far from god, but close to heaven

"Ugh, quit blinking, you keep making me mess up, Kuni!" You snap, yanking your boyfriend by the jaw closer to you.

He opens his right eye, the one you already applied eyeliner on, and glares, his eye rolling before closing back again. "I'm not blinking, and I'm staying perfectly still. It's your fault if you mess up, not mine. Don't get mad at me that you're shitty at this."

You take a deep breath, repressing the urge to slap him hard in the face, because you know it's useless. Your boyfriend lives to ragebait the shit out of you. You don't say anything in response; you scoot closer to his standing frame, your feet dangling off the bathroom counter as you continue working on his left eye.

"Do you want the wing straight up or straight out?" You ask, pausing with one hand on his jaw, and the other on his cheek, with the eyeliner hovering right above his lashline.

Kuni opens both of his eyes this time, stares straight at you, and rolls his eyes at your question like it should be obvious, "Neither? Obviously." He narrows his eyes, crossing his arms as he adds, "When have you ever seen me with that? You're my girlfriend, you're supposed to know that it goes out slanted. Not up, not straight. Slanted."

You narrow your eyes back at him, tightening your grip on his jaw in retaliation, "How am I supposed to know when you're ultra specific about everything and change your answer every time I ask? Two days ago, you told me to make it straight."

He flicks his eyes to the side like he's side-eyeing some invisible camera, and his eyes look annoyingly perfect when he does it. With the base shadow on his lids and the dark smudge along his lower lash line, and the contacts he doesn't need to wear.

His natural eyes are blue, but he insists on wearing indigo colored contacts because it's "more accurate", and you've learned not to argue with him about Scaramouche lore because you will lose. Every single time.

He glances back at you, his tone dry, "I told you that because last time was Xiao, not Scaramouche like today. Obviously. How many times do I need to say it for you to understand?"

You glance at him, copying his dry tone, "Just one more time, and I'll poke this pen through your eyelid. You wouldn't need someone to do your eyeliner by then."

He gives you a challenging smirk in response, "Do it, then. You wouldn't get that far to do any actual damage. I'll sue you and use the settlement money to hire someone who can actually do eyeliner."

You don't dignify that with a response. You tilt his head back with your grip on his jaw, angling it so you can drag the liner across his lash line in one smooth stroke.

You smile involuntarily when it comes out clean and matches the other side perfectly. It always comes out good when he stops being a little bitch about it… which is never, but today sufficed that never.

"The other side matches," you say, leaning back to check your work, watching as his eyes open slowly like he's unsure if you're done or not. "Perfect, like always, because I did it. Not you."

He scoffs, stepping back and moving toward the bathroom mirror, examining just what you're calling 'perfection'. You watch as he tilts his face to the left, then right, and as he leans in, he narrows his eyes.

The eyeliner is actually the last step of a much longer process. This part, the eyeliner, takes ten minutes tops. The puppet joints took an hour.

Every time he cosplays Scaramouche, Kuni sits in front of his vanity mirror with a palette of dark shadow and a thin, angled brush that he uses to paint puppet joints onto his own skin.

Knuckles first, every finger, dark, then his wrists, then his belows. He does his shoulders himself too, twisting in the mirror to get the angle right on the backs of them, and the concentration on his face while he does it is almost scary.

He's already head-to-toe in cosplay, minus the hat. As cringeworthy as it is to say, your boyfriend does look like Scaramouche reborn, and it's not just because of how accurate the clothes look on him, or how invested he is in cosplaying him. He looks exactly like Scaramouche would if he were real and not 3D.

The height… the weight… even his fingers match Scara perfectly. Skinny and long, the puppet joints make him look more biblically accurate.

He hates wigs, absolutely despises them, and as any person who finds their 'celebrity lookalike', or any 'lookalike' in general, he dyed and cut his real hair to match Scaramouches.

His hair is naturally black, and after an abnormally long hair appointment, the hairdresser was able to cut and style Kuni's hair to match Scaramouches without looking like some botched bowlcut.

"It's not a bowlcut," Kunikuzushi told the hairdresser, probably 4 times, just to get his point clear, "It's a mullet, mixed with a hime-cut in the front, and don't you dare forget the lighter colored streak in the back."

You remember being told that day to stick around, not in the waiting room, but in a chair beside the table your boyfriend was getting his hair done at. You had to get up at least 9 times to reassure Kuni that the hairdresser was getting the back right.

And after that day, after every time he put on his cosplay for this character that he's so obsessed with… he didn't look like your boyfriend anymore.

But you don't really complain.

"It's… acceptable," Kuni says to his reflection, the tiniest praise for the war you just went through, while doing his eyeliner.

You hop off the counter, tossing your hair back, while holding eye contact with his gaze in the mirror, "It's perfect, actually. You're welcome." You poke his arm from behind, giggling at the way he makes a disgusted face in response. "I love you too, you ungrateful man."

He doesn't respond to that; he just walks out of the bathroom and into his room.

He's already in the corner when you step in, adjusting his tripod and ring light, and you know the drill by now. Stay out of frame, stay quiet during takes, and entertain yourself until he's done being internet famous.

You grab your phone off his nightstand and settle onto his bed on your stomach, feet up, pulling up Genshin Impact. It feels like a chore to open this game up now, but you have to, for that stupid free constellation event where you have to complete your commissions and spend 120 resin.

You spawn in Nod-Krai, already moving your joystick to run towards the crafting bench, planning to craft your resin into condensed resin, but to your dismay, you already have 5 crafted resin from the previous days you tried this trick.

Domains it is.

You can hear your boyfriend in the background recording the same TikTok, over and over, trying to get the perfect take while you're teleporting to a random domain. It's annoying, and all you can focus on while you wait for people to join your world.

Once people join your world, and you start the domain, you move on autopilot. You don't really pay attention, probably fighting air every now and then, until a notification pops up from the top of your screen.

Even though you're in a co-up domain, your thumb his the notification before you can even finish reading.

The video loads, and it's what seems to be some sort of POV shot. It's like you're some enemy Lohen just knocked flat, because the view is from below, on the ground. His hand reaches down and grabs you, or the camera's face, dragging you to his height, and you spot his other hand raising a weapon, but you aren't even focused on the weapon… you're focused on the face he makes.

A grin with manic eyes, the expression of someone who doesn't just enjoy violence… someone who's aroused by it.

It happens so quickly that you watch it again, on loop. You watch the jaw grab again, the way he yanks whoever it is upward, the way his grin widens before the hit. You screenshot the maniac grin on the 4th loop… then watch it play through again.

Your thighs press together.

You scroll to the comments after the 7th rewatch, needing to see if everyone's losing their minds as hard as you are.

@scaramouchewho okay so we're all in agreement that lohen is what scaramouche COULD have been if hoyo let him be unhinged, right?

@kuniscaraworshiper everyone in the lohen tag better remember who paved the way. Scaramouche is the ORIGINAL unhinged short king… y'all are so disrespectful

@touchinggrassfearsme i just want lohen and scara to kiss… then me at the same time next… then they can kiss each other again after THEN THE SAME THING AGAIN

@mpreglover6769angie GET PREGNANT GET PREGNANT

You laugh seeing this comment, and when you tap on it, you're left with…

(This comment has been deleted.)

@lohennation BREED ME LOHEN. BREED ME. TEASE ME. USE ME. DEGRADE ME. oh and scara can watch ig… (yes i changed my user because of this video)

@wanderermybeIoved, you people don't know one thing about Scaramouche, and I don't want people talking about him when you clearly don't care about his character development or lore. He's more than just a "hot angry guy." Lohen fans (who just became fans of him less than an hour ago, mind you) wouldn't survive 5 minutes of scara's actual story because their reading comprehension is lower than a 4th grader's due to their goon-rotted brains.

@fatuiworshipper the way Lohen is just Scaramouche if he wasn't busy being sad all the time. he's happy to be evil… that's so hot

You scroll back up and watch the burst animation again. Your thighs squeeze together, and your bottom lip is caught between your teeth. You've watched this video at least 20 times now, and around the 10th time, your underwear became a wet, sticky mess.

"Hey."

You don't hear him, you don't even flinch.

"… Hello??"

Nothing.

"Did you actually die? Should I call someone or check your pulse first?"

You don't hear your boyfriend because you're still on that Lohen video, grinning at some dumb comment of yet another person leaving scaranation for lohennation.

"You've been ignoring me for like ten minutes," Kuni says from across the room, and you can hear the shift in his tone, the way it goes from casual annoyance to genuine irritation, "what is so interesting about your phone that you can't look up for even a second?"

You look up from your phone before he can accuse you of cheating, which technically, in some tiny way… You kinda were.

He's standing by his setup, ring light off, his phone in his hand with his arms crossed. His expression looks like he's in between choosing to be mean about it, or letting it slide. He looks annoyed enough that he won't let it slide, and 10 minutes is a long time, unless he was just exaggerating.

"…Hi." You say, sweet and innocent, still lying on your stomach, still with the phone in your hand as you glance at it just once, like a random comment, before looking back at him, not fully engaged.

His gaze drops to your phone in your hand, then lifts back up to your face. The corner of his mouth lifts with slow, unbelieving amusement, like your delayed little “hi” is almost too stupid to be real. "Welcome the fuck back. Where did you go?"

"Remember Lohen from that one quest in Mondstadt?" You don't wait for a response, voice breathier than intended because your brain is still stuck on that video, "His burst animation just got leaked…"

You watch as your boyfriend's face changes into reluctant curiosity that fights with the irritation of being ignored. He walks over to his bed and drops down next to you. "Really? Show me."

You sit up, holding your phone out, and he just takes it, angling the screen toward himself. You watch his face as the animation plays, how his jaw tightens, almost imperceptibly, and his gaze cuts back to you once it's over. "It's okay." He says, tone devoid of any emotion you can pick up on.

"Just… okay? Kuni. Did you see the grab, the way… the way that the angle is like a POV, like that's you, he's grabbing… the way he just, his hand goes like-" You mimic the way Lohen's hand, holding the weapon, goes from behind and towards who he's about to stab.

Kuni glances at your hand, then back at your face, your phone still in his hand. "Mhm. I saw the exact same video as you." His tone feigns nonchalance.

You drop your hand, continuing to yap while not reading the room, "And the grin… Kuni, the grin? It looks like he's about to-"

"I said I saw it." He hands your phone back, using his own to open TikTok, scrolling through his feed with such focused intensity that it doesn't do a good job of hiding how little he cares about this. "People are going to lose it over this."

"They already are, have you seen the comments?" You're already scrolling through them on your phone, looking for one that doesn't say anything about Scaramouche, but it's practically impossible. "Everyone's saying-"

"I know what they're saying, I don't need to see the comments to know." His thumb flicks through posts, and you can see his jaw working, yet again. "Same shit that infected my feed when Lohen was in that quest, and people barely had info on him. 'Scara's done.' 'We're switching.' Like their loyalty has a shelf life of milk."

He keeps scrolling through his TikTok feed, and annoyingly enough, every video that comes up is about Lohen. He's talking, ranting about character depth versus surface-level hype, something about Scara's arc having actual emotional complexity while Lohen is, "just a boy with a violence kink." He is making good points, but you aren't fully paying attention.

You're still scrolling through Twitter, lying back against the pillows, reposting mindlessly on fan art that already exists of Lohen, and trying not to laugh at the posts comparing Lohen to Scaramouche.

He turns his head to you, and he stops talking, because he notices your attention is elsewhere. You don't notice the sudden silence because your brain is so far inside your phone that the real world doesn't exist right now.

His lips touch your neck, a soft, tiny kiss with the warm press of his mouth against the spot below your ear, and he shifts closer. His hand lands on your thigh, his thumb drawing a slow line along the inside where the hem of your sleep shorts sits.

You tilt your head up slightly, giving him access without giving him your attention, as your gaze is still on your phone. Your body just responds to him on autopilot because of months of this exact pattern, him kissing your neck while you doomscroll, except this time you're scrolling through posts and posts of his… replacement.

His tongue touches the skin at your neck, a quick and wet drag followed by his teeth grazing that same area. His fingers itch higher under your shorts, pushing the fabric up your thigh.

"Kuni, not right now, I'm looking at something-"

He cuts you off with a "Mmhmm," not stopping at all because just a second after, he's sucking on your neck. His fingertips graze the edge of your underwear, tracing the elastic back and forth, back and forth. It's light enough that it could be an accident, but what he's doing to you is clearly intentional.

You're still scrolling even as your boyfriend, in cosplay, is practically making love to your neck, and his fingers… they slide down from the hem of your underwear, to where your slit is, through the fabric.

You let out a soft, quiet, "Mm…" moan, still not looking up. The only reply he gets is the little sound you make and the wetness between your legs.

His middle finger traces your clothed slit in a lazy back-and-forth, that's designed for teasing and nothing else. His mouth is still at your neck, and he bites softly at it while that Lohen video coincidentally pops up on your feed again. Involuntarily, your hips shift up against his hand while your eyes are still glued to the screen.

His fingers slide up from your slit, back up to your waistband. You let out the tiniest whine, but that whine turns into your breath catching when his fingers dip beneath your underwear and make direct contact through your folds.

"You're so soaked," he says against your neck. His tone makes your thumb pause just as you're about to click on the comment section. His cadence shifted into something that sounds less like your boyfriend and more like the boy he's currently cosplaying as. "And it's not because of me. It's hard to believe a pixel on a screen could make you this turned on… but I guess anything's possible with someone like you."

You feel his middle finger circling your clit, slow and teasing, not giving you anything that you want while you watch that video on loop, again. The pattern of it doesn't stop, but the desperation and need to have him stroke you properly makes your hips twitch, and your focus shifts from your phone to his hand, and only his hand, at an alarming rate.

"It must be embarrassing," he starts, the same condescending drawl Scaramouche's voice has, and it fits in his mouth uncannily well, "getting this worked up over a character animation. Over something that can never," the same index that was teasing at your clit pushes inside you, knuckle deep, and you clench around it, "touch you."

He's quick to add a second finger, his ring finger, because one isn't ever enough for you. He curls them upward, finding that spot he mapped ages ago. Your phone screen goes dark from inactivity.

He doesn't leave any achy part of your cunt unoccupied, especially if his thumb is currently being useless. His thumb finds your clit, and he rubs in circles while his fingers curl inside you. The dual stimulation makes your mouth fall open, and your phone falls out of your hand. Your phone hits the side of your stomach and falls down face-first beside you.

