain.

You make it to an empty patch of the meadow, and stop once again.

“Ser?” you turn back to face him. The scorch of the sun worsens with each passing second. Sweat gathers on your brow. “My dress... please… help me get it off.” You raise a timid arm to your back, accepting defeat once you find yourself unable to reach the laces.

Gwayne’s thumb twitches toward you. His forehead glistens. He must be burning too.

You spot the clench of his jaw, and take a wary step toward him.

“Stop—” he holds a hand out, body turning away from you. “Do not move. Please. Just stay there.” He avoids your gaze.

“What is it?” you ask. You know what it is.

You know what he is feeling, because you feel it too. It presses hard and deep in your abdomen, and it just wants to be relieved. You want to be relieved. And Ser Gwayne Hightower looks rather handsome in this light, surrounded by the pink and purple—and was it red?—flowers. He seems close to pouncing on you like a wild dog. Gods, may he?

He had always been alluring. May it be your frustration that you could never have him in the way you wanted that made you so combative, or the fact that he is a Green—it is probably both, but neither seem so important now. Not when you feel the heat of a thousand suns burn through you, all the way to your core, and then all over again.

The man himself looks close to releasing in his braies just by looking at your face. It brings you some ease, yet also further discomfort, to know that he feels the same as you. You had blocked out the idea, seeing yourself as delusional and unrealistic for thinking he would ever show any form of attraction toward you.

“Gwayne—” you exhale, though it releases itself in the form of a groan. “It is sweltering.” You bend over to clutch the end of your dress, and you are close to pulling it off yourself, if fate was willing. Something halts you.

“Please, don’t.” His voice sounds pitiful. It is all low and whiny. “I do not know if I can handle that. Not now. Not when… fuck.”

You want to keel over and die.

You release the cloth from your grip and let the dress fall back down. You rise back up, slowly, and flatten down the wrinkled fabric of your middle with your hands.

Your lips tremble. “What do you want to do?”

“I am unsure.” He still cannot look you in the eye. “It is impure, and unchivalrous for me to be thinking of you this way.”

“I am all right with it.” It is then that you realize how you sound. Desperate for a Green, as if you were a common whore, which is probably what he thinks of you as. At least he tries to fight it. You should fight it too. You are fierce enough to fight whatever it is that is welling up inside of you.

Your eyes are squeezed shut, and the shame tries to conquer the hunger—but the hunger wins in the blink of an eye. The blink of your eye, in fact, as you look back at Gwayne.

“We cannot,” you mumble. “We should not. I am a maiden. You are the opposition. We cannot.” You repeat the words to yourself, over and over, like a mantra. If the shame did not prevail, perhaps distraction will. Your eyes shut tight again, and you repeat the words. We cannot. We should not. You are a maiden. He is the opposition.

We cannot, we should not, you are a maiden, Ser Gwayne Hightower is hard by simply standing in your presence—

Your eyes snap open, and you find that you are standing directly in front of him. You must have been inching closer to him with each sentence you repeated.

Your gaze flicks down to his crotch. Sure enough, your thoughts did not lie to you. Perhaps your dragon blood has given you the gift of prophecy.

He finds it appropriate to look at you, finally, and you realize how close you are to one another.

In specific—how close your lips are to one another. So, so close, yet so far. You almost want to give in, and you lean just a little closer. He stays still, though when you stop moving, his head moves closer too, close enough that you can almost feel his breath fanning into your own mouth.

Your noses are touching, that is how close you are. You could just slot your lips right onto his. It would be so easy, so incredibly simple, if you would just move forward, just a little—

His hands reach up to cradle your face in his hands, thumbs on either side grazing your cheekbones. They move down your face, down to your lips, and one of the thumbs strokes over the bottom lip. And he closes the gap.

You feel his lips envelope yours first, and then you feel his tongue inch into your mouth. Your lips close over one another’s, and he moans. Ser Gwayne Hightower is moaning into your mouth, and it feels like you have been sent to each of the seven heavens and back again. Your head is pushed backwards with the force of his kiss.

Your hand reaches around to brush over his nape. His hands travel further down your body, one finding itself wrapped around your waist, the other petting your breast over your dress. It seems that the true touch of it pacifies him, as it allows you to push deeper into the kiss, letting your tongue slide into his mouth.

You only break away to lower yourself to the ground. He follows, as though the answers to every challenge in his life were held on your lips. He hikes your dress up your legs, your smallclothes with it, until they both pool at your waist.

He lifts two fingers to his mouth, coating them in spit before reaching down to your bare cunt and thrusting them inside. You let out a shrieking moan, letting your head press into the dirt below you and thrashing back and forth in pleasure.

“Look at me,” Gwayne instructs. You let your eyes lock onto his, you try, but the deep press of his fingers inside of you makes it hard to focus. His lips, hanging open, hover just above yours, and he moves forward to bring you and he together again.

It is breathing moans into each other’s mouths and pathetic, desperate mashing before you finally get the hold onto his lips, or perhaps him onto yours. His fingers cease, and slip out swift enough for it to go unnoticed for a single moment.

He breaks apart from your mouth, and wastes no time in sliding himself down your body. The disappointment at the loss of his fingers does not last long, as his lips lock onto your cunt.

Gwayne snakes his arms under your legs and he yanks your body closer to him. Your fingers curl in his hair, and he only laps harder at you.

“Y—yes, ser—” you cry, your thighs squeezing his head, clit pulsating under the assault of his tongue.

He breaks away for just a moment, big blue eyes locking onto your weak ones. “Not ser. Gwayne. My name is Gwayne.”

And he dives back into you, gathering your wetness on his tongue in a torturous swipe from bottom to top, one that earns a sweet little whine from the depths of your throat. It reminds him, in that moment, of the sounds you would make when you did not get your way back in Oldtown—the sounds he would shamefully think of as he fucked his fist late at night, the sounds that he would repent about for thinking and acting on with such humiliating vitality, and more importantly, for not regretting any of it in the slightest.

The sheer relief you get from his mouth onto yours is unlike anything you have felt before, because you have not felt it before. You had heard word of the act in song, and in gossip spread around by your ladies-in-waiting, but to experience it was the greatest decision you ever made. A true, gallant knight between your legs, satiating the hunger that spread in your loins and his alike, yet he is only focused on your release now, latching his tongue on your clit and sucking hard.

His fingers graze your folds and glide around the edges, already slick with your wet. One finger probes, just the slightest bit, and you shudder at the contact.

You let out a loud cry as it presses itself fully inside, without warning. Perfection, you think you hear him say. The words vibrate on your clit, agonizingly so.

His finger pumps in and out of you, and his mouth works on your cunt all the same. The fire in your veins only grows stronger as your climax approaches.

Your fingers tug and pull on his hair, and somewhere in the middle of your gratification a second slim finger of his joins the first, pressing deep into your cunt as they allow him.

The sounds coming from your mouth you do not think you have ever made before. They approach from deep in your lungs and are hoarsely ripped from your throat.

It creeps closer, that unfamiliar thing called release, and your walls tighten around his fingers. Gwayne only sucks harder, and pushes his fingers further into your cunt, his knuckles pressing into your folds.

The feeling floods your body in an instant. It feels prickly, for some odd reason, and it nips your limbs, but blissfully so. Your brain feels fuzzy, and you cannot think of anything but him. It is a way that makes you crave for it immediately once it ebbs.

You let out a little sob once his fingers slip out from inside you. You didn’t know you were crying, and a few stray tears fall from your eyes before you realize.

Gwayne licks a stripe up your cunt, collecting whatever fluids he procured down there into his mouth and swallowing them with the gulp of a man who might just be dying of thirst.

He is up your body and has his wet lips on yours by the time you tear yourself away from the sight. It is then that you feel how truly hard he is under his linens. His cock presses against your spent core, and he nearly jerks back at the contact.

“Gwayne,” you breathe, and his head shoots up to look at you.

“What is it, sweet girl?” he mumbles, suddenly winded by the sweet sound of his name on your tongue.

“I want you to fuck me.”

He is frozen solid at your ask. Your arousal on his mouth glistens with each slight twitch upward. “You’re sure of it?”

You nod, but it is not enough.

“Tell me,” he commands.

“I want you to fuck me, Gwayne, how else must I tell you?” you reply impatiently, and grind your hips up to feel his hardened cock brush against you once more.

Both of your hands come up and intertwine themselves behind his neck, preventing him from straying any further—pulling him down to you, in fact, so you can grind up on him some more.

You lift your head from the ground to try and capture his lips into a somewhat calculating kiss, but his strength prevails, and his head softly twitches back before your mouth can get hold on his.

You fall back, defeated, but his hand comes to hold your wrist, and he comes down to close the gap. He chuckles into your mouth at your desperation, and you only kiss him harder, as if you were trying to become one with him.