"There it is," he says against your skin, pressing a kiss to the mark he left on your neck. "Phone's finally down. Took you long enough."

He pulls his fingers out, and before you can even whine about it, he shifts on top of you, sliding down between your legs. You look down at him, and the visual of Scaramouche slipping under the covers and pulling at the waistband of your shorts is doing something to you that ten replays of Lohen's burst animation could never replicate. Because this is actually real.

He's sliding your shorts down when you mistakenly whimper out, "Kuni…"

He stops, hands pausing on the fabric at your knees. "Mm… no. That's not my name tonight." He pulls the shorts off completely, tossing them wherever without looking in his room, and his fingers hook into your underwear next.

"It's Scaramouche. That's who you're looking at… That's who's touching you. And, that's the only name I want to hear coming out of your mouth. Not Kuni, and definitely not Lohen. If you even try saying his name, I'm cutting your tongue out." He drags your underwear down your thighs, his eyes never leaving your face. "Scaramouche. Understood?"

You nod, too distracted by what he was saying to even realize you're bare from below, and you realize that the moment his mouth is on you.

His tongue drags flat across your clit, and you let out an involuntary, unfiltered moan at the contact. You'd care about his neighbors hearing if his mouth wasn't making you forget that other people exist.

It feels like he's reformatting your brain as he eats you out. Like every lick is deleting thoughts about Lohen and replacing them all with himself. His tongue works on your clit in patterns that make you let out dumb, uncontrollable moans. Two fingers slip inside you without warning, curling against your spot, and you can't help but grab onto his hair, that perfectly styled, dyed Scaramouche hair, and hold on.

Your hips twitch up, grinding into his face while your head tips back. "H-aah… f-fuck… Sca-"

He pulls back from your clit, fingers still working inside you, but at an even faster rhythm, "Louder than that."

You listen, brainless, doing whatever he says, "Scara… Scaramouche, I'm… hah… s-so close…"

He dives back onto your clit, mouth sealed on it, making you cum embarrassingly fast with his fingers curling inside your spongy walls. Your thighs shake around his head, and your grip on his hair tightens as you grind onto his face, clenching around his fingers. He goes slower once the aftershocks are over, and when you finally let go of his hair, completely out of breath, he pulls his mouth off your clit with a wet pop.

He wipes his chin with the back of his hand, the cosplay sleeve dragging across his face from his cosplay. The sight of that is so absurd and so hot that you almost cum again from that visual alone. The puppet joints look slightly faded on the two fingers he was fucking you with, and somehow that makes it worse.

He grabs one of the detached sleeves and slips it off his outfit. You watch him, brain still sluggish from the orgasm, fold it into a thick band, and you furrow your brows, confused. "What are you…"

"Scaramouche wouldn't let you see him lose composure." He slides up from between your legs, wrapping the fabric around your eyes, tying it behind your head before you can even protest. You can't see anything now, just darkness, and the sound of his breathing close to your face. "So you don't get to either."

You feel him move back and settle between your thighs, sliding them apart. You're still so sensitive from your orgasm that feeling his cock suddenly press against you makes an involuntary whimper slip out. He wastes no time slipping in, but he does it slow, stretching you open inch by inch, and you grab fistfuls of his sheets because the fact that you're missing one of your senses is making everything amplified.

"Oh my god…"

"Say my name," he says, and he feels deep enough inside of you that you can't tell how much more of him there is. You only know the stretch, the pressure, and how full you already feel.

A faint moan slips out of you before you manage, breathless, "Scara…"

"Yeah?" He says, and you can hear the smirk in his voice, he knows you can barely think. "Too full to say it properly?"

Your fingers curl helplessly in the sheets. "Sc… Scaramouche…"

He starts moving, and because of the blindfold, every thrust feels amplified tenfold, so much deeper. His hands are gripping at your hips hard enough to bruise. You feel him closer, by your ear, voice still in character, "You think some new character is going to replace me?" He puncuates the end with a hard thrust, and your mouth hangs open with a gasp.

"Some battle maniac with a grin? Pathetic. I've been your favorite since 1.1," another thrust, and it hits you deep, he grinds into that same spot, "and no amount of leaked animations is going to change that."

"I know… hah… I know-"

He pulls back just enough that you feel the loss of him even though he's still inside. Your hips chase him up, a needy whimper spilling out because you don't feel him moving anymore, and you wonder why. You feel his hand leaving your hip to pull the blindfold off your eyes.

Light hits your pupils, and you squint, disoriented, and the first thing you see isn't him. It's your phone, held inches from your face, bright and open on the password screen. In a flash, your phone's unlocked from just your face, and just as fast as that happens, he turns your phone back to him.

"Wha… what are you doing?" You're still catching up, blinking through your vision that's trying to adjust, even more now that a phone was shoved up in your face. He's swiping through your apps with one hand while the other pins your hip to the mattress. His cock is still inside you, not moving at all, and it almost feels painful with how much you're craving him to.

He pulls up Twitter, looking at your feed first before checking your reposts, because of course, the first thing that comes up is someone reposting that Lohen burst animation for the millionth time, like people haven't seen it already. He scoffs, tapping on your profile picture on the side, and looking through your reposts.

"This one says," he starts, scrolling with his thumb, his tone almost bored as he reads your reposts out loud, while he finally starts grinding into you, but it's slow, painfully slow. "I would let Lohen degrade, breed me, use me, and rearrange my insides until I pass out… You liked that one, reposted it from the same account that has your face on it. How dense can you be?"

You face heats up realizing just how embarrassing that is, only after doing it a while ago, "That's… that was just a joke-"

"Let's go to your replies tab and see if you did anything other than mindlessly repost whatever you saw," you watch as his thumb moves across your phone, he shifts his hips forward in a slow grind that makes your breath hitch, "Oh, so you did comment on something… that's it? Three fire emojis and a fucking… crying emoji? That's your contribution to the discourse? Really? Was your brain rotting that badly that you couldn't even type words?"

You don't even try to come up with a coherent response for that, and he doesn't wait for one. He throws your phone somewhere on his bed and leans down, propping himself up on his forearms on either side of your head, and the closeness of him in full cosplay makes your breath catch in your throat.

"You know what's funny to me?" His eyes never leave your face as he rolls his hips, still a slow grind that drags his cock against your walls in such a way that keeps you in between being able to think and not. "You have a cosplayer. An actual, real person who dresses up as your favorite character and fucks you in it. And instead of appreciating that… you're reposting about a character that doesn't even have a release date yet."

A weak protest slips out before you can stop it. "I do appreciate-"

"Do you?" He thrusts hard this time, and it makes your back arch, your hands flying up to grab his shoulders as he continues at the same deep pace, watching your face change with every thrust. "Because I'm literally inside of you in a Scaramouche cosplay right now, and 20 minutes ago you were eye-fucking a burst animation while I was standing 12 feet away."

Your face burns, "That's not…" You swallow, trying to gather a thought that doesn't sound pathetic, "That's not fair, he's just a character, you're-"

"I'm right here." Another deep thrust, his hand slides up to cup the side of your face, tilting it so you're looking directly at him. At the eyeliner you did for him, the contacts, and the hair you even helped style. "And I'm the closest thing to a fictional character you're ever going to get. So maybe," he grinds into your spot, and your eyes roll, "act like it."

Humiliation and want feel like they're tangling so tightly that you can't separate them anymore. You can't even form a proper response for that, only being able to muster out a, "F-fuck… Scara…." as your fingers curl harder into the sheets.

"Mm." He keeps the angle, keeps rolling into that same spot, watching as it makes you go stupider quicker while his thumb traces your cheekbone. "You know what you should repost? A video of this. Me, in cosplay, between your legs. See how many likes that gets compared to a leaked animation."

Your brain decides this is the moment to let something slip. Completely irrational. "A lohen cosplay would probably get more likes because he's… trending." You don't even mean it as a dig; you say it in the normal, supportive tone you always give when he talks about content, while getting dicked down.

And the second those words leave your mouth, everything goes silent. He stops, completely. Cock buried inside you, and his hand on your face tightens. His thumb presses harder into your cheekbone. His expression doesn't change, but his eyes do. It's this flat, cold look you can see even with the contacts, and the silence stretches long enough that you realize what you just did.

You scramble to backtrack, "I didn't mean-"

"No, don't backtrack now," he cuts in, voice eerily calm, tilting his head like he's studying any new reaction you'd make, "You sounded very sure of yourself a second ago. I want the same answer you gave before you realize I didn't like it."

You sink back into the pillows, head shaking, "Scara, you know that's not what I meant…" but you stop at the end when you see the look in his eyes darken.

He lets go of your face and pulls almost all the way out to slam back in, both of his hands gripping on the backs of your thighs, pushing them apart. He's fucking into you at a new pace that's faster and rougher than anything before this, every thrust feeling like a point he's making without words.

"He's an animation," he says between trusts, his voice strained, but he's still in character. "He doesn't feel like this…" A thrust so deep it pushes you closer to the headboard. "He doesn't sound like this." Another one, harder, and the sound that comes out of you is almost unrecognizable.

"And he doesn't know that if he hits this angle," he shifts his hips and nails your spot dead-on, and your vision whites out at the edges completely, "you make that exact face."

Your legs are shaking around his grip, your hands grasping at anything, his shoulders, his arm, the sheets, the only thought in your mind is him, the body between your legs trying to prove a point with his entire being.

Then, your phone lights up next to your head. It's a Twitter notification, something about Lohen, and the timing is so cosmically cruel. He sees it, and before you can even squint to see what it's about, he scoots back, letting your head fall off the pillow. You look at him, confused, completely innocent to the change of position that's about to happen.

His hands leave your thighs to grab at your hips, and in one inhuman motion, he lifts you off the bed almost entirely. Your back leaves the mattress, the entire room feels like it's tilting as he hauls your legs over his shoulders, your full weight being suspended against his body. His hands grip the front of your thighs, your arms scrambling for anything, and they end up gripping at the backs of his thighs. Your head is still on the mattress, and your arms, but everything else is up in the air.

He's about to fuck you upside down.

You yell out of panic, "Wha… SCARA-"

"You were about to check your phone." He says, voice unbothered like he isn't holding you in the air with his dick buried inside of you. "While I'm inside of you… While Scaramouche is inside of you." He adjusts his grip, his fingers digging into the meat of your thighs, and slides his hips back before slamming into you hard, forcing himself so deep that you see white. "Do I not have your full attention?"

Even as full, and thought empty as you are, you still try to defend yourself, "You do… hah… You do, I wasn't-"

"You were reaching for it," another hard slam, and you cry out, your nails digging into the backs of his thighs. "Your hand almost moved. Almost. You were going to look at a notification while im fucking you."

He fucks into you, over and over, your legs dangling on his shoulders, the angle hitting something so deep inside of you that your body doesn't know how to process it apart from going completely boneless.

You're limp, even being fucked upside down. Your muscles gave up, and now you're just a body he's holding in the air and fucking into.

Your weight being nothing to him, your pleasure being everything.

"Scara… Scara, oh my god, I can't… f-fuck… I can't-"

"Can't what?" His voice is annoyingly steady, controlled, even though he's holding you up and thrusting into you with a force that should effect both of you, but it seems like you're the only effected one. Moaning sounds that aren't even words anymore, just vowels and air. "Can't think? Good. You shouldn't be thinking. The only thing in your head right now should be my name, and the fact that no pixel on a screen," he thrusts up, sharp, and the sound you make is practically a scream, "has ever made you feel like this."

Even with your mind blank, you can process his words enough to know that he's right. Because he's here, and real, and holding you in the air and fucking the coherence out of your skull. "SCARAMOUCHE- fuck, please… please don't stop-"

His pace only grows faster, his grip on your thighs tightening in such a way that you know it will end in bruises when you wake up tomorrow. You cum with the lower half of your body, suspended in the air. Your body locks up, ankles rolling, feet clenching around his shoulders as the orgasm rips through you in waves so intense that you can't even keep your eyes open, can't even suppress or care for how dumb you sound.

You can do anything except convulse around him while he holds you through it like you weigh nothing.

He cums exactly five seconds after, the way your walls clench around his cock not letting him pull himself back any longer. He buries himself deep with one final thrust up that pins you against his hips. You feel every pulse of it, hot and thick, filling you up as his fingers flex on your thighs.

There's so much that your body can't contain it, even in this position, you can feel some of his cum leak around where he's still inside you, dripping down between your ass cheeks.

He holds you there for a moment, catching his breath and you still catching yours, and then he finally sets you down. He moves back, lowering you, and you bounce back on the sheets, still out of breath, gasping, legs shaking, cum pooling more properly between your thighs now that you aren't in the air.

He's already pulling at the cosplay before his breathing even levels out.

"Finally," he mutters, yanking at the chest piece with the urgency of someone escaping a straitjacket, "I can take this stupid fucking thing off."

The outer layer comes off first, and he gets out of bed to toss it onto his desk chair without looking. Then the arm pieces, what's left of them, since one sleeve is still tied in a crumpled blindfold shape somewhere in the sheets. He pulls the one he's wearing off and throws it on top of the outer layers on the chair.

He's left in the sleeveless undershirt, the tight black one that sits flush against his chest and shows the puppet joints he spent way too long on at his shoulders. The shadow has smudged from the sweat, the edges bleeding where the lines used to be clean.

"I was literally cooking alive in that," he says, working at the fabric that sits on his hips next, "do you know how many layers this cosplay has? About four. Four fucking layers in a room with one fan and a broken AC because Ei cares more about being at work all the time than actually caring about a home she's barely at."

You don't respond because you are, at this moment, a puddle of a human being with no functioning brain cells and shaking legs. You're lying exactly where he put you down, staring up at the ceiling, legs still open because closing them feels like an exercise right now.

He glances at you once the majority of the cosplay is off, just the undershirt and shorts, and he gets quieter. He disappears into the bathroom that's connected to his bedroom and comes back with a warm, damp towel.

He sits on the edge of the bed and pushes your thigh to the side, wiping between your legs without saying anything. His movements are careful, clinical, almost, like the same precision he gives his cosplay goes into this too.

He cleans the cum off your inner thighs, the crease where your thigh meets your hip, folds the towel to the clean side, and gets the rest.

You flinch at the contact, still sensitive, and his other hand presses flat against your lower stomach to keep you still. "Stop squirming."

"But… It's sensitive," you say, finally, voice weak.

"I know it's sensitive. I'm the one who made it sensitive. Stay still."

He tosses the towel onto the bathroom floor when he's done, then goes to his dresser, pulling out a sleep set and underwear that are yours. A cropped top and matching shorts that somehow migrated into his drawer because you're here more than your actual house.

He comes back and slides the underwear up first, lifting your hips with one hand to pull them over your ass. Then, the shorts come next, doing the same motion he did for the underwear. He grabs the top next, and this part requires sitting you up, and you're not cooperative.

You're practically dead weight.

He pulls you up by the arms like a ragdoll, gets the shirt over your head, and guides each of your arms through the sleeves. You keep going limp on purpose, and it's irritating him. "You're not helping," he says, which isn't a helpful remark on his part.

You can't do anything but let out a tired, annoyed sigh, voice moving slowly as you say, "I can't feel my legs, Kuni."

He pauses as he's trying to pull the top down, giving you a sideways look, "That's a you-ca n't-help problem, that's a you-won't-help problem. Your arms should work fine."

You give him a fake, straight smile, shrugging at a languid speed, "They don't, actually. You broke those too when you held me upside down, and I had to hold onto your thighs for dear life."

He scoffs, dropping you back against the pillows, and you sink into them, boneless, dressed, clean, happy that you've trained him well enough to do this much after sex, because it pays off every time.

He pulls the covers out from under you, and this time you actually scoot to give him space to tuck them over your body. He grabs both of your phones and plugs them in, then walks to his closet to take the top off and replace it with a plain black t-shirt, and tugs on a pair of grey sweats. When he's done, he always backs toward the bed to get into the covers beside you, but you stop him.

"Kuni, can you please get me water?" You ask, with a tiny pout.

The exhale he lets out is so deep it could qualify as a controlled breathing exercise. He stands there for a full three seconds, covers still bunched in his hand, staring at you with the expression of a man who wants to only pass out in bed and rot.

"You couldn't have said that before I walked toward the bed?"

You look up, pretending to think, mouth curling up when you glance back at him, "I wasn't thirsty before you walked toward the bed."

He rolls his eyes, his hand coming up to rub his fingers at his temple in annoyance at all of this, "That doesn't even make sense."

You clasp your hands together, pouting, again, putting on a sweet expression just to mess with him further, "Please?"

He drops the covers and leaves the room. You hear his footsteps down the hallway, and they're loud enough that you know he's being loud on purpose.

Because Kuni doesn't make noise when he walks unless he wants you to know he's annoyed.

His house is massive; you spend 99 percent of your time in his room, so you actually get jumpscared every time you leave it. The hallways are long, or probably longer than an apartment floor in general, with marble flooring and clear walls with art on them that his mother picked out and he's never looked at once.

The kitchen is insane. Countertops that stretch for what feels like miles, a center island bigger than your own bed, and appliances that look like they belong in a once luxurious restaurant. Every surface is spotless because the housekeeper comes three times a week, and Kuni is already a clean freak on his own, so the combination creates a kitchen that looks perpetually unlived in.

He opens the cabinet, grabs a glass, fills it from the filtered tap, and when he turns around, his mother is sitting at the island.

She's been there the whole time, apparently.

Ei is on a barstool at the center island, one leg crossed over the other, a glass of red wine in her right hand and her phone in her left. Her hair is long and ink-black, pin-straight, falling over one shoulder, and in the dim kitchen light, she looks less like a person and more like a portrait someone painted and forgot to hang.

She looks up from her phone at the sound of the glass filling.

Her eyes move over him, at the messed-up hair, the contacts he forgot to take out, and the faded puppet joints still visible on his knuckles.

And also the fact that he's getting a glass of water at one in the morning in a post-sex haze that he thinks isn't obvious but is extremely obvious.

"You're still awake," she says, her voice carrying that same low, unbothered tone that makes everything she says sound like an observation.

"You're home," he replies, matching her energy beat for beat, turning off the tap without looking at her. "When did your flight land?"

"Three hours ago." She takes a sip of wine. "I didn't want to interrupt."

The silence that follows is loud. He knows what that means, she knows that he knows, and neither of them will say it directly because everyone in this family treats emotional honesty like it's some disease.

"Right." He grabs the glass and turns to leave as fast as possible.

"Kunikuzushi."

He stops, but he doesn't turn around, his grip on the glass tightening.

"Eat something tomorrow. The fridge is stocked." She pauses to take a sip before continuing, "And take your contacts out before you sleep. They'll irritate your eyes."

He stands there for a second, then another, then another, then walks away without responding. And his footsteps down the hallway are quieter this time. Not on purpose.

He gets back to his room and shuts the door behind him with his foot. He walks up towards the bed and reaches over to hand you the glass. You take it, sitting up slightly, drinking half of it in one go while he stands there watching you like you just made him walk a marathon for a cup of water.

"Happy?" He asks, pulling the covers back.

You roll your eyes and hand him back the glass. He sets it on the nightstand and gets into bed, lying flat on his back. You immediately roll onto his chest like a magnet, your cheek pressing against the cotton of his t-shirt, and you can hear his heartbeat, still a little fast, coming down.

His hand finds your hair, starts that absent, repetitive thing he does, threading his fingers through the strands over and over. You press closer to him, tangling your legs with his under the covers, and his arm tightens around your back.

You close your eyes, and his fingers never stop moving through your hair.

He doesn't tell you he loves you; he never does first. But his thumb traces a slow circle against your scalp, and his breathing evens out underneath you, and he doesn't move even when your weight goes fully dead against his chest.

That's how you know.

You're in your room today, not at your boyfriend's house like you usually are. You do like being in his room and hanging out with him constantly, but it's also constantly exhausting. Some days, you'd just prefer to be… alone.

Your room is the complete opposite of Kunikuzushi's aesthetic. Light beige walls so you can hang up cute pink miscellaneous things on your wall without them clashing. A fluffy, soft, pink bed that used to be a canopy until you woke up to a fat spider next to your face, as if it was their bed too. Plushies… lots of them, on your bed, some kept on a large shelf you bought to store the expensive anime figures Kuni always buys you. Long story short, the general vibe of your room makes you seem like someone whose entire personality is soft and sweet.

You're lying on your stomach on the bed, phone in hand, scrolling through the fallout of the Lohen leak from 3 days ago. The internet has still not calmed down… if anything, it's worse.

@scaranation4LIFE scaranation we STAND. Every character had their tiny moment of fame… our show lasted four years. FOUR. We were even on the news… lohen's gonna last one patch and you're all going to be crawling back

@lohenxscarabeliever i don't want lohen OR scara… i want them BOTH to ruin my life SIMULTANEOUSLY. Why is this so hard to understand

@wanderersfavoritebuttplug scara… I’d never replace you for that sadistic twink (maybe) (we’ll see)

The comments are always talking about the same thing, at least every comment section under a Lohen Twitter post, as the diehard simp, the one who wants Lohen and Scara to fuck each other, the one who wants to cuck Scara in front of Lohen, and the very few actual loyal Scara fans.

… You feel like you're a bit of both.

You're deep in the comments, simultaneously looking at edits of Lohen on TikTok, then taking a Twitter break, then TikTok, when at some strange point, your bedroom door opens.

You don't look up, you assume it's Kuni because your parents aren't home, and you gave him the key ages ago. "Hey, Kuni," you say, still scrolling, legs swinging behind you, "if you're here to yell at me about using your newest Flower Knows palette before you did, it's not that big of a deal-"

You stop because when you look up, what you see is something you'd never, ever expect from a surprise visit from your boyfriend.

Kunikuzushi is standing in your doorway in full-on, perfectly accurate, as always, cosplay. But it's not Scaramouche, or some other male in the game… It's Lohen.

Your phone hits the mattress.

The character you've been losing your mind over for 3 days, the one you've seen on your phone screen a genuinely convincing number of times, is here, in real life, standing in your pink bedroom doorway.

"When did you-" your voice comes out strangled, your mouth feeling dry, and your throat feeling so tight that you cut yourself off. Your eyes scan the cosplay, again and again, confused at why he didn't tell you about this. Especially ordering a unique cosplay of a character that hasn't even fully come out. "When… when did you order this??"

He grins, a toothy, sharp-eyed grin that looks nothing like Scara's smirk. It's so strangely accurate to the expression Lohen would make, and you wonder if he's spent the last 3 days practicing for this.

"I've been tracking you all day," he says, and his voice is different than normal, more confident, louder, less… restrained on what's deemed as good. "You've been hard to pin down."

He crosses the room, and your body does something it doesn't do with Kuni. It tenses out of something close to fear, but closer to not knowing what's coming next. His hand grabs the front of your tank top and yanks you off the bed. You yelp in a way that's higher, more startled, more genuinely caught off guard than anything Scara has gotten out of you in months.

"Nervous?" He questions, his grin widening, and his fists twist in your shirt, pulling you closer, until your chest is against his. He can feel your heartbeat… at least you assume he can, because you can hear it going haywire through your ears to the point that you'd believe it's audible even if he wasn't this close.

You deny because you hate admitting things to him when he's acting smug, even though anything you could say would be utterly pointless, as your face and the way you're barely moving prove his point way too well. "I'm not nervous…" You try a distraction, any, "Are you really wearing a wig, Kun-" but it gets cut off quicker than you can even finish the last word.

"Your heart feels like it's about to explode out of your chest." He leans in, his mouth next to your ear, and his voice drops, but he still keeps the edge of it in character, "What's different? You let Scaramouche do whatever he wants to you. But Lohen shows up and suddenly… You can't even talk?"

You knit your eyebrows, staggering to say anything that sounds like you're not any less dumb, "That's… it's different, you're usually-"

"Usually what? Predictable?" He pulls back to look at you, and you glance up and down at his cosplay once more, and it's even more annoyingly perfect up close. You seriously don't know how he does it; he even looks good in a wig, even though he hates them. "You know every move Scaramouche makes before he makes it. You're comfortable with that, and that's boring." He says it like an insult, and his grin drops suddenly, his eyes not leaving you once as he says, "I'm not comfortable. Are you scared of me?"

You answer a simple, "No." But the way you still haven't moved on your own since he appeared at your door proves without words otherwise.

"Liar." He shoves you, and you fall back before you can catch yourself on the bed, bouncing on the pink sheets, your tank top riding up slightly in the process. "Your voice had the tiniest crack in it."

He's on top of you before you can sit up, his knee between your thighs, his hand going to your jaw… and he does it.

The burst animation.

His fingers close around your jaw as he lifts your face toward his, slow, and the grin is right there, a perfect replica of the video you've watched on your screen more than 100 times.

"There's my favorite prey," he says, holding the pose for three seconds, and instead of reaching his arm back and stabbing you, he leans in to kiss you.

It's violent, that's the only word to describe it. Non ceremonial, just teeth, tongue, and a lot of force by him. His hand is still gripping your jaw, controlling the angle, and also making sure you don't pull away so soon. You make a sound into his mouth that's between a moan and a whimper, that's even more vulnerable than anything you've made during sex when he cosplays as Scaramouche.

He pulls back, unbuckling one of the belts on the cosplay, a strap that's a part of Lohen's design, and he wraps it around your wrists, binding them above your head against the bed.

"Every battle maniac needs a sparring partner," he says, tying the knot with one hand while the other shoves your tank top up above your breasts. "And you looked at me like you volunteered."

He strips your shorts, then your underwear, and he doesn't bother about being sweet with it. He yanks them down your legs and throws them somewhere behind him, and then his hands grip the backs of your thighs, and he pushes them up toward your chest.

Mating press, that's what he's doing.

Your knees are at your shoulders, your hips are tilted up, and he's on the bed, kneeling over you. His weight is driving your thighs down, folding you in half. Your wrists are bound above your head; you're just completely open and trapped.

"L.. Lohen…" You whimper out in the voice of both someone in awe, and in the tiniest fear of what's coming next.

"Hmm." He unzips his pants, frees his hard cock from his underwear, which he slides down just enough, and positions himself at your entrance, and he pushes in.

The first thrust is the full length of him burying himself deep inside you in one stroke; the angel of the mating press makes it feel deeper than it should. His cock presses against your cervix, and the sound that leaks out of you is closer to a sob than a moan.

"AH- oh fuck oh fuck oh-"

"Too much?" He asks, and his grin, that fucking grin, is right there, his face inches from yours because the mating press puts him on top of you… over you, covering you entirely.

"N-no, just- hah-" You get cut off with the way he pulls back and slams back in, your eyes rolling to the back of your skull, before just fully closing.

"Not convincing." He pulls back, again, slamming into you harder than the last one, like he's powering up his thrusts, and your back tries to arch off the bed, but his weight is pressing you flat, and you have nowhere to go. You feel his hands at your face. "Your eyes are watering."

You open your eyes back up to look at him, head shaking, even though you do feel something hot and wet sliding softly down your cheeks. "You're lying, they're n-not-" You're studdering from the way he's repeditely fucking into you, especially hitting your deeper spots on purpose when you try speaking, but he cuts you off anyway.

"They are." He leans down and licks a tear off your cheekbone. The act is so different from the way he's currently fucking into you, brutally, and you're turning incoherent faster than ever, moans spilling out uncontrollably as the sound of his hips plaping against your ass fills the room.

"You cry for Scaramouche because it feels good. You're crying for me because you don't know what I'm going to do next." Both of his hands leave your face; one goes back onto your thigh, the other finds your throat. "And that scares you… Doesn't it?"

His fingers close around your neck, and he doesn't choke you the same way Kuni does during normal sex. This version is different, new, something you've never felt before. Lohen's choke. His fingers press into the sides of your throat, squeezing the muscles, not your windpipe, but the tissue around it. The difference, the way this feels new, is because it feels like it's designed to hurt, not to just cut off air. The pain is sharp, and you can still breathe, technically, but every inhale aches, and the compression makes the blood rush to your head in a way that amplifies every sensation that a blindfold never could.

You can't move your hands, even as they itch to grab or instinctively hold at his wrists, you're reminded that they're bound together by his belt. Your moans just get more amplified thrust after thrust after squeeze, "Nghh- Lohen… hah…"

"You can barely even say my name." He squeezes harder, his thumb pressing into the hollow of your throat, and the pressure pushes you right to the edge of too much. "Scaramouche gets full sentences out of you… Full moans… Full 'please'. But me?" He thrusts deep, grinding, holding himself inside you while his hand tightens on your throat. "I get syllables… Half-words… or just plain denial over anything I say. You're so nervous you can't even beg for anything properly."