His hand rubs up and down your wrist for a moment, before he reaches down to release his lower half from his linens.

You take a hand from off his neck and reach down to meet his own, searching around for his cock. You get a firm grip on it, stroking it up once. He lets out a shuddery moan, and his hand finds your wrist once again—not stopping you, but guiding you, perhaps.

He pumps himself with your hand, and you let him for only a moment, before overpowering his gentleness and guiding his length to your cunt. The tip of it glides on your folds. You could die right here, and it would be okay.

Gwayne pushes into you with a wounded groan, his jaw hanging wide open. You, on the other hand, nearly shriek.

He rocks himself out of you slowly, then back into you almost sluggishly.

“Is this all right?” he manages through strangled breaths, and you nod fervently, using the hand still on his neck to push his head closer to yours.

You mean to kiss him, but his forehead lies on yours instead. You’ll take what you can get.

He presses swift pecks on your cheeks, on your nose, and on your lips as he gains momentum. Your eyes flutter shut, but his hand comes up to press a few light smacks to your cheek.

“I said to look at me,” he grunts. “I want to see your eyes—“

You open them back up at that. They’re glossed over again, with tears, and you’re glad that Gwayne does not take it as pain. There was pain, but it is long gone. He kisses the droplets as they fall from the corners of your eyes.

It is utterly intoxicating, the drag of his hips. He seems to lose himself in the feeling too. Wave after wave of constant pleasure washes over you with the somehow gentle slam of him into you.

You babble incomprehensible speech, just as lost as he is as he, slack-jawed as he fucks you. His eyes are focused on your face, your face saturated with sweat, for a single twitch of anything at all, yet he finds nothing. Nothing but rapture, as he believes it should be. He brings his hand back down to your clit and strokes it so delicately, but it brings you sweet relief all the more.

You feel it cresting again. Up your spine, down your legs, dumbing your brain into mush, prickling at the back of your neck. “Gods, Gwayne—Oh, gods, I’m gonna—“

You don’t finish the sentence. It hits you, you cum again, so hard around his cock, and it isn’t long into your perfect bliss before he is pulls out, spilling his seed onto the bunched-up cotton of your dress.

You feel as though you are one with him. It is like your flesh melts into his. Your sweat certainly does, especially as he joins his forehead with yours again, all sticky and damp.

“I am deeply sorry—” he says in between quick kisses, “to have taken your maidenhood.”

You shake your head softly. “If it shames you so, I can raise a proposition of marriage to my mother once we get back to the Keep.” He laughs at that, unknowing you were not telling a joke.

Still, you breathe out a chuckle.

day nine

The communal bath that you had found yourself in was satisfyingly empty. Since Gwayne had taken your maidenhood two moons previous, you had been desperate for it to happen again, and again, and perhaps a thousand times more, though you resisted the urge to ask outright while in the inns.

Now, though, seemed like the perfect moment to do so. You could clean yourself properly for the first time in weeks, and then dirty yourself all over again with the satisfaction of your mutual sin.

He had already undone the laces of your dress for you, and you stepped out of the gown that dropped to your feet, eager to feel the warmth of the water envelop your skin. And for him to join you. So that you could see—and feel—his bare body, properly. You had already shed your linens by the time you made it to the water.

You had retreated to the further side of the bath, so that you could watch as Gwayne undressed himself. It was nicer like this, being able to take in his body for the first time, as he stripped off his gambeson, then his chausses, and then, finally, his smallclothes.

His figure was very unsurprisingly robust. The light of the countless candles surrounding the baths set for quite the intimate atmosphere.

You bit back a smile as he inched closer to the bath, stepping inside with a heavy sigh of relief. The Hightowers did seem to prioritize cleanliness. Perhaps they place it next to godliness. Gwayne certainly does not seem to mind, given how keen he was to eat your cunt until you came undone on his tongue.

He threw his head back with a shuddering sigh once he finally sunk into the water. You watch as the grime expels from the surface of his body in one fell swoop, becoming one with the rest of the stream.

“Have you something to say?” he questions, a brow darted upward at your uncharacteristically blissful expression.

Your cheeks flushed, a harder, content smile crossing over your face. “Just observing.”

“Must you observe so far?” he mutters.

“I must,” you sneer, giving a firm nod.

His eyes flick down to your bare breasts, sat warped on your chest under the soft wave of the water.

He quickly averts his gaze to the center of the bath once you perk them forward with your arms.

“I am truly apologetic,” he starts. “For taking your maidenhood. ‘specially in such an unclean place, where anyone could have seen us if they had simply come to probe into the noise.”

You scoff. “Would you have preferred it happen inside the walls of some dull inn?”

“I’d have preferred you comfortable.”

“I was comfortable. I am comfortable.”

At his silence, you push yourself off of the wall and glide over to him. He sits frozen as your chest brushes against his arm.

“Are you a maid, ser? Well—were you a maid?” you question, feigning a look of innocence.

“I haven’t been a maid for a long time, princess.” His head hangs low.

He lets you grip his arm and guide it between your legs. “Are you ashamed of the fact?”

“I am ashamed that I am not,” he mutters, seemingly unfazed as you grind your cunt against his wrist. You let out a low moan, your breath wavering before you realize his lament.

So you release his arm from your hold and straddle his hips, placing your hands on each of his shoulders. Your chest is eye level with his face. It seems to be the only thing that can bring his head back up.

You can feel his cock hardening below you as you rock back and forth against him. He watches your face that stares down back at him—both of your jaws are slack, and you breathe heavy pants into each others mouths, gaining some semblance of pleasure from the act.

But it is not enough, no. It is never enough.

You take a hand from his shoulder and reach down to grip his length, guiding it into your walls at once. You push down unto him with a sweet little cry, one quickly silenced by his lips on your own.

His kiss is just as tender as you remember it being, amorous flowers aside, and you hum into him. A hand cups your cheek and he tilts his head, his tongue breaching the plush of your lips, just exploring.

Your fingers curl around his nape as you thrust, up and down, up and down, and he concurrently rolls his hips back and forth.

“Fuck—sweet princess—” he moans once he breaks apart from your mouth.

You gasp and shudder, and he reaches his head up to kiss all over your face. Your eye, the brow bone above it, down to the highest point of your cheek on the side of your face, then to the corner of your lip, and then he cranes his head down to kiss you on your neck. You throw your head back to allow him access.

Once he reaches your sternum, he darts his tongue out first when attaching his lips to it. “Oh, gods,” you whimper into his hair.

“Ser? Gwayne—” you can't quite speak, the words near dying on your tongue. “Are you mine, Gwayne? Tell me—” your hips slow, and his only speed up. He begins fucking up into you, and another moan rips through your throat.

He nods fervently against your neck, lifting his head back up to see you. “I am yours, princess. Fuck—” his hips stutter, though he relents.

It does not give you solace. If he is yours, how long shall he remain so? Until the gods rip him from your grasp—which would be soon now, with each tread of your horses closer to the Red Keep.

His hand slides up to your ribs as if to stabilize you, and he wraps it around your middle. His forehead drops to your shoulder, raising with each jolt of your body upward, the constant slam of his cock up into your cunt and then out again.

You know few things now, except for him. Your walls clench around him, and he nearly ceases at that. You continue in his ministrations, rocking back and forth onto him, savoring in the way his length hits you in the spot that makes you feel near the brink of climax.

“I love you.” You think you hear yourself say. And he just watches you, as you chase your peak, so blissfully unaware of the words that just came from your mouth. Your sweet mouth.

Gwayne reaches a hand to cradle your head, and push it closer to his, so that he can take your sweet mouth into his. It is less of a kiss and more of two mouths pressing against each other, but you accept it either way. The two of you pant raggedly against each other, and you feel your core tighten with each deep press of his cock inside of you.

He can feel it too. It is more of threat than satisfying, the idea of spilling his seed inside of you, but you seem to not care. You might just not know. If you were true to your word of your maidenhood—he does not care if you were or not—you must be pitifully unknowledgeable on the subject.

He remembers word of you being betrothed to some high lord widow who had died on the frontlines of battle when the war first broke out, fighting for the side of your mother. Then, once you were captured, there was word of you marrying one of his two younger Targaryen nephews. The thought of you being kept as a prisoner for Aemond sends a shudder through his body, and he rids himself free of the idea as his orgasm approaches closer.

“My princess—” he tries. You do not notice. You persist in your pursuit of release, and he grips your jaw gently, catching your attention. “Look at me.”

You nod at nothing in particular, mouth hanging open and mewling needy whimpers as you oscillate on his cock.

“I cannot—I cannot cum inside.” He lets out a strangled moan as you begin grinding faster than just moments before, as if encouraging him to do so.

“Why not?” you breathe.

His head nearly lulls back as he staves off his own release. “You could get with child.”