He fucks you into the mating press until your thighs are shaking against his hands, and your voice is hoarse from the sounds he's pulling out of you. His hand stays on your throat. The pressure of his squeeze fluctuates a lot, from him tightening when he thrusts hard, loosening when he grinds slowly, a cycle of both pain and relief that keeps you permanently on the edge of too much without ever crossing into too much.

Because Kuni knows your body, he knows how much it can take. He pushes you close enough to passing out that your vision darkens at the edges, your mouth falls open, your eyes lose focus, and then he loosens his grip and lets the blood rush back.

And the gasp you take is almost an orgasm on its own. "Please- hah… please, I can't… too much-"

"You can handle it, you just don't know it yet." He squeezes your throat and fucks into you hard enough that a plushie falls off the bed. The grin on his face is still, still beautifully intact, and it's the most terrifyingly perfect thing you've ever seen from this close.

"You know what's funny? You were scared when I walked in. Nervous. Couldn't even talk to me." He leans down until his lips brush yours, his hand still on your throat. "But you're not trying to stop me, are you? Your hands are tied, your legs are pinned, and we have a safeword you could've used at any point, and you won't, because you and I both know this is exactly the type of 'too much' that you crave."

You cum with his hand on your throat and his cock buried so deep you can feel him in your stomach. The orgasm hits different in a mating press, so much more intense. Your walls clench around him in rhythmic pulses that you feel in your entire pelvic floor, and he fucks you through it, his pace not slowing, his hand not loosening.

And by the time the aftershock fades, you're boneless, twitching, and making sounds that are barely human.

He cums inside you, you feel the heat of it, thick, pulsating, his hips pressing flush against yours and staying there while his cock throbs. His hand finally loosens on your throat, and his forehead drops against yours.

His breathing is ragged, and it's the first time you've ever heard him lose the composure of the character, and for one second, between the last pulse and first exhale, it's just Kuni.

Then the Lohen grin slides back. He stays inside you for a moment more, his cock still twitching with the last of it, before pulling out in one motion that makes your body clench around nothing.

You feel the immediate emptiness, the warmth of his cum already starting to leak, but you don't get to process that because his hands are on your hips and he's flipping you.

Your stomach hits the mattress, your face presses into your pillow, and the shift of his cock inside you during the rotation makes a wet, obscene sound that you both pretend not to hear. Your wrists are still bound with the belt, and they're now pinned beneath you. You feel him reach under you, fingers finding the leather, working the buckle loose with one hand, while the other grips your hip to keep you from sliding forward.

The belt falls away from your wrists, you roll them instinctively, flexing your fingers, and before you can even appreciate the freedom, you feel the belt loop around your neck instead.

He pulls it taut from behind. He doesn't choke you with it just yet; he just lets it sit snug against your throat with his fist gripping the trailing end like it's some sort of handle.

"Ass up," he says, and you barely get your knees under you before he gives up on waiting and pulls your hips back toward him.

He slams in at a rough, fast, punishing pace. The sound of his hips against your ass is echoing off your room in a rhythm that makes your plushies at the edge of the bed vibrate, causing a couple of them to fall.

He uses the belt as a way to anchor his thrusts while he rails into you with a force that has your fingers twisting in your sheets, and your neck being forced to arch back.

"Fu- oh my g-god, Loh-" You can't even finish his name, it just dissolves into a broken moan as he hits your spot from this angle. The deepness of the backshots makes your toes curl against the bedsheets.

He keeps going, his pace not slowing down at all, and you're too far gone that you barely register it when his rhythm stutters for a second, especially when you hear him mutter something under his breath that doesn't sound like Lohen.

"This stupid fucking…"

Your brain is somewhere between your legs; the only sound that's audible and coherent to you is the sound of his hips against your ass, and your endless moans.

He thrusts hard, and you let out a whimper, your fingers flexing on the sheets, and your feet coming up, clenching, then dropping again. But between the next few thrusts, you catch pieces of something that doesn't match the character he's trying to play.

His voice sounds like it's shifting, not into Scara like it's some muscle memory he has, but into Kuni, your boyfriend, sounding genuinely irritated about something that has nothing to do with sex.

"I swear to god, it keeps sliding," he mutters, and his grip on the belt loosens for a second as his other hand does something behind you that you can't see. He does another hard thrust, and your face falls against the pillow now that he isn't yanking on your neck. But he doesn't pull you back, choke you, or do whatever you expect him to do.

He complains.

"This is the last time I'll wear a wig. The last fucking time. I told you I hate these things and you always ignore it and tell me to suck it up when it's a character that isn't him-" a thrust that makes your spine arch, "and now I have gross, synthetic hair scratching at my face, and I'm going to lose my mind."

You're barely processing any of this, still, it all sounds like fragments to you that don't make sense because of the thick haze of being fucked into your mattress.

He grunts, clear frustration, and you hear something that sounds like a clip, or whatever mechanism that's keeping his wig attached to his actual hair, and his pace slows down enough that curiosity overtakes the pleasure for one stupid second.

You turn your head.

And it's Kuni behind you, one hand still on the belt at your neck, and the other holding the Lohen wig that he just pulled off his head. His real hair is back, dark indigo, messy, slightly matted from the wig cap he also tore off. He hasn't noticed you looking yet; he's too busy glaring at the wig with genuine contempt.

He's out of character, fully, completely, for once mid-fuck. He never breaks character, and something comes over you… Maybe it's the absurdity of the visual, maybe it's because you're fucked stupid enough that impulse control is just completely gone.

Maybe it's because the opportunity is just too perfect to pass, and you've seen that TikTok audio one too many times.

You gasp, loud, dramatic, your voice coming out in that exaggerated, scandalized tone that you know he's going to hate, "he's BALD. He's bald, and he's torturing people who have HAIR!"

The silence that follows lasts exactly one and a half seconds.

His eyes snap to you, and you're looking at him over your shoulder, half of your face pressed into the pillow, and you're grinning. That kind of stupid, shit-eating grin that you know is about to have severe consequences.

His expression goes through several stages in rapid succession. Disbelief comes first, processing it comes second, then recognition of the reference, and on the last and final stage, something dark and focused appears that makes your grin falter just slightly.

He throws the wig, and it hits your vanity mirror, sliding off somewhere that you don't care to watch, and his now-free hand shoves your head back down into the pillow. It's not gentle. His palm is flat against the back of your skull, pressing your face into the fabric, and your giggle gets muffled by cotton.

"You think that's funny?" His voice drops back into Lohen's, but it's rougher now, meaner, the edge of genuine irritation soaking through the character because you made a dumb joke while he was inside of you. "You think you're clever?"

You're trying to respond, but your face is pressed into a pillow, and his hand is keeping it there. What comes out next is a muffled, "Mm srrhyy-" that dissolves into a yelp when he slams into you so hard your knees slide forward on the sheets.

"Every prey animal thinks it's funny right before the teeth close." He fucks into you at a pace that's brutal, and way faster than anything before. Each thrust is showing you further into the mattress while his hand keeps your head pinned, and the belt around your neck pulls tight from the motion. "You want to make jokes? I'll give you something to scream about instead."

His other hand leaves the belt to grab at your hip, yanking you back onto his cock with every thrust, and the force of being pushed down and pulled back simultaneously has you making sounds into the pillow that are just broken, raw sounds. Your hands claw at the sheets above your head, your back arching down, while your ass stays up, and you can feel his fingers digging bruises into your hip while the belt drags against your throat.

"Mmph- wait, f-fuck, I'm sorryyy, I was k-kidding-" you manage between thrusts, your words slurring against the pillow, saliva starting to collect at the corner of your mouth because your jaw won't close properly. "Loh-hen, please, 'm sorry, I didn't m-mean-"

"You have a funny way of apologizing," he grinds out, and his hand on the back of your head shifts, his fingers curling into your hair and pulling your face just barely off the pillow, enough that your moans aren't muffled anymore. "Usually, people apologize without laughing. You're still smiling about it, I can hear it in your voice."

He's not wrong. You are still smiling, with tears in your eyes, getting absolutely destroyed because the image of your boyfriend ripping off a wig mid-sex with that look on his face will live in your brain rent-free forever. "Liar… 'M not smiling-"

"You are." A thrust so deep your smile actually drops because your eyes roll back and your mouth falls open around a moan that's more of a wail. "There… fixed it."

His other hand releases your hair and goes to his own head. You can feel the shift in his movements, slightly distracted, one-handed thrusts that are still devastating but less focused as he runs his fingers through his real hair, fixing it through the vanity mirror on the far side of your room.

Because even while he's railing at you, Kunikuzushi will not be caught dead with bad hair.

He's multitasking, fucking you into the mattress with one hand on the belt, and styling his hair with the other… the worst part is, he doesn't even slow down.

He pulls the belt back just enough that you're forced to arch your spine, the pressure on your throat lifting your chest slightly off the mattress, and the angle change makes his cock hit differently, shallower but dragging against your front wall with every stroke, and the sound that comes out of you is embarrassingly close to a squeal.

"Ah ah AH, oh m-my god, oh my god, right there, don't- nghhh don't move from that, please plea-hease..." Your words are tumbling out in a slurred mess, your brain is completely out of your control, and your hips are pushing back against his on their own because the angle is too good.

He cums with a groan, pressing into the back of your shoulder, biting down on your skin through a moan he clearly didn't want to let out. You feel his cock pulse inside you, the heat spreading, and his hips grind forward in small, lazy rolls as he empties everything. His hand goes slack on the belt, and his forehead drops against the space between your shoulder blades.

He stays there for a second, breathing, then he pulls back, letting go completely of the belt, and you fall forward because he was the one pulling your practically limp body against him. Your ass is up in the air, and you feel him slide out, and the gush of cum that follows is immediate. It's thick, warm, spilling out of you and down between your thighs.

He sits back and watches it, you know, because you hear the sheets shift, and you can tell by the way he doesn't move or speak, just watches the mess he made ooze out of you.

His thumb presses against your entrance at the rim, and more cum leaks out around the pressure, sliding down in a slow trail toward your clit. "Look at that," he murmurs, his voice back in character for Lohen, in an amused, fascinated tone. "You can't keep any of it in."

His other hand comes up and spreads you open with his thumb and forefinger, holding your folds apart, and you can feel the cool air hit the mess inside you. You feel more of his cum spill out from being exposed. You bury your face deeper into the pillow because the visual you can't even see is somehow still the most embarrassing part of this entire night.

"Lohen, don't just… stare at it-" You mumble into the pillow, voice a bit pitchy as your thighs try to close, but his knee is in between your legs before you can even try to hide.

"Why not?" His thumb traces through the cum leaking down your folds, collecting it, spreading it in a slow circle around your clit, and your hips jerk at the contact because you're so overstimulated. "It's mine, I put it there, and I'll stare at it for as long as I want."

He leans down, and you feel his breath warm against your swollen, sensitive skin. Then you feel his tongue, a single slow lick from your clit up to your folds that collects everything in its path. You let out a sound that's halfway between a moan and a sob, your fingers crushing at the sheets. His mouth seals around your clit and sucks one, hard, before pulling off with a wet pop that's so loud it echoes.

"Ahh- hhah, that's... you c-can't just do that and stop..." You whine, your hips chasing his mouth, but he's already sitting up, wiping his lips with the back of his hand.

"I can do whatever I want." He says, like it's a fact, and his thumb pushes inside you lazily, scooping cum out and watching it drip off his finger before sliding it back in. "And right now I want to watch you try to keep it together while I play with the mess I made."

He does this for longer than is reasonable. Sliding his finger in, pulling it out with cum on it, pressing his thumb against your clit, watching you flinch and twitch and moan into the pillow while your body can't decide if it wants more or if it wants him to stop.

When you finally lift your head enough to look back at him, your vision is blurry, and your cheeks are wet, and your hair… let's not talk about that. But his hair, however…

It's perfect.

His actual hair, styled in Scaramouche's cut, falls over his forehead in a way that makes him look like a character rendered by someone who accidentally released him into the real world. He fixed it while he was fucking you, which means at some point of the most brutal backshots of your life, your boyfriend was simultaneously running his fingers through his hair to make sure it looked good.

And it does, it looks like Scaramouche wearing Lohen's clothes, the dark blue and silver of the cosplay framing his face differently than Scara's outfit does, and the combination of his real hair with Lohen's costume is somehow hotter than either one on its own.

"Your hair…" You start, breathless, head tilting, staring at him.

"I know." He doesn't elaborate, and for a second you did forget just where his fingers still are, but then you get instantly reminded when his thumb circles your clit again. His expression is annoyingly smug for someone who was complaining about a wig 4 minutes ago.

He slides back into you without warning, and you gasp, your head dropping back down, because you're still so unbelievably sensitive. Even though he did slurp some of it out, you still have his cum inside of you, and the re-entry just pushed every bit of the leftovers deeper. He does exactly two, slow thrusts from behind, enough to hear the wet sound of it, and enough to feel you clench around him involuntarily, and then he moves.

His hand wraps the belt tighter around your neck and pulls backward toward him. Your upper body lifts off the mattress as the leather digs into your throat. And at the same time, as if he's some pro multitasker, his other hand hooks under your thigh, and hauls you up.

The room tilts as he rearranges your body like you're a doll getting repositioned on a shelf.

He sits back on his heels, then further, his legs extending toward the foot of the bed, and he pulls you down onto his lap with your back against his chest. His cock is still inside you, and the angle of his cock in your folds shifts as gravity does the work of seating you fully onto him. Your weight pushes him impossibly deep.

"Oh my- f-fuck..." Your head falls back against his shoulder, your mouth open, eyes unfocused on the ceiling. You can feel him everywhere. The depth of this position, your full weight on his lap, is the kind of full that makes your brain actually go blank.

The belt is still around your neck. He grips the loose end in one fist, his other hand settling on your hip, and he snaps his hips up.

It's different from behind, and the mating press, and just any position he's ever tried with you. Every thrust pushes up into you while your own weight pushes down. The collision of both forces means he's hitting your cervix with almost every stroke. The belt pulls at your throat in time with his rhythm, and it's like a constant tug that keeps you slightly alert. He's using it as a leash while he fucks up into you.

"Lohen… Lohen, oh my g-god, that's so… hhh…" Your hands grip his thighs behind you for leverage, your nails pressing crescent moons into his skin through the dark fabric of the cosplay pants. Every thrust forces a sound out of you that you didn't choose. The sound ranges from breathy moans to hiccuped whimpers to full, unfiltered whines that bounce off your bedroom walls.