You grip his hand and lead it to your breast, and he lets himself fall for your entrancement, kneading it between his fingers. Your nipple is caught between two of them, and he presses them together just the slightest bit too hard, earning a wince from above him. It makes him realize he has been regrettably neglecting them this entire time.

“My breasts are sore.” You inhale sharply. “I shall bleed soon.”

Ah. In that case—

Gwayne dips his hands back into the water, finding your hips to guide them, delighting in the way your moans grow more and more fervent as his cock drags against your walls.

It approaches swift, and you do not have any time nor stamina to warn him of it. You wonder if he can sense it.

Just as quick as it came, it washes over you in an instant. Your muscles clamp down around him, and he moans loud into your shoulder—you soon feel a warmth deep in your womb, the warmth of his seed. A minuscule part of you hopes it will take.

Shortly afterward, he lifts your bodies from the water, carrying you with your legs wrapped around him. His cock has slipped out of you, but the kiss he places on your lips distracts you from the loss.

You push his chest, separating your mouths, and wrap your arms around his neck. “Let us leave together, Gwayne. Silverwing is large enough to saddle two. You could be a sellsword, and I a scribe—I your wife. I shall give you children, if it is what you desire. We can spend our days in rest and tranquility, like this.” Your breath still hasn’t caught.

It is a moment of silence before Gwayne finds the words. The dubious words, though the ones that provide enough hope to settle you. “Perhaps, my princess. Do not worry yourself with eventuality.” And he sets you down on the marble just above the bath. Your calves dip back into the water, and it is then you realize that they are aching.

He kneels down into the water and takes your legs over his shoulders. You feel the stretch in your thighs, equal parts from their growing soreness and the length of his shoulders. His release begins seeping out of your cunt from the pressure of it all.

He presses a kiss to the inside of your knee, then to the inside of your thigh, and then finally to your clit. His head dips down to your opening, and he sucks.

It becomes more like he is kissing, or eating you, at some point. You cannot tell. The pleasure has already gotten to be too much, and you are writhing under him.

His arms wrap around your thighs and he pulls you closer to his mouth, and you loudly and embarrassingly moan, your fingers rake through his hair, gripping it tight when his nose brushes against your clit.

You haven’t discovered his objective, but thank the gods for him. It is somewhat relaxing and simultaneously frustrating for him to be lapping away mindlessly at your cunt.

“Please, Gwayne, let me cum—” you beg, all breathless and crestfallen, and his eyes flick up to you. He finds you are the most spoiled thing he has ever met, yet also the most beautiful. He thinks, in that moment, that he truly should consider being taken as your husband.

He nods once. “As you wish.”

And his mouth is replaced by his fingers. He pumps them into you, a relentless pace, and his lips find themselves back onto you, but now on your clit.

He laps at you and rocks his fingers further inside, getting your folds all slick and glossy with both your own and his own arousal, as well as his own saliva.

He curls his fingers deep in your cunt, in that spongy spot that once sheathed his cock, and it is enough to bring you to climax before you realize it.

You swear your vision goes black for a moment as you cum, and the bliss fills your body over the irritation. It was embarrassingly fast how quickly he brought you to absolution, but you did not have enough might to let it wash over you the way your orgasm had.

Gwayne looks up at you with those big blue eyes of his, now glossed over. The lower half of his face is sheen with your cum—his cum—and he pants and lifts himself up to join you on the marble, his strong body glistening with the damp of the bath.

You think you might faint.

day fourteen

Tonight’s inn had been the nicest of all fourteen. You and Gwayne had jointly decided for it to be the last of your stops, and that you would make the journey the rest of the way there without sleeping.

It was not long to King’s Landing. As much as you had longed to see your mother, and to be home again, the thought of what would happen to Gwayne in the coming days was a thought too harrowing to bear.

But it had lingered in your mind since the field. Certainly he could not leave you, having taken your maidenhood. Your mother would find a way. She knows what it is like to be infatuated with someone you should not be infatuated with. She knows Gwayne. As a soldier for the opposition, yes, but she knows him all the more.

If she has held mercy for his sister, she would certainly hold mercy for him, especially given the situation at hand. The situation of you being in love with a Hightower, and him having bedded you—well, fucked you in a field, then in a bath, a few scattered moments along the road of him lapping at your cunt, or sticking his fingers there to cull your nerves the nights you were too tense to sleep. Your mother coddled you enough before you were taken hostage, and she would certainly do more once you are back with her.

Gwayne seems to sense your restlessness. You have resorted to single bed rooms in the inns, given the underestimated lack of coin he decided to bring with him. He has been able to pick up on your behavior for the last few days—noting to himself how much you lack sleep the closer you get to King’s Landing—and he has always been able to get you to talk about it. Tonight, you seem not wanting of his perception.

He turns over to face you. “Are you feeling well?” he asks.

You look to him for a moment. “I feel fine.”

Propping himself up on one arm, he maneuvers himself closer until he is hovering above you, as he stares down at where you lie. “You mustn’t need to lie.” His voice is soft.

Your lungs expand with a heavy breath of air. “I do not wish for you to leave when we return to the Red Keep. You told me that we would talk about it, and we never have.”

He brushes your hair behind your ear with his free hand. “What would you like to talk about?”

“I want us to wed.”

Gwayne stares into you. And then hangs his head low with laughter.

“I am serious, Gwayne. If you swore fealty to my mother, the rightful queen, she would show you mercy. I have no doubt she has shown it to your sister, and to your niece and her daughter too.” His smile was wiped from his face sometime as you spoke.

“You cannot be certain of that, though, can you princess?” he mumbles, raising his head back up to cock it to the side.

“I cannot.” You begin picking at the skin around your fingernails.

Gwayne places a hand over them, stopping you. “The agreement was for me to bring you, unharmed, to the Red Keep. And then I would leave, or they would have my head.” His hand envelops one of yours.

“My mother would not let them have it, if I simply tell her.”

“You speak lightly of a heavy thing, my princess.” He squeezes your hand a bit tighter. “If you so much as suggest that the Hightowers are anything less than treasonous vipers, your mother’s council will smell a captive who has learned to love her cage. You are her only daughter, yes, and she adores you. Therefore, if she discovers how thoroughly I have failed to keep my distance, amnesty will be the last thing she grants my house. It will be fire and blood, starting with my head on a pike.”

“She knows what it is like to love someone forbidden to her.”

Gwayne grins at your words. “She also knows she must satisfy her council,” he says softly.

As much as it pains you, you realize he is right. Yet he still remains as handsome as ever in the dark, and his lips are glossed over, looking so plump and lonely.

“Will you kiss me?” you mutter, and kiss you he does. His mouth is just as soft as you had imagined, and he is still so tender and hesitant in his ministrations you almost feel a want to take over.

Your lips are pliable, though, and part for him almost instantly. The hand that held yours comes up to cradle your cheek, and your legs open up a spot for him to slot himself into.

You are grateful for the loss of layers in spite of the outdoor elements—which have been terribly cold nearly the entire journey—as they give you easy access to the growing length in Gwayne’s linens.

He breathes a low groan into your mouth when you reach a hand under the fabric cuff of his waist to grip his cock. You pump him in a slow rhythm, and he nearly falters completely, the arm propping him up above you buckling and lowering him to his elbow.

The hand cradling your face moves to your own core, and he hastily hikes your shift up your thighs. His fingers find your cunt, pressing his thumb to your clit and stroking it.

The two of you breath and pant into one another’s mouth, the speed of both of your caresses increasing as your moans do.

“Would you—” Gwayne pants, “like me inside?”

You nod eagerly, and pull your hand from his cock. His own hand ceases motion on you, and he uses both arms to gather your body and flip you onto your stomach. The featherbed mattress bounces with the movement, and you reach your hands behind you to pull your shift up entirely to your middle, perking your ass up toward him.

Gwayne has already rid himself of his smallclothes in the meantime. He places a hand right above your backend, stabilizing both you and himself, and lines himself up with your cunt.

He leans his body over yours and presses soft kisses along your spine, pushing himself inside of you with a long groan. You let out a needy one all the same.

“Keep moving—” you beg, letting the top of your head fall to the pillow below you. He hums in response, and begins thrusting slowly, still hesitant.

It is a stretch, but a welcome one nonetheless. It is easy to lose trail of your thoughts with the drag of his cock in and out and the press of his chest to your back, the song of his pretty little grunts and groans singing in your ear.

He wraps his arms around your middle, one hand gripping a breast through the soft cotton of your shift. You flick your hair away from your neck, and his lips quickly find the spot, tipping you into absolute bliss.

One of his arms, the one not clutching your chest, sneaks down to your core, and he begins rubbing your clit with a seemingly endless vitality.

The other pushes the two of you up so that you are both standing on your knees. Your hands extend to his head behind you, pushing it closer as you awkwardly crane your neck so that you can join your lips with his in what may be the sloppiest way they have ever met each other.

His fingers continue their assault on your pearl, and his hips rock into you, and it all feels so much. So good, yet so much. Your chest rises and falls rapidly with each slam of his cock into your cunt, the strength of which also makes his head bob slightly into your kiss, coating the area above and below and beside your lips with his own spit.

There is little surprisingly little build-up to your release. It comes quick, like the tide coming in to take away a shell from the shore. It seems to tear through you, lighting up every nerve in your body, pulled straight from your breathless lungs and your racing heart and illuminating your frenzied brain with nothing other than euphoria.

He is still pumping in and out of you, seemingly chasing his own release. You feel a warmth deep in your overwhelmed cunt, and you know he has come, his body slowing entirely. He breaks away from your lips with a soft little cry, and you simply look at each other for a moment as your breath returns to the both of you.

In this moment, you think Ser Gwayne Hightower is the most beautiful creature in the world.

“You are more than a beauty,” he says in turn. You grin at him, still breathless, and join your lips together once more.

day sixteen

When you arrive at the gates of the Red Keep, Syrax and Caraxes are posted on the battlements.

You look over, and Gwayne seems as if he might just curl up and die. You scoff out a laugh at the sight, and he immediately straightens his back.

Open the gates, yells some guard from behind the wall, and the gate begins to part, grinding against the gravel below.

You will see your mother today. For the first time in months, you will see your mother. Will she be different? Is she a different person now that she is on the throne? More importantly, will she be a different person now that her eldest son is dead? You wonder if they have burned the body yet, or perhaps even set it out to sea. He could not become a Targaryen, as he would never become King—the gods would not allow it, so history will remember him as a Velaryon. It would only be fitting for his body to be released into the water.

You should tell her about this. She must be so overwhelmed with all of her recent duties, she may have forgotten about the fact. Is little Joffrey still in the Vale? Surely, mother must have sent for his return by now. He is too vulnerable there on his own, no matter who he is with.

When you blink hard in an attempt to settle yourself, you realize your horse has been guided inside the walls of the Keep, and Gwayne is helping you off of your horse. His hands are on your waist, and you jump down with a grip on his wrists to stabilize you. Yet your eyes are not on him—they are on any entrance, every door where your mother could come out of.

He sighs, and you finally glance at him. His hands hesitate to leave their spot on your middle. “You are home, and you are safe, my princess.” And then his arms drop back to his side, as if ashamed he let them linger for a moment too long.

“Must you go?” you breathe out a chuckle, trying to lighten the mood that seems to deepen with each passing moment.

His hand reaches for yours, and his voice is lower now. “It is the deal.”

For some reason, your heart seems to shatter. It feels odd and disheartening, knowing that he in this moment has a harsher effect on you than anything before.

Your expression has dropped, and Gwayne must be able to see it. His hand grips yours tighter, and he sucks in a breath, his head dropping to avoid your gaze. Your gaze, which quickly wells with tears. You are confused as to how this would have been the outcome of your journey together—and you are unsure if you are glad of it, or instead disappointed in yourself for not realizing that this is what would always happen.

You lower your voice too. “I do not want you to go,” you say, and your hand finally reciprocates Gwayne’s affection. You clutch it, tight, hoping it may get through to him.

It does not. His head does not lift, not even a single bit. You think you can see his brows furrow.

“I have done my duty, my princess,” he mumbles.

Hundreds of solutions flow through your mind in an instant. He could stay, swear fealty to your mother, and he could be yours. He could be your sworn shield and protector. He could be yours, if he would only say yes.

You open your mouth to say it, but nothing comes out. The words die on your tongue.

“Stay,” is what you can manage. “Please, Gwayne.”

His head tilts up, but he still averts his gaze from yours. Something else, something in the distance, catches his attention. It catches yours too. Two heads of familiar lengthy silver hair—your mother and her husband—inch closer to you and Gwayne.

The hand that held onto his was already back at your side. You must have done it without thought.

“Mummy,” you mumble. And she smiles.

She inches closer to you, seemingly dumbfounded that the sight before her is real. “Sweet girl,” she says, and you feel close to crumbling.

You want to step closer, to close the gap between the two of you, but you cannot bring yourself to leave his side.

But Gwayne is by your side one moment, and gone the next. He is pulled away by the gold cloaks, and it is with little struggle. He lets himself be pulled away. He lets himself be pushed out of the walls of the Keep, and he watches as you stand and stammer all bewildered and reaching to plead his forgiveness to the queen.

The gate closes on him once his horse is by his side.

day thirty five

You have not found much use for yourself since you have returned to the Red Keep. Neither has anyone else.

The war still rages on. It reminds you of the promise you had made to yourself, to leave if it did not end, to leave with Gwayne to Essos. He would be a sellsword, and you a scribe, under the protection of Silverwing.

It seemed a better life, a freer life, you and he on the road together. Being locked away in your chambers of your own volition, anything seemed better.

But Gwayne had abandoned you that day. He had let himself be carried away, and your mother had ignored your pleas of his fealty. It seemed nobody was on your side.

You had only wished for peace. Whatever had grown in place of it had taken your brothers away from you, and Gwayne, too, in some way.

If the war had not gone on, perhaps you could have met him another way. Perhaps he would have been your betrothed. And you could love him the way you wanted to, the way you should have since you woke up in the encampment with him by your side.

He had protected you all those months ago, you had come to realize. The violence of the men who fought under his command would have harmed you more than the words that came from his mouth when defending himself in your stupid fights, the ones you would feed into when he forced you to ride alongside him as the soldiers would march further into the Reach. The words that you replied with when he would anger you, when he would attempt to get close to you.

You should have let him get close to you when he tried. Your need for survival had prevailed then and you took every attempt as some sort of tactic to manipulate you to his side.

But Gwayne had no side, as you swiftly figured out. He wanted out of his cage seemingly as badly as you did, but he did the intelligent thing—the thing he warned you he would always do—and returned to his people, to those he swore loyalty to.

These days, it feels you have no people. Your mother is always off attending to her royal duties, your stepfather and cousins assisting her. And you have no brothers left to bond to. Joffrey is still too little, and too shy, to converse with. The others, your half-siblings, are just a few years young.

If the Hightowers had left you for dead that day, you think you would be more comfortable in the arms of the Stranger than you do in this seemingly haunted home. Your maidenhood would be untainted, and your memory would live on as tragic and loyal. You had left to fight for your mother’s cause after all and you would have died for it then, gods willing.

A piece of you wants to hurl yourself from a window for the treasonous thoughts you have had, but you just want peace. You want peace and freedom. Most of all, though, you want Gwayne.

You can only hope he wants you too, wherever he is. You will wait, and you will bide your time until the war is over—if you live until then. And you will take Silverwing and fly to him, and you will be with him, and you will exile yourselves to Essos. You will dream of that outcome until it happens.

Something deep inside you says it will.

He told you something about that, didn’t he? In front of his glass case of treasures that stretched to the ceiling. Pharaohs were kings in Ancient Egypt, and when they died…

“When they died they were buried in pyramids,” you say to yourself, looking at the apparition of the towering structure on the other side of the arena. Your bare feet sink into the dry sand with each step. The wind is hot already, tearing at your tan sweatsuit, loose thin bloodstained cotton. You’ve removed Calico’s sweatshirt and tied it around your waist. The rubber band from Aemond’s first gift to you is still resting on your wrist. Sand and dust whirl in the air, stinging in your eyes, and you think: Pluto’s lungs must be suffering. This place is no coal mine, but it is a death trap just the same, and grains fall swiftly through the choked windpipe of the hourglass.

The curse of the pharaohs.

You try to remember what Aemond said about curses, but it’s difficult to concentrate because the cannon keeps firing: twice in shift succession, and then again after a gap of ten or fifteen minutes. Three more tributes dead. That leaves just over half, thirteen souls who are still alive including you, twelve people standing between you and winning the Games. You try not to think about anything beyond your immediate survival. Whatever comes next must be better than here. And you’ll get to see Misty again, and the rest of your family, and Aemond.

You have to want to live more than you want anything else.

The cannon booms again, and you startle.

Twelve tributes left.

Where is everyone else? At the obelisk, at the pyramid? How are they dying? Are your friends still alive? Is Commodore?

You gaze out into the expanse of the desert, away from the pyramid, and what you can see is only a wasteland, flat and never-ending, no shelter, no vegetation. You’ve reached the edge of the perimeter of what is survivable, you believe. The Gamemakers don’t want you going any farther. Death by heatstroke and dehydration isn’t good for viewership. They want gore, they want pain, they want horror, they want a show. And you promised that to them, didn’t you? That was the exchange, the agreement you signed in other people’s blood.