"Mm, good girl… Keep saying my name just like that." He says against the shell of your ear, his grin pressing into your hair, and his hips don't slow down at all while his free hand leaves your hip to cup your breast, squeezing it through your bunched-up tank top.

Then, suddenly, the pace changes. It slows like someone pressing on the brakes. The frantic upward thrusts melt into something grinding, deliberate, circular. His hips roll instead of slamming. His hand on the belt adjusts, and you can feel the leather pulling higher on your throat, the pressure shifting from the side of your neck to the front, directly on your windpipe, cutting your air down. It makes the room tilt and your head go light.

"Lohen is fun. I'll give him that."

Your walls clench around him so hard that you feel his breath catch, a tiny fracture in his composure that he covers immediately. The shift from Lohen's energy to Scara's is like someone swapped an entire soundtrack mid-song, same instruments but a completely different vibe.

"But fun is temporary." His hips roll in that slow, calculated grind that's purely Scaramouche. The one that doesn't just find your spot but sits on it, presses into it, with the exact amount of pressure needed to make your eyes cross. "Chaos without control is just noise."

He thrusts so deep that your vision goes white at the edges and your mouth opens around a shameless sound you can't hold back. "I'm not noise." He pulls the belt tighter, your air growing thinner as your head feels floaty and warm. "I'm the only voice in your head that stays."

"Scara…" It comes out of your mouth before he can ask for it, before he can demand it, your body just defaulting to the name it knows and has moaned out more times than you can count. Just the same as muscle memory.

"There she is." His voice sounds satisfied in a way that Lohen's never was. It's settled, fully sure, like something just got confirmed that he already knew. His thumb traces the edge of the belt for exactly one second.

Then his pace goes feral, the leash yanks tight, and you can feel the grin return against the curve of your neck, his teeth grazing over your skin. The whiplash of Scara's controlled grind slamming into Lohen's chaos makes your entire body jerk against his chest.

Then he goes back to Scara, slow, precise, the belt adjusting to hit your windpipe just like before, and your vision goes soft and dreamy.

Then Lohen, again, fast and reckless, the belt pulling to the sides, sharp and painful. Your vision snaps back, too clear… too much.

Then Scara.

Then Lohen.

The switches accelerate, and you're caught between two different rhythms that you don't even have time to get used to either one before it switches back and forth, and you're left shaking, trembling, your thighs quivering helplessly on either side of his.

"You feel so fucking good-" you can hear Lohen's signature grin in his tone, his hips snapping up hard enough that you bounce on his lap, "You think you can handle more?"

And then, like a light to a switch, Scara's back, his thrusts slowing into a grind that feels torturous. "Of course you can't… You never could. You just pretend."

"Mm… mmnhh, I c-cant, it's too much," you're babbling, the words coming out in disconnected fragments that don't form a single coherent thought, "both of you at the s-same time… I can't… my brain… can't…"

Your body is trying to process two characters and one cock, and one belt on your throat that keeps changing how tight and how rough it's being pulled, and the gravity pinning you down, and his hands on you everywhere. "Please jus- hha, pick one, p-please, I can't think when you keep switching, I-"

"No." It doesn't sound like either character he's playing as he says that, almost himself. "You don't get to pick, you get both."

You cum on the fault line. On the exact millisecond where Lohen's chaos collides with Scara's control. The two rhythms are crashing together inside your body like a wave hitting a wall. The orgasm rips through you so hard that your vision actually blacks out for a second.

Your walls seize around him in rhythmic, violent clenches, your back arching against his chest, the belt pulling taut as your body contorts, and the sound you make is raw, unformed, the kind of noise a person makes when their brain short-circuits.

He cums with you, his groan is buried in the crook of your neck as his teeth bite down on your shoulder. The belt goes slack in his hand, and his hips stutter up as he fills you again. You feel every pulse of it, hot and thick, and his hands grip your hips hard.

His breathing is ragged against your neck, not in character, just Kuni, just like before, catching a breath he doesn't need to catch because the adrenaline is still making his body do human things.

He lets go of the belt and unloops it from your neck. The leather slides off your skin, leaving a warm, raw line that you'll see in the mirror tomorrow. His hands settle on your hips, gentle, all the urgency gone.

He turns you around, rotating you by your hips without pulling out. Your legs swing around until you're facing him, straddling his hips. When your eyes meet his, it's your boyfriend looking at you, Kuni, with his makeup smudged, his real hair messy and falling into his eyes, wearing another character's clothes with his own face underneath.

He grinds up into you, slow, not thrusting, just rolling his hips with his cock still inside you, his cum still inside, and the wet sound fills the quiet room.

He kisses you, a slow kiss where his hand cups the back of your neck. His tongue slides against yours, and your hands find his face, holding his jaw the same way you hold it when you do his eyeliner. Your fingers on his cheekbones, your thumbs at the corners of his mouth… the grip is so familiar that your chest aches with it.

He pulls out, the gush of everything between you spills onto his thighs, and you whimper at the loss, your hips chasing him involuntarily, still kissing him, before settling.

He leans back, lies flat, and looks up at you. "Sit on my face." He instructs, his hands already going for his bottoms, shoving the waistband down with both hands, lifting his hips, and kicking the pants and underwear off in one motion that sends them somewhere on the bed. He settles back onto the mattress with his cock resting against his stomach and the rest of Lohen's cosplay still on his upper half.

You're still on top of him, and you start to move toward his face, swinging your leg over to straddle his chest, and just as you're about to lower yourself down facing the wall, he stops you.

"Other way." His hands catch your hips, holding you in place before you can settle. "Face my cock, not the headboard."

You turn, shifting on your knees so you're facing his legs instead, and the second your thighs are on either side of his face, his hands pull you down. He doesn't ease you into it, his fingers dig into your hips and yank you flat on him. His mouth meets your cunt like he's been starving for it. His tongue is on you immediately, flat and broad, licking through the mess of his cum and yours that's still leaking, and the groan he lets out against your folds vibrates through your entire lower half.

"Ah- oh my god, Loh-" Your hands brace against his stomach, fingers splaying across his chest, your body jerking at the contact because you're still so overstimulated that even his breath against you would be too much, let alone his entire mouth sealed to your cunt like he's trying to milk you dry.

He doesn't let up; his tongue pushes between your folds, lapping at the cum he left inside you, alternating between long drags up your clit, and pointed flicks that make your thighs clamp around his head. His hands keep your hips pinned to his face, and every time you try to lift yourself even slightly because it's too much, he pulls you back down harder.

You look down past his stomach, past his lips, and his cock is right there. Hard again, flushed at the tip, twitching every time you moan. It looks helpless, which is a stupid word to use for a dick, but that's what it looks like.

Just lying there… hard… neglected, pulsing at nothing while his mouth does all the work on you. The visual of that all, combined with the way his tongue just circles your clit makes your mouth water and your body move on its own.

You lean down, lips pressing against the tip, soft, barely any contact, and you feel his hips twitch upward at even that little touch. You open your mouth wider, about to take him in, settling your weight forward onto your forearms on either side of his hips, and then his hands move.

They leave your hips, and you feel them slide down your back, his arms wrapping around your torso, his palms pressing flat against your shoulder blades from behind, and before you can even register the shift in grip, he lifts you.

Your knees leave the mattress, your thighs slide up his shoulders until they're hooked over them, his arms anchored around your back. You aren't straddling his face anymore; you're suspended above him, upside down, your entire lower body held up by his arms, and your upper body hangs between his legs with his cock directly in front of your face.

"KUNI- what the HELL-" Your hands scramble for something to hold, and the only thing available is his back, his sides, your fingers digging into whatever part of him you can reach. "Stop putting me upside down!! How are you even this strong??"

He ignores you, his mouth is still on your cunt like the position change was nothing, like rearranging your entire body didn't interrupt the rhythm of his tongue.

Your thighs are wrapped around his shoulders, your calves pressed against the sides of his head, and his arms are locked around your lower back and hips, creating a cage of muscle that keeps you from falling. Your stomach is pressed against his chest, your breasts squished between your body and his, and your face is hovering directly over his cock with your hair hanging down.

He doesn't pause to let you adjust; his tongue pushes inside you from below, curling, and the moan that rips out of you vibrates against his inner thigh because your mouth is right there, inches from his cock, and you can't even hold back the sound.

You take him in your mouth because his cock is right there, hard, flushed, leaking from the tip, and this is the only logical response you can think of.

Your lips close around the head, and you can hear, feel, his groan vibrate against your clit from below. The sensation travels through you, making your thighs tighten around his shoulders, and you take him deeper in response, your jaw stretching as you slide down his shaft.

His hips start moving, and he's fucking up into your mouth with thrusts that push his cock past your tongue and into the back of your throat. The angle of being upside down makes your gag reflex hit differently, sharper, your throat constricting around him with every push.

"Mmph-" You gag around him, saliva pooling at the corners of your mouth and running up toward your nose because gravity is working against you, and your eyes water as he pushes in deep enough that your lips press flush against his base.

He pulls your hips down against his face at the same time, grinding your cunt onto his mouth, and the dual sensation of his tongue on your clit and his cock in your throat creates a never-ending loop.

Every sound you make around him vibrates through his cock and makes his groan against you, and every groan he makes against you vibrates through your clit and makes you moan louder, and the cycle just keeps building on itself until neither of you is making sounds that qualify as human.

Your hands grip the backs of his thighs, nails biting into his skin, your only anchor while the rest of you is suspended in the air, getting destroyed from both ends. His arms tighten around your back whenever your body jerks too hard, keeping you steady, and the strength required to hold you like this while simultaneously eating you out and thrusting into your mouth is something you'll think about later, when you have brain cells to think with.

His tongue circles your clit and then seals over it, sucking hard, and your entire body arches in his grip. Your moan around his cock is muffled and obscene, a wet, gargled sound that would be embarrassing if you had any shame left, and the vibration of it makes his hips stutter up so hard you choke.

"Mmngh-" Spit drips down your chin, or up your chin technically because you're upside down, and his cock slides out of your mouth for a second while you cough and gasp, strings of saliva connecting your lips to his shaft.

He doesn't give you a break. His mouth doesn't leave your cunt, his tongue pressing harder, faster, relentless, and your mouth finds his cock again through the haze, taking him back in because even choking on him feels better than the alternative of not having him in your mouth.

His hips roll up in longer strokes now, less frantic but deeper, and you can feel the tension building in his thighs, the muscles tightening under your fingers. His arms squeeze around your back, pulling your hips down harder against his mouth, and his tongue works your clit in tight, focused circles that are designed to break you.

Everything builds at the same time. His cock pulsing heavier against your tongue, your walls clenching against his mouth, the pressure in your core climbing toward something massive, and his breathing getting faster against your cunt, his groans getting louder, less controlled, desperate in a way he only gets when he's close.

You cum first, barely, by maybe a second.

Your walls seize, and your thighs clamp around his shoulders, and the orgasm crashes through you in a wave so intense your jaw locks around his cock. The constriction of your throat, squeezing around him, plus the vibration of your moan, plus the way your entire body shakes in his grip, is what sends him over.

He cums in your mouth with a groan so deep you feel it in your spine. His hips push up one final time, his cock pulsing thick against your tongue, and you swallow around him because there's nothing else to do in this position, the cum sliding down your throat (or up, gravity is still confusing) while his tongue works you through the last aftershocks.

His arms loosen, not all at once, because if he did, you'd drop violently onto the bed. He eases the tension gradually, lowering your hips back toward the mattress, and you let his cock slip from your mouth with a wet sound that you're too brain dead to be embarrassed about.

"Put me down," you mumble against his thigh, your voice wrecked, your arms shaking. "Please, Kuni, put me down before I die in this position, and you have to explain it to my parents."

He lowers you down carefully, his hands guiding your hips and legs until your back is flat on the mattress beside him. Your head is at the foot of the bed, and your feet are near the pillows, but you don't really care because you're horizontal and alive, and that's enough.

He sits up, looks at you sideways on the bed, completely destroyed, and he doesn't say anything. He just moves you, his hands sliding under your back and your knees as he repositions you properly to put your head up against the pillows where it belongs.

He's quiet when he cleans you up this time, zero commentary about you squirming, no dry remarks about sensitivity, just the warm cloth from the bathroom, careful movements between your legs while his other hand stays on your hip to keep you still when you flinch.

He brings new clothes from your dresser, a pair of underwear, which goes on you first, slides up your legs, then shorts, then a top he pulls over your head and feeds through your arms without asking for your cooperation because he's already learned you won't give it.

He doesn't talk the whole time, which is unusual, because Kuni always has something to say, always has a complaint or a remark or a correction. But right now he's just doing it quietly, focused, tucking the hem of your top down with his fingers before standing up and walking toward your closet.

He changes into the pajama pants and black shirt he keeps in your drawer, and he pulls the Lohen cosplay off in pieces as he does it, dropping each part onto the chair by your desk.

"I'm never wearing that thing again," he says, pulling the top layer of Lohen's outfit off his shoulders with a grimace, his tone flat and final. "Whoever designed this character hates the human body. It feels like it's over 6 layers, especially with the long-sleeve, the cape thing… everything." He drops the last piece and kicks it under the chair. "Scara's cosplay isn't even that heavy because Scara was designed by someone with common sense."

You watch him from the bed, half-lidded, sinking into the pillows, your body so heavy that you feel like you're melting into your own mattress.

He walks back and pulls the covers up, sliding in beside you without ceremony. The second he's horizontal, you're already moving toward him, pressing your face into his chest, your hand curling into the front of his shirt, and his arm wraps about your back.

He kisses your forehead, soft, and then the bridge of your nose when you lift your face up enough, then the corner of your mouth. It's small, quiet presses of his lips against your skin that feel nothing like Scaramouche or Lohen. These are Kuni kisses, the ones he gives when no character is being performed.

The ones he probably doesn't even realize he's giving because they come out of him the same way breathing does.

He tips your chin up with his finger, and his eyes are just blue. Not indigo contacts, not the ones he wore for the Lohen cosplay, just his natural, stupid, annoyingly pretty blue that you fell for before you even knew that you cosplayed.

"Who do you want?" He asks, his voice low, and it's the softest you've heard it all night.

You look at him, at the messy hair, at the body who dyes his hair for a fictional character and hates wigs and complains about having to style his hair everyday and who buys you an abmormal amount of primogems, and probably would get you c6 r5 Lohen the minute he drops because he does that for every character, even when he gets jealous when you simp for a character that you don't just ask him to cosplay like any other logical person dating a cosplayer.

"Kuni," you say, and your voice is small and sure. "Just Kuni."

His mouth twitches, and you can see the shape of a smile trying to form before he catches it and pulls you closer, tucking your head under his chin and pressing his lips to your hair.

"Good answer," he murmurs into your scalp, so quiet that you almost miss it.

You close your eyes, your face against the fabric of his shirt, and you're asleep before you can respond. He stays awake for a minute more, his hand moving through your hair in slow repetitive movements. He stares at the ceiling fan, and he doesn't say anything.

He doesn't need to.

I have a Discord now! 18+, for readers, writers, and anyone who wants early wips and a place to chat!! (link)

taglist: @vvalentiqq, @jellyfishesandroses, @staarflowerr, @literallyibanny, @justwandererforever, @hanakokunzz , @bvlletwound, @kas1sh1bas1ke, @maomaoyuki, @xaeevie @pwushizz, @txyyyyyyyyyssssssss, @livvysoxytocin, @ventiij, @ruoussss, @kunimooch, @morangosdocesdsuki, @yumi-rxiden, @heavyonsloth, @saviiamzz129, @hilaryinumaki1

Pretty little bun bun. That's what you saw. Sleepy crimson peepers half lidded like he just woke up from a nap about slaugering yet another ruin guard. Twitchy nose that wiggles when he's thinking about... what, manslaughter? And those ears… Silky, with the softest inner velvet you've ever seen. They flick and flop and flutter with every single emotion that crosses his deranged little face. 

And you, stupid little apex predator that you are, looked at this deranged little creature and thought: prey.

Bottom of the food chain, theoretically. It's written in the goddamn stars, etched into the bones of the world by evolution itself. Natural order of things: cute little bun buns get eaten by big scary kitty cats. 

And you are, obviously, from the second group. A whole ass lynx hybrid, honey. Tufted ears that swivel like furry radar dishes, picking up the faintest rustle of prey in the underbrush. Claws that could fillet a boar and use its ribs for toothpicks. Unmatched speed (oh, how he would mock you later), and strength (and he still could pin you down effortlessly). And that natural swagger that screams louder than any roar.

So you got comfortable. A bit arrogant. Fucking stupid, if you ask me.

But you probably wonder what exactly you did to end up in that burrow? 

Well, you flicked one of those silky soft mint ears in the hallway outside the library and called him a bottom of a food chain right in front of Sucrose, who choked on her own spit and practically teleported out of existence in a cloud of panicked anemo particles. 

You thought you were being funny. A little harmless fun, yeah? A playful swat from the big cat to the little bunny.

Mistake!

Because that particular bunny came off the assembly line fucking defective. They dropped him on his fluffy little head as a kit, or maybe his momma drank some bad firewater while he was in the womb, or whatever. You don't know what exactly happened, but something crucial snapped. Instead of developing a healthy ‘oh gods please don't eat me’ fear response to things with fangs, his brain rewired it into an obsession with the specific threat of being eaten. 

To put it bluntly, Lohen looked at your proud predator stride and saw a dumb, pretty recruit who he could reduce to a drooling, cunt clenching, begging mess. 

And oh, this motherfucker knows that he’s pretty and has something to seduce you with. He's got those big crimson eyes that can go from ‘uwu I'm just a soft little bunny’ to ‘I'm going to skin you alive’ in the space of a heartbeat. He's got those long legs that he loves to show off, wearing those high boots that cling to every lean line and curve. And let's not even mention his ass, presented so perfectly in those tight white trousers.  He's got this lean and flexible body that he loves to show off.

After that single incident with a flick, it starts small. A hand on your lower back, fingers splayed, pressing just a little too firmly, lingering just a little too long. Him demanding you for the training. His hip bumping yours when he falls into step beside you. 

"Vice Captain, what are you doing?" you hiss, trying to sidestep away.

"Walking with my favorite recruit," he says, beaming up at you. His hand finds your elbow, tucking himself against your side like he belongs there. His body is warm and surprisingly solid against yours. "You smell nice today. New soap?" He inhales deeply, nose practically pressed to your neck, and makes a satisfied little sound. "Mhm. That's the good stuff."

You try sparring, because you're still operating under the adorable delusion that size and species fucking matter. You're a lynx hybrid, and he's a rabbit. It should be easy; there is no way it wouldn’t work. 

So you corner him in the training yard, claws half-extended, tail lashing behind you.

"Alright, cottonball," you sneer, putting every ounce of predator into the word. "Gonna bounce away like a good little snack?"

Lohen just tilts his head and looks at you with those dead fish eyes, and a little smile plays at the corner of his lips. 

"Snack?" he echoes, voice light and airy. His eyes flutter closed, and he lets out a breathy little moan as his spine pops as he stretches. "Oh, kitten…" He drops his arms and rolls his shoulders. "You’re such a stupid, feral little pussycat. I guess it’s my responsibility to train you to sit, stay, and ro–"

You lunge, fed up with his nonsense.

Your claws catch his collarbone, and three perfect furrows bloom red and angry against his pale skin. Blood wells up immediately, fat and ruby-red and hot, coppery scent hitting the air between you. 

Honestly, you expect him to let out a high-pitched squeak of fear and bounce away, running like a good little prey hybrid.

Instead?

"Hahhhhnnn~" The moan vibrates straight from the depths of his chest, travels through the air like a physical touch, and lands with a throbbing ache right in the core of your suddenly traitorous cunt.

"What the fuck?" you hiss, stumbling back a step. Your claws are still wet with his blood, but you are afraid to tear your eyes away from him.

His ears go flat, plastered against that messy hair. His whole body shudders, and you watch, transfixed, as a visible tremor runs down his spine and makes that plump little tail give an excited thump-thump-thump against the small of his back.

"Oh, kitten~" His voice is dripping with something absolutely filthy. "You have no idea how good that felt." 

He rolls the wounded shoulder, watching a thick droplet of his own blood snake a hot trail down the corded muscle of his bicep. His tongue darts out and drags across his lower lip, chasing the scent of his own blood mingling with your sweat. 

Your breath hitches when Lohen steps forward, right into your space. Close enough that you can see the way his pupils have swallowed the crimson of his irises almost completely. 

His hand comes up, but your body is frozen, caught between predator instinct and something that's coiling hot and tight in your belly. His fingers find your chin. Tilt your face up. His thumb traces along your lower lip.

"Look at you," Lohen murmurs, and his voice is liquid condescension. "Big, scary lynx. All those fangs and claws. And you're standing here, terrified." He leans in, his lips brushing yours. "Want to know a secret, kitten?"

"What?" Your voice is barely a whisper, and you hate how shaky it sounds.

His free hand grabs your wrist, still wet with his blood, and presses it flat right over his heart.

"I'm not scared of you," he breathes. "You know what I am?" His hips roll forward, and you feel it – the hot, hard, throbbing line of his erection pressing against your hip. "I'm intrigued." He pulls back just enough to look into your eyes, that unhinged smile spreading across his pretty face. "Imagine what you'd do to me if you actually tried to eat me…"

His hips give a tiny little jerk against your thigh, and you feel it again, pressing insistently into the muscle. He's rock hard from you clawing him open, hell, from talking about you wanting him.

"But here's the thing, kitten." His voice drops to a conspiratory whisper, lips brushing yours with every word. "I'm not the prey here."

Something snaps in you – fear or fury or some unholy cocktail of both – and you jerk forward and sink your fangs into the junction of his neck and shoulder. You taste blood, hot and metallic and his, flooding over your tongue. 

His body goes rigid against yours, every muscle locking up, that plump little tail thumping frantically against his back.

And then you feel the pulse of his cock, twitching in his pants, soaking the fabric of your pants. His whole body shudders with a broken sob tearing from his throat. His hands fly up to grip your hair, holding you against his neck, keeping your teeth buried in his flesh as he humps your leg like a filthy animal.

"Ffffffuck– yes– fuck, don't stop–"

You release him, shoving him off, stumbling backward. Your mouth is smeared with his blood, but still, you are the one who is shaking like a leaf under his gaze.

Lohen just slumps back against the training post with a blissed-out smile spreading across his flushed face. His croth is visibly wet, but he doesn't seem to care. 

"You're a freak," you spit, voice trembling. "A fucking freak."

"Yeah." He pushes off the post, sauntering toward you with that bouncy walk. "But I'm your freak now." He tilts his head, showing off the bleeding bite mark. "Fair's fair, kitten." 

He pats your cheek, and the touch is so fucking condescending, especially from the guy who came in his pants when you bit him. You thank the anemo archon that at least nobody is on the training grounds to witness the whole embarrassing incident.

"See you at morning roll call, pet." Lohen winks, turns, and hops away, that fluffy tail bouncing with every step.

And suddenly, the day after, because the universe is a cruel cunt that loves to watch you squirm, Varka is slapping your shoulder hard enough to leave a bruise in the shape of his palm: "You're under Lohen's command now!"

Your brain short-circuits. " Wh– The... the rabbit?"

"The Vice Captain!" the beefy wolf hybrid corrects, beaming like he just handed you a puppy. "Sharpest mind and aggressive tactics I've ever seen. You'll learn a lot. Just... try not to let him get under your skin. He's got a talent for it."

Congrats, this herbivore is your boss now.

And then he's just... there. Everywhere. All the goddamn time. Bastard is basically shitting on the very concept of your freedom, and you can't even catch him to return the favor.

You smell the astringent bite of mint just around every corner. The air gets cold right behind you sometimes. When you spin, weapon drawn, claws out, ready to gut the stalker, there's nothing. Just the phantom thump-thump-thump of that fluffy tail and a breathy giggle that echoes down the hallway.

And the notes. Slipped under your door. Tucked into your boot. Folded into your training notes. Sometimes, to your genuine horror, appearing on your nightstand in the morning.

"Saw you stretching today. You are so… flexible…"

"You growled at that deer boy who bumped into you. Got me really worked up."

"Wore my tightest pants today. Did you notice? I saw you looking. ♡"

The dog hybrid boy who takes an interest in you doesn't know any of this. 

He's new, transferred from some border outpost, all muscle and misplaced confidence. He's been watching you for a week now, his hopeful eyes tracking you across the mess hall, the training yard, the corridors. You've noticed, because, well, it's hard not to notice. He's big, and he smells like wet dog, and his tail wags every time you so much as glance in his direction.

And tonight, in the Angel's Share, he makes his move, sliding into the seat across from you with a blush so heavy it could rival a fresh sunsettia's colour.

"H-hey there," he slurs, visibly nervous. His scent is all eager-pup arousal and cheap ale. "You look really pretty today… N-no, that's not– I mean, you're always pretty, it's just today I finally got the guts to–"

The air turns sharp with frost before you even see him. One moment, the dogboy is stuttering through his confession, the next there's a slender, scarred hand fisting into his hair, yanking his head back at a brutal angle. The cold steel of a knife presses flat against the column of his throat, resting there with the weight of a promise.

"Sniff sniff."

Lohen inhales theatrically right beside the hybrid's ear, his nose brushing the fur, his crimson eyes fixed unblinkingly on you. A wide, sharp, utterly unhinged smile splits his pretty face, revealing those deceptively dainty incisors. His voice is lighter than chimes, softer than a lullaby, and it’s the most terrifying thing you have ever heard.

"Mhm. That's the smell. It's like... warm cream and soft flesh, isn't it? Makes your knot swell up just thinking about sinking into that wet heaven, huh?” Lohen's grip on the dagger tightens, and that unhinged note becomes more prominent in his voice. “But here’s a problem… You've been sniffing around what's mine, pup. That's very, very rude. Do you know what happens to rude strays who try to take what's mine?"

The knife tilts, just a fraction. A single bead of red wells against the poor bastard’s skin and rolls down the poor guy’s throat. The dogboy makes a keening whimper that cuts off when Lohen’s grip tightens.

"I'll tell ya," Lohen continues, still in that gentle tone. His eyes never leave yours. He’s putting on a show, you understand, and he wants you to witness every second. "First, I take this dagger, and I carve out your eyes. Then I pack your throat with cryo shards. Then I open your belly and watch the light leave your eyes while I pull out your insides. And when you’re finally dead, I’m going to take your fucking dick–”

He presses the knife a little harder, and the dogboy sobs.

“–and I’m going to have it in a jar, like a talisman. I’ll hang it on the wall of the burrow where I keep my mate, so every time I breed her to tears, she can look at it and remember what happens to anyone who tries to take her from me.”

Lohen pauses, tilts his head, and that smile somehow softens into something almost fond. He pats the trembling boy’s cheek with two condescending little tap-taps from his free hand.

"But I'm feeling generous tonight, because my beloved is right here watching, and I want to reward her patience. So I'll give you one chance.” He licks his lips, and you feel the twinge of something warm in your belly. Something that you shouldn't feel in that situation. “You’re going to walk out of this tavern while having your organs in the original packaging. Next, you’re going to write the transfer request. Finally, you’re going to fuck off back to that shithole that you crawled out from before sunrise. Are we clear?"

The dogboy nods eagerly. Lohen wrinkles his nose, releases him with a shove that sends him sprawling to the floor, and watches with lazy satisfaction. “Good pup.”

Poor dog hybrid scrambles to his feet and bolts for the door, slipping once in a hurry.

“Bye-bye~” he sing-songs cheerfully in the dead silent tavern. Every patron is staring. Lohen ignores them all, turning to you, twirling the dagger between his fingers with a casual elegance that makes your stomach clench and your cunt throb. That unhinged smile melts into something softer, but no less terrifying.

"Wha’?" He asks, as if he hadn't just graphically detailed a murder in a public establishment. "Can't have the strays thinking you're available."

You sit frozen, heart hammering against your ribs, every instinct screaming at you to run, to fight, to do anything except sit here while Lohen saunters closer. He stops between your spread thighs and looks down at you with those black-hole eyes, pupil swallowed irises gleaming with mania and adoration in equal measure.

"I'm not yours," you manage, voice trembling. "You can't just scare away people who try to approach me!"

Lohen smirks, leans in, lips brushing the shell of your fluffy ear, breath scorching.

"I can, and I just did," he whispers and pulls back just enough to meet your eyes. His hand, the one still holding the dagger, comes up and rests the flat of the blade against your cheek. The metal is ice-cold, and you flinch. He traces the edge along your jawline, feather-light, never breaking skin. 