You wipe your forehead with the back of your hand, already dripping perspiration. Your nostrils are filled with salt: sweat, blood, the caustic crystalline minerals of the desert dust. Your eyes burn under the rising sun. “What is the curse of the pharaohs, Aemond?” you murmur to yourself helplessly, then change course. Tugging at the knife that swings from your throat, you skirt around the borderlands searching for shade, slowly making your way back towards the obelisk and the pyramid, tracing the arc of a vast invisible circle.

You don’t sing, because that could alert others to your location and would be a waste of the rapidly diminishing moisture in your mouth, but you hum softly to yourself as you trek across the golden shifting sand so you don’t feel so alone:

Dealin’ cards with the old men in the club car

Penny a point, ain’t no one keepin’ score

Won’t you pass the paper bag that holds the bottle?

Feel the wheels rumblin’ ‘neath the floor

And the sons of Pullman porters, and the sons of engineers

Ride their fathers’ magic carpets made of steel

Mothers with their babes asleep

Are rockin’ to the gentle beat

And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel…

Your stomach is growling. Your calves and ankles feel weak. The sun surges higher, blazes hotter, and you are beginning to worry that you’re in real trouble when the thin twisted limbs of a young cottonwood tree rise up out of the sea of sand. You hurry to it, gilded leaves that flutter in the arid breeze, a tiny patch of shade that is worth more here than rubies or sapphires.

You kneel at the base of the trunk—above you, branches warp and intertwine like blood vessels—and use your knife to break the seal of the earth. Then with your hands you dig into the soil that crumbles into dust and sand and red clay, clawing until you hit a layer that seems solid and damp. You find a corner of the dead girl Calico’s sweatshirt that doesn’t have too much blood on it and press it into the cool earth. Sure enough, the cotton absorbs some groundwater—not much, but an essential reprieve—and you suck on the fabric to extract it.

You collapse and sit with your back to the narrow tree trunk, surveying your surroundings. It’s not ideal; there are small bluffs of sand that could shield you from sight but also camouflage approaching tributes. You shouldn’t stay long…but what if you can’t find other shade when the sun is at its zenith? You are still debating your options when you hear the flapping of large wings and smile. Vulture Mail.

The creature swoops down and drops a familiar burlap sack by your outstretched legs, then flies off again and vanishes into the desert. When you open your gift, you find three silvery packets of electrolyte powder and one bottle of opaque yellow liquid, beads of condensation like jewels on the plastic. “No way,” you say, and sniff it. It’s pineapple juice. “Yes!” you cheer in a whisper, beaming. “Thank you, Aemond.”

You take a few satiating gulps of the juice—sweet and ice-cold—then hold the bottle between your thighs as you rip open a packet and carefully pour the blue powder into the liquid. You put the lid back on and shake the bottle until the powder dissolves and the yellow pineapple juice turns green and soupy.

“My only complaint,” you say to no one, unless of course there is a camera nearby and Aemond can hear you. “Is that this electrolyte stuff could be slightly less disgusting—”

There is a whistle through the air, a stinging in your forearm like stepping on a sea urchin, a splatter of red that paints your hand, your neck, your face. You are on your feet again and sprinting before you understand what’s happened: a red slash maybe four inches below your wrist, deep and bleeding badly. You glance back and see the kids from District 3, Kista and Tendo, cresting one of the sand bluffs. In Kista’s hands is a crossbow. She’s taking aim.

How are the District 3 tributes still alive?!

Because they’re smart. And because Beetee Latier is a good mentor, although not as good as Aemond. Maybe no one is.

“Hit her again!” Tendo is shouting. “Don’t let her get away!”

You veer sharply to the right and listen as an arrow soars past you, cutting the air like a blade through flesh, slicing, filleting, skinning, butterflying it clean and open to be sold. Tendo is yelling something else and Kista is replying, but the distance between you and them is growing wider, and they must decide not to pursue you into the sweltering, shelterless sand. They take your tree, and you take off into the dunes.

You run until your lungs ache so badly you can’t stand it and your vision starts to go dark around the edges. No, you think, shaking your head violently. Can’t pass out. Someone could murder me.

You slow your pace to a trudging walk, gasping for air, the sun beating down on you like a hammer. You look at your forearm, covered in blood. You rip off a strip of Calico’s sweatshirt and, with great difficulty, manage to tie a makeshift tourniquet around the wound. It isn’t deep enough to kill you, but you don’t have fluid to spare and the pain is hard to think through. You realize that when you bolted from the tree, you left behind your pineapple juice and packets of electrolyte powder. Those gifts must have been expensive, and now the District 3 kids will devour them, assuming they recognize what they are.

“Have to keep moving,” you whimper, wounded and miserable, trying not to cry.

Don’t waste the water.

The wind howls. The heat is smothering. You put one trembling bare foot in front of the other, and then again, and then again, because you have no choice.

By the time you find the ruins, you’re staggering and can’t see straight. You stumble into the shade of limestone columns chiseled with hieroglyphics, jackals and falcons and all-seeing eyes, and you only know what they are because Aemond once told you. You brace your palms against the rock, blinking away the dizziness so you can try to look around for any other tributes. You observe only crumbling mud bricks as high as your waist, a few palm trees, statues of a crouching Anubis half worn away by the harsh desert wind. Specks of sand and dust whirl in the air. Scorching gales howl through the rubble.

Anubis is the god who guards the dead, you think disjointedly. But what was the curse of the pharaohs?

You try to remember. You can’t hear what Aemond said, but you can picture him, standing in front of his treasures, silver hair, maroon suit, his masterful hands in his pockets, his face bashful as you shared too many secrets.

You shake your head, your skull full of tanzanite and gold and dragons carved out of stone. I have to remember. I have to remember.

You can’t think about anything except how hungry and thirsty you are. You glance at the distant mirage of the pyramid. If the arena was a compass, the tall obsidian obelisk where the Games began would be in the center, the pyramid at dead north, the small oasis at the southern extreme, the ruins where you are now due east. Even in the shade, the heat is like an oven. Maybe you aren’t so hungry anymore, maybe you’re just thirsty. Maybe you’re even dying of it.

You lurch towards one of the palm trees to see if you can find moisture in the soil at the base. Then you hear a scuffing like something heavy being dragged, and you flatten yourself against an engraved column, peeking through the decaying forest of limestone and sunbaked mud. They come into view slowly, laboredly: Pluto on his back and mumbling nonsensically, Monty with his arms hooked under Pluto’s and hauling him into the shade, leaving a deep rut in the sand. When Pluto is entirely sheltered, even his sneakers beyond the brutal uninterrupted glare of the sun, Monty releases him and totters backwards, panting, mopping sweat from his face with the sleeve of his sweatshirt, roomy lightweight cotton that makes you sweat in the heat of the day and shiver all night. In his right fists he clutches his machete.

Monty turns and spots you, hisses in a gasp, raises his machete. You show him your palms, leaving your knife to hang benignly by its silver chain. On the ground, Pluto mutters something with his eyes closed; blood dribbles from his mouth. Slowly, Monty lowers the machete. He sighs, his broad shoulders collapsing and his face becoming mournful, vulnerable, so young.

“Will you stay with him?” he asks. “I have to keep moving, but I don’t want to leave him alone.”

You step closer to Pluto, still watching Monty wearily. When he realizes what you’re afraid of, he tosses the machete aside so it rests in the sand. You kneel down next to Pluto: semiconscious, blood on his teeth, his dark hair dripping with sweat, skin—already pallid before—deathly pale and anemic. “I can stay with him,” you agree softly.

Monty is relieved, glancing towards the pyramid that waits across the dunes. “Thank you.”

Pluto’s blue-veined eyelids flutter and he rasps, barely audible: “Mallory? Mal, is that you?”

You look to Monty. “Who’s Mallory?”

“His girlfriend from home, I guess. The one who broke up with him before he came to the Capitol.” He pulls a plastic bottle out of a pocket of his sweatpants, and swishing inside—enough to seize you with sudden, animalistic craving—is clear water, filling the bottle about halfway. Monty takes a swig, then produces a silvery packet as well, already opened but rolled up unemptied; flecks of blue powder rub off on his fingers as he ponders it. “I don’t know what the hell this blue stuff is.”

“Electrolytes.”

“Huh?”

“Minerals to help you rehydrate, sodium and magnesium and other things too, I can’t remember. You’re supposed to mix that with the water before you drink it. It’ll taste awful, but you’ll feel better almost immediately. Your mentor didn’t send you a note with instructions?”

Monty scrutinizes the packet as if deciding whether or not to trust you. “He always said the Capitol is real particular about what they let mentors send into the arena.”

You gaze enviously at the water. You can’t stop. “They want to keep things interesting.”

With some difficulty considering the wind, Monty pours the remaining blue powder into the bottle, twists the cap back on, and shakes it with great force. You can’t help but notice the size of his hands, the thickness of his upper arms. If he wanted to grab you and knock you out, or choke you to death, or dislocate your joints, he could probably do it without much trouble. Instead, he takes a few gulps of the mixture, shudders and wrinkles his nose, and then offers you the bottle. “Here.”

You take it, desperate but stunned. “Are you sure?”

“You helped me. Now we’re even.”

You drink a few swallows, grit and salt, and feel like someone has wiped the fog from your mind like dust off a window. There’s not much left, maybe a fourth of the bottle. You tilt it against Pluto’s bloodstained lips and he accepts the bitter blue brew eagerly. He murmurs some more, words you can barely catch: hot, home, mines, Mallory.

Monty gives you a look, like you shouldn’t have wasted the water, like your mercy won’t make any difference. From the sky, from the universe only the doomed inhabit—a different climate, a different gravity—the omnipotent cannon booms and you both startle. Eleven tributes left.

Monty says: “It’s going fast, isn’t it?”

“It’s a tough arena.”

“It’s a tough crowd,” Monty counters. “Who do you think is killing everyone, Commodore or Roosevelt?”

You take a moment to deliberate it. “Roosevelt.”

Monty smiles. “I was also going to say Roosevelt.”

“Where are you headed?”

“The pyramid.”

“Why are you going there?” What do you know that I don’t?

“The Gamemakers want us to, right?” Monty says. “That’s why they light it up at night. That’s why you can see it from anywhere in the arena. There’s something valuable in there. And besides, it’s hell out here. None of us are going to survive temperatures like this for long. Burning up all day, freezing all night, no food, no water. I think I’ve lost ten pounds already. If I wait until I’m even weaker, I won’t stand a chance against whoever’s left.”

Everybody has to die, you think, and you’ve always known this but only now does it seem real. Except one of us. Every single other tribute has to stop breathing, every kid I met in the Capitol, every friend, every stranger. The cannon has to fire for them. Their heart has to go still. Their families have to bury their bones. “That makes sense, I guess.”

Monty notices, for the first time, the wound on your forearm, clumsily wrapped with a bloody strip of fabric. “What happened?”

“The District 3 kids shot me with a crossbow.”

“Those fucking nerds? You couldn’t gut them like a grouper?” Then he grins so you know he’s trying to cheer you up.

You chuckle. “The knife doesn’t work so well from a distance.”

“Want me to wrap that up better for you?”

“Would you mind?”

“Nah. One last act of charity to set my balance right. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”

“What’s that from? A song or a book?”

“It’s just something people say where I’m from.” He unknots the filthy strip of thin cotton from your arm and tosses it away, then examines the wound. “I don’t recall much from the first aid station, but that looks pretty deep.”

“Feels pretty deep too.”

He laughs and you untie the dead girl Calico’s sweatshirt from your waist so he can—with ease, with a ripping sound as seams bust—tear another strip free and fasten it around the wound, sealing the laceration shut and hopefully allowing it to begin to heal. “Think Aemond can send you something for that?”

“I hope so.”

“Mallory?” Pluto croaks, and when you turn back to him he is somehow even worse than he was a few minutes ago. He coughs up blood and his lungs rattle wetly, and he moans, and instinctively you grab his hand so he knows he’s not alone. His hand is cold. Faintly, he smiles.

“I have to go,” Monty says like an apology.

“Go,” you tell him. “I’ll stay with Pluto. I don’t want to be out there in the sun again anyway. I’ll be here until dusk, at least.” If I’m still alive.

Monty picks up his machete. “Good luck,” he says, although he shouldn’t because every second you live keeps him here in a badlands, in an underworld, and if there are any gods here you don’t know them.

“Wait.” You gesture to Pluto. He can’t see; his eyes are closed again. “Take his sweatshirt. For when it gets cold at night.”

Monty nods miserably, understanding that you’re right but hating it all the same. You help him yank off Pluto’s sweatshirt, just about Monty’s size; Pluto mutters and winces but otherwise doesn’t really seem aware of what’s going on. “It won’t take long,” Monty says quietly.

“I know,” you answer, squeezing Pluto’s clay-cool hand again.

Monty leaves and is swallowed by the dunes, vanishing, even his footsteps erased by wind. This is a good thing; if the gales are strong enough to make footprints disappear, people won’t be able to track you here. In the shade of the ruins, your mind wanders back to District 4: Daddy’s boat, the marketplace, the dinner table, the nets, the hooks, the beach, the rocks. Here in an ocean of sand and bones, you think you can hear the surf roaring. When your unshredded lungs pull in deep breaths of sizzling air, you can taste the salt of home.

Eleven tributes left, you think. Who’s dead? Who’s still alive? Brookie, Isla, Roosevelt, Commodore?

“I’m sorry I had to go,” Pluto whispers, and you look down at where he is sprawled shirtless on the sand, vivid red blood tricking from his mouth down his throat. “I didn’t want to. Mal?”

What could it hurt? He won’t live to know the difference. “I’m here,” you say, a ghost, a phantom, and you think hazily: Maybe if I live and I have to lie beneath strange savage men, I can pretend they’re Aemond, I can see him like a mirage.

“Where are we?”

“We’re home,” you say, and you dredge up a smile so he can hear it in your voice and believe you. “You won, it’s over.”

Incredulously: “I won?”

“You’re home now, and you’re resting but you’ll be better soon.”

“And you’ll marry me? I’ll ask again and you’ll say yes this time?”

You almost let your voice crack, you almost loose a hoarse little cry of despair. You bite it back, and while you’re composing yourself you take the rubber band you’ve been carrying off your wrist and loop it around your ring finger until it’s tight. Then you lay Pluto’s limp hand, like an old dog’s paw, over it. “I already did.”

His eyes closed, his capillary beds hemorrhaging, he chuckles. “What’s this?”

“You’ll get me a real one when you’re well and out of bed.”

“I can afford it,” Pluto says like he’s half-asleep.

“Yes, you can.”

“I can buy you anything. House. Car. Horses.”

“Yes.”

“Because I won.”

“You did.” You touch his cheek, cold and white, exsanguinated, marble or pearl in place of flesh. He drops off again, like a fall from a cliff, but he doesn’t seem afraid. He seems peaceful.

You listen to his breaths, blood-soggy and rattling and with growing lulls between them. After some time, an hour or more, you glimpse a black feather on the wind and then hear the flapping of an immense wingspan, at least six feet across. The vulture swoops into the island of shadows formed by the ruins and drops a burlap sack for you, then departs with a shrill caw. Aemond has indeed sent you a gift: a small metal tin full of a jelly-like substance, like the numbing gel he uses on his scar only green instead of the bright blue of shallow water.

You uncover the gash on your forearm and slather it with the green salve, which cools and tingles. As you watch, the swelling and inflammation recedes and the skin knits itself back together, leaving a ridge of scar tissue instead of an open wound. The pain is now only a dull throb, easy to ignore. The threat of infection is vanquished.

The cannon blasts, and you realize you haven’t heard Pluto’s rasping breaths in a while. When you turn back to him, his face is serene, his eyes open only partway and so glassy they shine like fish scales. When you check his pulse, his carotid artery is still.

You stay beside him, not knowing what else to do. You can’t bury him, you still haven’t eaten and you don’t have the strength, but leaving him behind seems cruel. You gaze at the rivulet of crimson that cuts down his throat like a blade guts a fish.

The desert killed him, you think. It scoured him raw, it poisoned him—

And then you see Aemond standing in front of his treasures in his glass house, high ceilings, primitive dogs, and he’s telling you about how pharaohs were buried with their possessions and their mummified companions to take with them into the next life, and there were warnings hammered into the walls of the pyramids: do not disturb this place, do not open this tomb, do not steal the pharaoh’s riches, if you do you will be cursed. And those who dared to disobey were poisoned by their arrogance and their greed, and their muscles withered and their blood turned septic, and they joined their ancient spellcasters in the grave.

Again, the cannon fires, and now there are just nine tributes left in the 47th Annual Hunger Games.

The curse of the pharaohs. Why would Aemond want you to remember that?

You peer out from the shadows at the silhouette of the pyramid, beautiful, beckoning, looming too large to ever be forgotten, and tonight it will be aglow again while the rest of the arena is stepped in frigid darkness, offering treasures beyond description for the desperate and the damned.

The pyramid is cursed. The pyramid kills.

And you might be the only tribute who knows it.

You go to one of the palm trees and collect scarce drops of water from its soil. You search the ruins and find a massive mud brick with a crack down the side and a hollow in the bottom just big enough for you to squeeze yourself inside. First you check for snakes. Then you tuck yourself away out of the wind and the heat, and as you do, reddish dust rubs off on your clothes and rains down into your hair. You prop your hands against the rough wall of the crevice and rest your head on them, and as you doze you see what you will do next like divine revelations.