"I'll see you soon," he breathes, patting your burning cheek with a knife. “Try not to drip too much on Master Diluc's floor.”

Lohen winks, turns, and hops away, that fluffy tail giving a sassy little flick with every bounce of his perfect ass. The tavern slowly returns to life, whispers filling the silence he left behind as you sit there, frozen.

Since then, it’s gotten worse.

You're losing yourself. That sassy predator that you were decides to rest somewhere inside of you, and no matter how hard you try, you can't bring it out.

It's humiliating, really.

Every time you catch a glimpse of those soft ears or that juciest piece of ass you’ve ever seen on a male, you have to restrain yourself from reaching out and touching. The dreams are the worst – dreams where he pins you down and whispers the most horrific words while doing even worse things. You wake up soaked and gasping, fists full of sheets that reek of him because the sick bastard has been breaking into your room and rubbing his scent all over your bedding. It's not helping that your heat is nearing rapidly, making you more sensitive and jumpy.

So one day you finally snap. All it takes is too much wine mixed with this creeping dread curling in your belly. Just enough liquid stupidity to think you're still the fucking predator in this equation. 

You corner your Vice Captain outside the city gates under a sickly yellow moon.

"Why don't you just bounce away, you little freak?!" you snarl, swaying, fur bristling along your tail, claws itching to rend. "You're a rabbit! You're supposed to be scared of me! That's the whole goddamn deal!"

Lohen turns to face you with an expression of serene delight, as if you've just offered him the most precious gift imaginable. A visible shiver that starts at his nose and travels down his spine, ending with his fluffy, cream-tipped tail giving a sharp thump-thump-thump against the stone archway that he's leaning on.

"Scared?" he repeats, and there's a laugh bubbling under the word when he steps closer. "Oh, kitten, you are really that dumb~" 

He stops right in front of you, close enough to kiss, and tilts his head, those big crimson eyes looking at you with mock innocence. 

"You're just a big, growly kitty with a wet little cunt and a brain that short-circuits every time I shake my ass."

"I am not!" The words tumble out, angry but unsure.

"You are~" He reaches up and flicks your nose, like you're the cute little pet. The audacity makes your claws twitch, but your body refuses to move. "You're so easy, kitten. I barely have to try. A little ear flick here, a little bounce there–" He demonstrates, bouncing lightly on his heels, "–and you're drooling."

Pissed off, you lunge at him – claws out, fangs bared, all that rage finally reaching its peak – but your drunk limbs are stupidly predictable. Lohen sidesteps easily, hooking one leg behind yours and catching you as you stumble. One deceptively strong arm snakes around your waist. Your legs buckle, and suddenly his face is too close, watching you with that unnerving stillness.

"There we go," he coos, holding you upright as you gasp and shudder against him.

"F-fuck you–" you spit, but it comes out as a sob.

"Soon, kitten. Just let me–" He shifts his grip, and the world tilts violently. One arm hooks under your knees, the other braces your back, and suddenly you're on his shoulder, staring at the mud and cobblestones whizzing past in a blur as he carries you into the treeline of Wolvendom.

You claw at his arms, his back, anything you can reach. Your nails leave furrows in the fabric of his coat, tear the cotton of his shirt, and draw thin lines of blood across his shoulder blades. He just moans louder and speeds up, those stringy legs eating up the ground.

“Put me down!” You whine, trying to punch him in the ribs with your knee. 

“M’kay!” Lohen suddenly agrees and drops you into some kind of hole under an ancient oak. You land on a pile of blankets so soft they must've cost your entire year's salary. 

It's a den, you understand after a second. Dug deep, shored up with gnarled roots, the air inside cold and still and smelling faintly of mint. There's a flask of fresh water. A neat little pyramid of sunsettias. A plate of fine steak, cut into delicate little ribbons. And in the center of it all – the nest. A little hollow lined with soft grasses, even more blankets, and what you now recognize as tufts of fur he's plucked from his own tail and ears, woven together to cradle two bodies.

"Lohen, this is–" you breathe, scrambling backward on the blankets until your back hits the earthen wall. "You can't just–"

"Can't what?" He's kneeling in the entrance, a dark silhouette blocking out the stars, pulling his shirt over his head with a languid roll of tight muscle. His pale torso is a fucking roadmap of battles, scars overlapping scars, some old and white, some newer, pink and puckered. And among them, fresh, still-bleeding furrows from your claws, beading crimson. You take note of the imprint of your teeth on his neck.

"Can't claim what's mine?" he finishes for you, crawling forward on hands and knees. "Can't build a proper den for my girl like any self-respecting male? Can't bring you offerings and keep you warm and safe and full? Can’t help my mate with her heat?" He leans forward, bracing his hands on either side of your head, caging you in. His face is centimeters from yours, those black-hole eyes boring into your soul. He smiles, predator-sharp. 

"Get off me, freak!" You bare your fangs and roar, trying to scare this fucked in the head herbivore.

"Make me." Lohen grinds his hips down, and you feel the hot, hard, throbbing length of him pressing against your clothed cunt. The pressure is perfect, and a moan escapes before you can stop it. 

"C’mon, make me!" His smile widens and his hips roll, slow and filthy, dragging the ridge of his cock along your slit through the fabric. "Tell me you didn’t rub this cunt raw while dreaming of me…."

You try to shove Lohen off, but he catches your wrists and pins them above your head with one hand – one fucking hand, and he's a small animal hybrid and a herbivore at that, how is he so fucking strong – and leans down until his lips brush your ear.

"I've been courting you for months," he whispers, and the words drip off his tongue like honey laced with ground glass and obsession. "And you... Ohhhh, you've been waving this dumb little kitty cunt in my face the whole time. Flicking my ears. Making me bleed. Letting me stalk you..." He pulls back, looking down at you with those wild eyes. "And now... finally... I have you exactly where you belong. In my den. In my nest. Under me." 

His free hand comes up to cup your jaw, thumb pressing past your lips and into your mouth. You taste salt and skin and him – sharp, clean, intoxicating. He pushes deeper, gagging you slightly, and his eyes flutter closed.

You bite down on his thumb, hard, to make this fucking freak recoil. Blood wells up instantly, hot and metallic, flooding your tongue. But instead of yanking his hand back, Lohen's whole body shudders with a guttural moan that seems to tear itself from somewhere deep in his chest. His hips jerk frantically, grinding his clothed cock against your cunt, and you feel a fresh gush of wetness soak through both your pants as he nearly cums right there.

"Ffffffuck– yes– do it again, bite me harder, make me bleed, make me hurt–" His free hand releases your wrists and flies to his own pants, fumbling with the buckle. 

You release his thumb, panting. Your mouth is smeared with his blood. "You're sick."

"Yeah." He's grinning, blood smeared on his lip from where he bit it himself, pupils blown so wide his eyes look like black voids. "Terminally sick for you." 

Lohen pulls his thumb from your mouth and licks the blood off, eyes never leaving yours, sitting back on his haunches, and now those nimble, scarred fingers are working his belt buckle with single-minded focus. 

When he’s done, the leather slithers free with a soft hiss, and Vice Captain holds it up, considering it, then drapes it around your neck so tight it makes you cough. 

"Pretty," he breathes. "You'd look so pretty in a proper collar. Maybe I'll have one made, engraved with my name. 'Property of Lohen' What do you think?"

You can't tell him to fuck off when the collar tightens on your neck. He unbuttons his pants, slides them down those stringy thighs, and kicks them aside. His underwear follows.

His cock is... god help you, it's pretty. That's the word that slams into your brain, unwanted and undeniable. Pretty. Pale and flushed pink at the tip, curving up slightly toward his belly, slick with pre-cum that's been leaking steadily and soaking a dark patch into the front of his discarded underwear. It's not massive, but it's thick enough that you know it'll split you open oh so sweetly. Below it, his balls are drawn up tight, heavy and full, the skin taut and slightly darker, clearly aching with the need to empty themselves inside something– someone. 

Specifically you.

"Pretty, right?" Lohen reaches down and wraps a hand around his cock, giving it one lazy stroke. A thick bead of pre-cum wells up at the tip and drips slowly down his shaft, catching the faint moonlight filtering through the burrow entrance. He catches it with his thumb, brings it to his mouth, and licks it clean with a soft hum. "Mmm... Want a taste?" He smears another bead onto his fingers and holds them out. "Open up, kitten. Sample the goods."

You clamp your mouth shut, turning your head away. He tsks softly, disappointed but not surprised, and crawls forward again, sitting square on your chest. His weight presses your back deeper into the blankets, pins your arms at your sides, and leaves you completely helpless. That bobbing cock taps insistently against your sealed lips as he settles, leaving a tacky smear of pre-cum across your mouth.

“Oh, kitten,” he drawls, slow and syrupy, his head tilting so his ears flop adorably to one side even as his crimson eyes blaze with absolute, clinical madness. “Still playin’ hard to get? After all the notes I left? After I bled and came in my pants with your teeth in my neck?” 

He wraps the tail of the belt around his fist once, twice, tightening the improvised leash until the leather bites into the tender skin of your throat. Your breath hitches into a strangled wheeze, vision spotting at the edges as the collar cuts off your air.

“S’alright. I like you feisty. Makes it so much sweeter when you finally break. And you will break, kitten.” He rolls his hips, grinding his soaked cockhead across your sealed lips, and laughs when your nostrils flare involuntarily.

You glare up at him, defiant, mouth clamped shut. Lohen just smiles and jerks the collar hard. The sudden constriction forces a choked gasp from your lungs.

He uses that exact moment to thrust his length into your mouth in one merciless thrust, not stopping until his swollen balls are pressed flush against your chin and the fat, leaking head bullies its way past your gag reflex. 

Your throat convulses violently around the intrusion, muscles spasming and squeezing him desperately. He throws his head back with a loud moan that echoes through the burrow, his silky mint-green ears pinning flat against his messy hair while his fluffy cream-tipped tail thumps wildly against his own ass in ecstatic beats.

“Ahhh– fuuuuck yes, there it is~” he sobs out, voice cracking with pure bliss as his hips grind forward until your nose is smashed into the soft mint-colored hairs, his musky scent flooding your lungs until you can’t smell anything else. “This is exactly where you belong, kitten. On your back in my nest, throat stuffed full of bunny cock like the stupid whore you are.”

Lohen drops the leash, and his fingers twist viciously into your tufted lynx ears and the hair at the back of your scalp, yanking your head back at a brutal angle to straighten your throat into a helpless fuck-sleeve. 

There is no time to adjust as he starts fucking your face with fast and punishing thrusts – each one dragging his thick cock almost all the way out before slamming back in until his balls slap wetly against your chin. Obscene, wet gluck-gluck-gluck sounds fill the burrow as stringy ropes of throat slime, precum and drool bubble out from the stretched corners of your mouth, pouring down your chin and tits in messy rivers. 

“F-fuck– squeeze me just like that, kitten–. You’re doing s-so good for me, makin’ me feel so loved,” he groans, eyes half-lidded and soft with obsessive adoration. His hips snap faster, turning the slow face-fucking into something meaner. Thick globs of your spit fly everywhere with every brutal plunge, splattering across your lips and cheeks.

Your vision is blurring from the lack of air and the constant battering of his cock against the back of your throat. Tears stream down your face, mixing with the thick strings of spit and pre-cum, and despite everything, your cunt is clenching desperately around nothing. Your hips twitch and roll uselessly in the air, searching for friction that isn’t there. Lohen’s nose twitches, catching the scent immediately, and he lets out a delighted little giggle.

“Ohhh? How embarrassing. You’re supposed to be the predator, but one taste of bunny cock and you’re already gushing like a broken faucet. Don’t worry… I’ll take care of that sloppy hole soon enough. But first–”

He suddenly pulls out with a wet schlorp, leaving your throat gaping and empty. You cough and gasp desperately, thick ropes of saliva connecting your swollen lips to the glistening tip of his cock. Before you can even suck in a proper breath, he shifts his weight, sitting heavily on your chest with his knees pinning your shoulders down. His hand wraps tight around his throbbing shaft right above your ruined face, stroking himself with loud squelching sounds while you heave.

“Gonna paint this pretty face,” he growls, voice low and trembling with the edge of orgasm, “Gonna cover every bit of you in my cum so no one ever forgets who this stupid slut belongs to.”

You’re too wrecked to respond. So Lohen does it for you – two fingers hook roughly into the corners of your mouth, prying your jaw open wide while his other hand pumps his cock faster, the wet shlick-shlick-shlick growing louder and more desperate.

“Stick your tongue out.” And you fucking do, like a mindless dumb kitty, too fucked out to think. “Yeah, jus’ like that– good girl~”

His hips jerk into his fist, ears flicking madly, fluffy tail going rigid behind him as the pleasure spikes. His voice starts breaking, words turning meaner and nastier the closer he gets.

“You think that fucking stray could ever make you feel like this? Huh? You think anyone else gets to see you like this? I’d gut them. You’re mine. Mine to– aah~”

The first thick rope of cum erupts violently across your forehead, splattering hot and sticky all the way up into your hair and across one eye. The second heavy spurt lands directly into your open mouth, coating your tongue in salty heat and overflowing down your chin in creamy rivers.

“Take it– take every fucking drop, you greedy bitch–”

The third and fourth jets stripe across your cheeks and nose, the excess dripping down into the hollow of your throat, where the collar bites painfully into your skin. More cum splatters across your twitching lynx ears, matting the soft fur, while another thick glob lands on your closed eyelid, sealing it shut with sticky warmth. 

When the last watery dribble finally leaks out, Lohen slaps his softening but still twitching cock against your ruined face a few times – pat-pat-pat – spreading the mess even more. His breathing is ragged, but his eyes are zeroed in on you.

“Lookin’ so cute,” He pats your cum-smeared cheek with genuine affection, then slides off your chest, leaving you gasping and soaked and utterly debased. 

But if you thought this was it… oh, poor baby… poor-poor baby… 

His hands find the waistband of your pants. You try to buckle, coughing, one eye closed because of his spunk that threatens your eye. That does nothing to stop Lohen. He yanks, and your pants and underwear come down in one rough movement, the fabric tearing slightly at the seams, baring your traitorously weeping cunt to the cool air of his burrow.