You will wait until dusk. You will venture outside again and find something to eat and drink, maybe you’ll circle back to the oasis. You will count the booms of the cannon until all eight other tributes are dead. It won’t take long. Monty was right, the terrain is too brutal…and the lure of the pyramid too great. You will let the arena kill the others, like how Roosevelt planned to outlast Commodore. You will win, you will survive, no matter what comes afterwards.

You hear Roosevelt telling you as you ate together in the cafeteria in the basement of the Tribute Center: You have to want to live more than you want anything else.

You can’t believe that a few days ago you were surrounded by meat and bread and cake and ice-cold bottomless pineapple juice. Now you are wilted with thirst and your belly cramps and gnaws at itself, and when you think of butter-wet lobster or saccharine cherry cake it almost makes you weep with longing, but crying won’t lessen your hunger and you can’t waste the water anyway.

Out in the desert, there is a scream from afar—a girl, you think—and the bellowing of one of those huge carnivorous camels. You stay hidden, and then the thunder of the cannon explodes through the world. You close your eyes and wonder who it was: tiny rough-and-tumble Jet from District 12, softspoken Noria from District 5, Kista from District 3, her crossbow trampled and her teammate Tendo left alone in the wilderness. You close your eyes and you must drift off for a while, which is a relief: you forget your thirst and your hunger, you forget where you are, and when the wind blows through the rubble you can mistake it for the ocean breeze of home.

You jolt awake because something is crawling on your face, something large and scratchy. You yelp and bat it away, but there are more of them, buzzing into your refuge to cling to your sweatsuit and tangle in your hair, nibbling at you, screeching in your ears.

What are they, flies, mosquitoes?! Hornets?!

You scramble out of the crevice and into the ruins, where the air is full of them, spiraling around in an enormous swarm, landing on columns and bricks and crumbling angular faces of Anubis. They aren’t hornets, fortunately, only locusts; you recognize them from the edible plants and insects station in the gymnasium. A few yards away from where you stand, Isla is grabbing the creatures—as large as the palm of your hand, six legs, flimsy translucent wings—off of the columns etched with hieroglyphics and stuffing them into her mouth.

You gasp and she sees you, and her eyes go wide. She drops the locust in her hand and it buzzes away. She raises her short curved sword—tacky with blood—and takes a step back, like she’s daring you to try it. You shake your head and make no move to touch the knife hanging from your neck by its silver chain. Isla lowers her sword.

“We’re supposed to eat these, right?” she says, meaning the locusts.

You look to the nearest column and observe the creatures creeping there, their wings quivering, their long back legs bent and jutting out like shoulder blades. Not exactly lobster or steak or crepes or cake. Can I really pretend they’re food? “Yeah, I guess so. Unfortunately.”

She plucks up another one and devours it. You can hear the crunching as her teeth grind it into crumbs. “They’re not that bad. They taste like burnt toast, kind of. And they’re good for you, lots of protein. Not enough fat to keep you alive long term, just like rabbit. But so much better than nothing. Go ahead. Try one.”

You hesitate, staring at the locusts on the column, crawling over the worn portraits of falcons, vultures, snakes, beetles, cattle, men, women, wise never-closing eyes. More locusts flock around you like gulls circling decks red with viscera. Your stomach aches and growls; still, the insects remain revolting and distinctly not-food.

Isla shrugs. “Or starve and die. Make it seven tributes left instead of eight.”

You try to snatch a locust and flinch away when the insect buzzes and takes flight. Isla snickers at you.

“Go on. Try again.”

“I’ll just die. Enjoy the winnings.”

You both laugh, and for a second you aren’t in the arena anymore. You’re back in the cafeteria having lunch, or in the gymnasium stretching, or on the train to the Capitol before you ever met, or in your home districts, you gutting fish on Daddy’s boat and Isla picking peaches until a hushed golden dusk fades into indigo and stars.

You steel yourself and swipe a locust off the column too quickly for it to resist and chomp it in half. “Oh God!” you exclaim, grimacing as Isla watches, amused. You force yourself to keep chewing. It does taste kind of like burnt toast, and it’s very dry and flakey, and it takes a while for the limbs to stop scrabbling around in your mouth. It’s difficult to believe there’s anything nutritious in such a dismal, brittle meal, but your belly already feels better, kicking back into a rhythm, digesting exoskeletons instead of its own lining. You eat another locust, and another after that. There’s no rush. There is a seemingly endless supply.

“Who died today?” Isla asks. “I mean, I know we’ll find out tonight when the sun goes down, but I was just wondering…maybe you saw something…maybe Commodore…?”

“I haven’t seen him,” you say, and she’s palpably disheartened. She was hoping he’d collapsed from the heat, or been mauled by a camel, or pierced by the venom-dripping fangs of a snake, or somehow opened in the throat from skin to spine by your blade.

“Oh.”

“I saw Monty earlier today, and he was fine. And I saw the District 3 kids.”

She is shocked. “Those geeks are still alive?”

“Pluto’s gone.”

She freezes and blinks at you, like she’s trying to comprehend how it could be possible. That easy-going kid from the coal mines? That boy who coughed until his lungs rattled and played with Baby so he wouldn’t be so afraid? Then it sinks in like rain through earth, not that there is any rain to be found here, and she exhales like she’s releasing the weight of it. “I’m going to the pyramid,” Isla says. “You should come with me.”

Aemond’s voice rushes back to you from his cold glass house, from his vast case of treasures: The curse of the pharaohs. You keep your face entirely, perfectly still like a stopped heart. You keep your voice level like a calm sea. “Why are you going there?”

“The Gamemakers want us to, right?” Her dark eyes are bright with the promise of it; her bones feel lighter, the heat of the desert isn’t so smothering. “The field is thinning out. There must be something important inside. It’s shelter, maybe there’s even food. Maybe there’s a way to win, like I can get up into the top of it and pull a lever and a sandstorm will kill everyone else.” She realizes what she’s said and smirks apologetically.

“Then why would you invite me to go with you?”

“Maybe we can help each other, and then one of us will make it to the end. Fifty-fifty shot.”

You can’t meet her eyes; they’re too truthful. You gaze down at your bare feet, covered with dust and sand, and then through the shadows of the ruins towards the pyramid. It’s afternoon now, and the horizon is turning a fierce bloody orange. The air is still misted with locusts like sea spray, like flecks of silver glitter from a clear bottle.

You have to want to live more than you want anything else.

“So?” Isla says hopefully.

“You go ahead,” you tell her. “I’m going to stay here and eat some more, try to rest, maybe get a few hours of sleep. I’ll go out at dusk. I’ll catch up with you.”

She sighs, disappointed but resigned. “Okay. I’ll see you around. Or I won’t, either way.” She smiles, sadly, genuinely. “Good luck.”

“Good luck, Isla.” It’s a thin voice from a great distance, like the whispers of ghosts.

She gives you a wave and treks out of the sanctuary of the rubble, and soon she is only a speck against the golden dunes, and then a blur, and then a memory.

you two walked through the foyer. house massive and quiet. your dad is away on a business trip in new york. your mom? god knows what. probably asleep already.

“sweetheart? is that you?” you stop in your tracks, looking back at rafe with widened eyes. but rafe doesnt look panicked a bit, if even so, he slightly smirked. what is wrong with this guy?

you were about to walk upstairs. shit. you didnt even notice a faint light of the kitchen burning in the distance, piercing the house’s darkness.

your mom appears out from the kitchen. holding a glass of wine in her hand. you watch her expression going from worried into a disgusted one.

confused, you raise an eyebrow.

“honey, its past one. why is he here…?” her voice dripping with venom. eyes glaring right to rafe. she doesnt even want to say his name.

uh.. right. you forgot both of your parents despised rafe.

you bit your lower lip nervously, turning around to see rafe behind you. he doesnt seem scared. with bold confidence, he walks right up to your mom.

“evening, ma’am.” he smiles with fake politeness, voice dripping in sarcasm. tilted his head slightly. “dad’s throwing a fit at the house tonight. i just needed a place to crash.” he turns, about to go back to you. but he looks back at your mom with cocky expression. “ill be outta your hair first thing in the morning. promise.”

as rafe walks back to you and left you downstairs, your mom glares more with bitterness. clearly not buying his innocent act.

“the guest room is made up. and your bedroom door stays open.” she averted her gaze to you. nodding quickly as a reply, you just want to escape the tension. you walk upstairs.

as youre about to enter your bedroom, rafe was already there, blocking the path by leaning in the doorframe. you flinch slightly. “you scared me.” and playfully slapping his thick bicep.

his gaze kept watching you. a small smirk appearing out of his face. he pushed off the doorframe, giving you a way to pass.

you stepped inside your bedroom, grabbing the worn out tees on the bed. but you heard a loud click! behind you.

“rafe!” you snapped your neck. “my mom said to leave it open, shes gonna come up here!” hissing with immediate panic. but he just scoffs.

rafe was completely unbothered. kicking his expensive sneakers off onto your rug. “let her check. besides, im not fuckin’ sleeping in some dusty ass guest room when your bed’s right there.” stubborn as always, typical rafe.

closing your eyes, you sigh in exhaustion. “whatever. shes probably too busy with her work, anyway.” as you throw the worn out tees onto a beanbag next to your bed.

you lay on the bed. stretching your body. not even noticing that the movement slightly pushed your tits out even more, well, maybe hes the only one who noticed..?

“tired?” he walks closer, slightly laying on the bed frame. you nod along, staring at the ceiling and zoning out. recalling moments at kelce’s party. the corner of your mouth lifts up. “can you believe that a hot touron asked for my number?”

a silence remains for seconds almost too long. you didnt exactly know why it took him so long to answer.

rafe clenched his jaw hard. tongue tastes bitter. piercing blue eyes going dark. chest heaving with extreme jealousy. you swear you almost see a vein on his neck.

and then he forces lets out a smile to cover it up. huft, you thought something was going on in his mind. unexpectedly, he lets out a mocking laugh and gets closer to you.

“a touron, seriously?” his voice drops in arrogance. raising an eyebrow at you. “y’know those guys are here just for a week. theyre just looking for easy hookups before they go back.” hes so.. blunt. your heart slightly drops at the comment. its not like youre sad or what but.. did he just call you easy?

you thought he would be happy that finally another guy is interested in you after your shitty ex whom he despise so fucking much, rafe said death threats to him alot, you never knew about that :(

rafe watched your expression and immediately shifts even closer that your shoulders are touching. “look, i dont want you pick the wrong guy.” he gestures with his fingers. “im the only one who actually looks out for you. did you actually give it to him or did you blow him off?”

you paused, swallowing your saliva felt tight. “i.. gave it to him. sorry.” you didnt mean to actually say the last word cause, what the fuck are you sorry for? maybe its that he doesnt react as what you expected and youre always a people pleaser.

you create a scenario where he yells at your face and throws things after you admitted that.

instead, he doesnt say anything. but looking from his expression, he doesnt look angry. he just sighs in exhaustion. the heavy ring finger brushing a strand of hair behind your ear. “dont text him back, yeah? you know those random guys dont care about you.” he paused, “i dont want you hurt. promise me you wont talk to him.”

you stare up at him. “ray..” your lips forming into a pout. not a sad one, more in a heartwarmed way. your arms hugging him from the side. “sometimes i dont deserve you. youre always soo kind to me.” you melt into him. “and no, i wont text him back. promise! after all, i have you.” i have you. those words repeated on his brain. yeah, he always knew youre his.

he hugs you back, running his hand through your hair and kissing the top of your head. his gaze lazily tracks your face down. “you not changing?” eyes dropping to your body mini dress he picked out for you to the party hours ago.

you snuzzle into his heavy arms. feeling his body warmth. “no.. too tired.” your voice muffled against him. you really like clinging to him.

he gently pats the back of your head. “what ‘bout your night skincare? or bodycare shit?” oh, right. you forgot. he always remember the smallest details from you.. reminding you of things you forgot.

“hm.. maybe not tonight. im so tired, ray. my feet hurts.” you sigh in exhaustion, already feeling sleepy. you were about to sleep next to rafe, until he moved. youre feeling empty.

“ill give you a massage, baby.” the petname just slipped like that. he doesnt mean it in a romantic way. he just loves you!

you giggle and looked down at him, moving his body to near the end of the bed. thick fingers with a heavy gold ring slowly tracing your feet.

his thumbs press deeply into the high arches of your soles. he cups your heels in his palms, fingers slid slowly up to the curves of your feet. he feels how warm your skin is.

you let out a soft sigh of relief from the sensation, completely relaxed. unaware of his dark eyes fixating on your delicate feet, tracing his thumb over your instep. thick fingers of his rubbing your toe.

“youre so pretty..” he mutters, not even realizing it—he brings your feet closer to his face. lips brushing over your ankle, and then pressing a direct slow kiss to the high arch of your foot. he didnt mean to accidentally leave a string of saliva there too.

you gasp, pulling your legs back. laughing and scrunching nose up in disgust. “ray! thats gross! what is wrong with you?” rafe’s been dramatic again.

you completely think hes playing an exaggerated joke. you missed the real truth.

rafe didnt realize hes at it again. he let the mask slip. but thank god youre slow, so he spins it to the same ‘joke’. “thats the thanks i get?” smirking through his words. he puts your legs to his shoulders. as if in a sex position.

and due to you wearing a mini dress, the hem rides up to your inner thigh. he could easily see a glimpse of your white underwear. the fabric clung perfectly to your puffy folds.

you just giggle, unaware of the underlying sexual tension. “really, though, you could make a great masseur. just, dont kiss your client’s feet.”

rafe runs his fingers from your shin slow in a sensual way, down to the plush thighs of yours. “mhm?” he hummed lazily, tilting his head to the side—fully focusing on you.

his thumb press into the soft skin of your inner thighs, pushing the hem of the mini dress up slightly. but the more he starts doing it, the hem completely pushed up until your panties are shown to his eyes.

you get extremely flustered and embarrassed, fingers trying desperately to pull the dress down to cover yourself.

“relax, im just fixing your muscles. why you being so weird ‘bout it?”

you look away, the eye contact with him feels too much. hes just massaging you, maybe youre the weird one..

he continues pressing his thumbs and fingers to your flesh. further up to your crotch. you wanted to protest but also dont wanna be that person who oversexualize everything.

and you swore you felt his thick fingers brushing against your clothed clit. thumb grinds harder, pressing the fabric of your underwear into the slick heat.

a gasp left your mouth. hes not massaging your thighs anymore! “raf—”

“didnt know you got this wet from a massage.” his finger drags up, tracing the dark wet spot through your panties.

your thighs tremble when his middle finger finds your clit. he steadily press it down. the fabric is rough against your sensitive nub, wet and sticky.

“uh.. rafe? i-i want to sleep.” you gained the courage to speak up. thank goodness he gets the code and stopped his movements, turning your bedroom lights off. you might not have heard the annoyed sigh coming out of him.

when the lights turned off, you try to stay perfectly still on the edge of the bed. keeping a huge gap between you.

but rafe doesnt respect boundaries.

the room’s dead quiet. you can hear him breathing closer. a heavy arm of his wraps around your waist, yanking you backward.

“hey!” your back collides against his broad chest.

“youre too far away.” he buries his face into the crook of your neck. his leg thrown over your thighs to pin you in place.

you cant help but to giggle at how clingy he is. “youre heavy.”

“and im cold. go to sleep now.” rafe whispers lazily into your collarbone. his arm tightening around your waist.

youre frozen. feeling the rise and fall of his chest, and his half hard cock inside his pants—pressing against your ass. but sleepiness takes over, so nothing came out of your mouth.

you let out a soft sigh, eyelids dropping from the exhaustion of the night finally caught up. behind you, rafe’s breathing comes in a steady rhythm, slowly. within minutes, sleep pulled you under entirely.

but if you had stayed awake just a few minutes longer or facing him, you would know the steady breathing was a lie.

rafe wasnt asleep.

he was lying still. eyes wide open, staring at the back of your head. he forced his own chest to fall in that rhythm.

he waited. ten minutes. twenty. thirty. listening with focus until your breathing shifted and shoulders went entirely slack.

just to be sure, he slowly slid his arm across your waist. dragging your limp body flush against his chest. you didnt stiffen nor wake up. just let out an unconscious sigh and melted backward.

a feral satisfied smirk ghosted across his lips.

moving with silence, rafe reached his long arm over your hip and grabbed your phone off the nightstand. the screen lit up dimly.

he didnt even hesitate, unlocking the passcode. he memorized it pretty well. he once casually looked over to you unlocking your phone next to him.

he grips your phone tight. heart beating faster. clicking on the green messages icon. his eyes instantly lock onto the very top thread.

an unsaved number. with an out of state area code.

the touron. he hadnt text anything yet. just a pathetic, ‘hey, its carl from the party.’

rafe’s jaw locked so hard his teeth ached. his fingers smashing against the screen,

“this is her boyfriend. if you ever look at her again or text her, i know people on this island who will make sure you dont make it back to the mainland. lose the number now.”

he pressed send. rafe doesnt just block carl’s number.

he reports his number as spam, blocks it, and deletes the entire text thread so theres zero trace that the guy ever existed on her phone.

and if tomorrow youll pout about how the touron guy didnt text you? he’d comfort you, talking shit about touron guys are all talk and they didnt deserve you.

after all, hes the only one who cares about you.

ⓘ do not copy/repost my work or use my idea to ai. likes nd reblogs are appreciated! dividers by @/cursed-camine.