As if bewitched, Lohen drops to his belly between your legs, arms hooking under your thighs to yank you closer, and presses his nose directly against your slick folds. His ears flatten, his tail thumps against the floor, and a guttural growl rumbles from his chest – a sound no rabbit should ever make. 

“This is what I’ve been dreaming about,” he breathes, the words muffled against your pussy. “Gonna fuck this kitty cunt so thoroughly it’ll reject anyone else. You’ll be a one-rabbit woman.”

Lohen drags his soft, deceptively innocent pink tongue in one long stripe from your clenching entrance all the way up to your throbbing clit, collecting your slick like it’s nectar. Then the real hunger takes over. He buries his whole face in your cunt – nose grinding hard against your clit sweetly, tongue stabbing deep inside you, lapping and thrusting wildly.

You arch off the blankets with a broken moan, lava flooding your veins. “F-fuck– Lohen–!”

“Mhm…” he hums loudly against your folds and pulls back just long enough to spit a thick glob of saliva right onto your swollen clit, then slaps his tongue against it, massaging the swollen bud lovingly.

“So fucking tight and wet,” Lohen slurs, mouth still half-buried in your cunt. “Could eat this pussy for days, until you’re just a stupid pet who cums every time her owner comes home. Would you like that? Huh?”

“Lohen– please–”

“Please what?” He pulls back suddenly, lips shiny, chin dripping with your arousal, that unhinged grin splitting his face. He folds your thighs up and apart, nearly bending you in half so you’re forced to watch him work. A long strand of your slick stretches from his bottom lip to your cunt before Lohen laps it up with a happy little moan. 

“Gotta be specific, kitten. I’m just a dumb bunny, remember? Tell me exactly what this sloppy cunt needs.”

A sob rips from your throat as the temperature of your body spikes up, your heat slowly claiming you. “I need– cum–”

“Whaa~? Say it properly!” He dips down again, dragging his tongue agonizingly slow through your folds, deliberately avoiding your clit. “Need me to make this pathetic pussy cum?”

“Yes, please! Need ta cum!” You whine with a voice so thin it almost sounds alien.

“Good little bitch~”

Lohen dives back in, tongue fucking into you, nose grinding against your clit. Two fingers suddenly stretch you, and you cry out. Lohen curls them upward to hit that spot that makes stars explode behind your eyes. His hand leaves your thigh and snakes down between his own legs, and you hear the frantic sound of his fist stroking his shaft while he eats you out. 

And when you’re so close, right there, right on the edge, your claws shredding the blankets, your back arching–

Lohen stops.

The orgasm dies instantly, leaving you a convulsing wreck. Your denied cunt spasms violently around nothing, and more hot tears spill down your cum-streaked face as you choke on a broken wail.

“C’mon, move that fat lynx ass,” he giggles, voice bright and cruel as he gives your trembling thigh a patronizing little tap.”Need you to cum on my cock. Gonna show you what ‘fucking like rabbits’ means~”

You can only shudder, edged out of your mind, drooling and crying into the nest that reeks of mint and cum. Your hips twitch uselessly, seeking friction that isn’t there.

Lohen clicks his tongue in mock disappointment. Then, with terrifying ease, he manhandles you like you weigh nothing. Those deceptively stringy arms and compact muscles flip you onto your hands and knees in one smooth motion. Your face smashes into the soft blankets, ass forced high in the air, cunt and tight little hole completely exposed to his hungry gaze. Your fluffy lynx tail lashes wildly in humiliated protest, but he just grabs the base and yanks it upward, pinning it out of the way.

“Archons, fuck yes,” he breathes, as he kneads your ass cheeks roughly, spreading fat globes wide apart until you feel the cool air kiss your dripping folds and puckered hole. “And to think that you were so stubborn to admit that we are meant to be! Bad kitty…”

The first sharp slap cracks across your ass, hard enough to make the fat jiggle and bloom bright red. You yelp, claws digging deeper into the blankets. Vice Capitan watches the mark form with manic glee, ears flicking excitedly, that fluffy cream-tipped tail thumping wildly against his own back.

His palm rains down again and again. Each impact sends shockwaves through your body, turning your ass into a burning canvas of handprints. Every slap pushes you closer to the edge without letting you fall. You’re drooling messily onto the blankets, thick strings of slick, cum, and tears soaking the fabric as you whimper and sob into the nest.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, Lohen stops, palms smoothing almost tenderly over the bruised flesh. But the gentleness is a lie – he spreads your ascheeks again, spitting a thick glob of saliva right onto your puckered hole before his leaking cock slides hot and heavy through your drenched folds. He coats himself in your slick, letting you feel every throb, the fat head nudging your entrance just enough to part your puffy lips before pulling back before you can envelop him.

“Ah-ah-ah~” he tuts, voice dripping fake sympathy as he slaps the heavy head of his cock lightly against your labia. “You really thought I was gonna let you cum that easily? No, no, kitten. Say you are mine first.” 

You can’t answer – your voice is gone, replaced by ragged pants and whimpers.

“Say it,” Lohen repeats, a dark edge sharpening his words. He leans over you, chest pressing flush to your back, one hand snaking up to fist the belt still around your throat. He yanks the end of it, forcing your head up and your back into a painful arch. His other hand reaches toward his discarded coat, and you feel the flat of his knife press against the sensitive skin of your inner thigh.

Your breath hitches in arousal when the metal tip scrapes against your mound.

“Tell me your soul belongs to Lohen,” he whispers hotly against the shell of your tufted ear, voice low and venomous. “Say it, or I’ll keep you right on the brink until you’re nothing but a babbling mess begging for bunny cum. I can do this for a very long time…”

The knife traces a threatening line up your thigh, never breaking skin but promising it could. And what little remains of your pride shatters completely.

“It’s yours,” you choke out, voice wrecked and trembling, fresh tears spilling down your cheeks. “Lohen! Please– Please–”

“Good mate,” he praises, planting a chaste kiss atop your head, right between your ears. The words sound genuine and reverent that they make you blush deeper, face turning crimson. “See? Wasn’t so hard.”

Lohen releases the leash slightly but keeps you arched, then sits back on his haunches. His hand tightens in the fur at the base of your tail, yanking your ass closer. The other grips your bruised hip hard enough to leave fresh marks.

His throbbing cock lines up again, the leaking head kissing your quivering hole. Your whole body tenses, every nerve screaming in anticipation.

"Welcome to the bottom of the food chain, kitten," he whispers, voice dripping with undiluted triumph. 

His hips roll forward.

.

Comments, likes, and reblogs are appreciated!

Series Masterlist: Creatures Features

I saw this crazy battle maniac 2.0 (hi Childe) in Varka's story quest and just couldn't... I had to add him. Yeah, I'm sorry for neglecting this series so much. Hope that you like this part at least haha!

My darlings (taglist): @nazifa613, @spookydragonsong, @noentalrae, @melimelisworld, @itslovelyangel, @cum-fvk, @forbidden-permission, @luv-isolde, @rinki-tinki, @alwaysseventypercent, @koseyisntcozy, @rochunsfw @lizurich, @constellationsyslibrary, @lavielavigne @hungryhornet @fuuyi-acrimosa, @itslayka, @anothergojostan, @blanksbedroom, @violetisreadinghush, @cccccccccccleo, @valentine-mybeloved, @bedrottingdoll, @horny--jail, @avenixs, @mildmasochist, @caramel-chai @elianasmoon, @eminenceplant, @tree-ag, @neuvilletteclearwater, @msmumufufu, @solarrandom @strawberrybunnyjolie @helloweebsofgenshin @katzline, @kellyyn02, @aymands @whatasillyguy @akutgawascoughdrop @im-under-yourbed @supermegabitchboyexceptimagirl @muttwithnoname @tearinka @metallover123 @tkitb, @queerlordsimon @fuckingfaraway @madamedesalaunier @nightmarenyxx, @mayodenotche ...

(I hope I tagged everyone! If you want to be tagged too, please comment about it under the CF Masterlist).

You roll the dough thinly. Roughly twelve inches in diameter, fits like a sleeve in your nine-inch ceramic dish. The second slab is rolled out even thinner, stripped into ten exact lines. You spoon the apple filling into the dish. You lay the strips down, one then the other. Sealing the edges, you crimp the crust. You paint it with eggwash. You deliver it unto its cocoon at 425°F.

Fifteen minutes later, a million dishes washed and countertops wiped in the meantime, you set the oven to 350°F. You shower. Remnants of flour spill down the drain. You spray your face with rose water, pat it with dry cotton, and seal it with cream. You dress your eyes with thin coats of brown mascara, your cheeks with faint red, similar to the skin of honeycrisps, your lips with a shimmering sheen. 

You dress in your Sunday’s best: a fitted, gingham blouse, lace truffles lining the short sleeves and long hem, kissing the line of a long, A-line white skirt. Sheer, white tights dress your legs. Waxed, Mary-Jane flats lift you slightly off the ground.

The house smells like sweet apples and the bite of cinnamon. Old, sweaty wood pinches past. It smells like your childhood, like solace. You’d lived in this same, little house all your life. Cracks and faint etchings lined the walls. You traced them on the way to the kitchen. They swirled in the way the pie scent did. 

“Bless!” You chimed as you pulled the pie out. It was perfect. All it was missing was a sprinkling of brown sugar and nutmeg. It’ll tender on the hot crust. It will be wonderfully sweet and warm. “The congregation will love it,” you mutter to yourself.

The ready dome welcomes the pie, and you seal it with the glass top.

Your packed satchel is slung over your shoulder, and you pick up the dish. It’s an awkward maneuver out of the door, but you finally muster it and creep onto the porch. Morning and night have just begun to melt into one another. The trees at the edge of the property line are shadowed onto the ground at your feet, the sun at attention behind it. The wind is cool as it blows, it spills a chill down your back. You smack your lips, looking back at the house. You would go back and grab a cardigan or shawl, but that setback may cost you your seat on the bus. You can’t afford to be late; you refuse to be late. Monsignor hates interruptions, sometimes, more than he seems to hate the Devil.

The dirt road takes ten minutes to walk, another five to the main road, and another three to the bus stop. Trees and jade shrubbery line the road. When you were younger, you and your mother used to weed the lines on dull weekends. Better to occupy yourself with something meaningful and productive, Tidy and protect the Lord’s green earth, she would say, earn your place in His kingdom.

You could have spent five years pruning the greenery, and it would still be ugly. Some things are just meant to be ugly. Your mother hated that. Ugly. She detested it.

You’ve fought tooth and nail to be the antithesis of ugly. A tidy, prideless young woman, delightful by nature and visage. Your shoes leave footprints in the dirt; they click with each step. Your skirt swings with each step. From behind, you look like a soft vision in red, a docile figure of desire. Like an apple hanging off these large trees.

The hunger of the woods has a suffocating permanence to it.

You turn your back to it, you’re unbeknownst to it. It’s a blissful ignorance, but it still simmers in your gut, telling you everything isn’t all right. You pay no mind to it, you stifle it. Your mother has always told you the Lord is the eyes at the back of your head, He protects you when the Devil lurks. Trust in Him.

Trust in Him, serve Him, oblige Him. All will be well by His good word.

▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬ ⋆ ☄︎

“Thank you so much for coming!” Your cheeks hurt from smiling. You shovel off a slice, packing it onto the small plate, wrapping it tenderly with apple-dotted paper. “Please enjoy; may the Lord bless you eternally.”

The woman slides you the roll of credits, a measly eight, but you sit on your mum. Stay grateful, and many blessings may come your way.

It is pitiful, though. The church has been dwindling in patronage and funds—not many people find themselves congregating in hick-county, let alone expending a single dime. Within the last ten months or so, the numbers have whittled down into just you, the young lady across the creek and her elderly parents, Monsignor and his wife and children, a local teacher, a legless veteran, and a drunkard widower. You only continue to go for your parents. They were—are—devotees. The world could be shattering toward a close, and you would find them in that church, on their knees in the pews, praising the Most High.

They’re dead now. A nasty plague swept around locally; crops, animals, people alike were marred into ghastly figures of themselves. Their skin hardened and rippled like bark, their bodies practically hollowed. Breaths sounded like shallowed whistles of the wind, and their voices crinkled like they were rapidly aging. Within days, their lungs shut down, their blood soured, their hearts stopped. They would die, eyes wide open, mouths open, like they were muttering their last words forever. 

Everyone said it was the work of the Devil. The Lord had forsaken you all and let the Devil ravage, free-reign carnage. Neighbors dropped like flies. Faith dwindled. No amount of prayer could make it stop. You prayed and prayed and prayed at your parents’ bedside until Monsignor peeled you away, quarantining you until your parents took their final, shallow breaths. You made it out. They couldn’t stop staring at you in death. Envying your life.

You honor them. The one who lived. 

Your life is now behind a table, smiling at passersby, muttering out greetings as they pretend not to see you. Swatting away flies from buzzing around a pie that’s grown cold. 

It’s boring; it’s unfulfilling. But they’d be proud of you. Supporting your community, doing what no one else will. You will make it to Heaven, they will all reap what they’ve sown come Judgment Day. If you keep telling yourself that, the smile on your face won’t hurt.

For the next half hour, that smile fails to falter. It’s practically graphed on your face. 

Your cheeks weaken; they feel warm and sore. Your jaw is tight, teeth grinding against each other. Your head is throbbing. Not a single slice of pie has been sold since, nothing to justify this torment. People walk right by you on the curb, they care not for what you're selling — you don't even care.

Sister Yen taps you on the shoulder. “Monsignor’s called it. It's time.”

“Oh,” you breathe, partly of relief. “Would you like a slice of pie? I wouldn't feel right about it going to waste.”

Sister just laughs softly, shaking her head, “I’m minding my figure. Gluttony plagues me.”

You laugh along with her. Not much is funny, though; you're quite upset. Other girls your age are having fun, making names for themselves, doing something with their passing days. You are giving yourself to a cause your heart is half in, that people don't even blink at. 

It's depressing. 

But your parents are looking down at you, and they're proud of your selflessness. They've raised such a fine girl. A girl who closes the dish tightly, gathering up utensils in the tray, “Shame,” you utter, “I’ll have to find a good use for some pie.”

“I can take it off your hands.”

You look up.

A young man stands at the other side of the table, tall and lean. And cute. Shaggy, dark curls fluff around his face, and his gaze cuts through thick, feathered bangs. It feels like the first breath of autumn: clear, cool, rejuvenating. He carries a small smile on his lips, a hand pressed on the table. “How much?”

“Huh?” You stumble. You weren't listening, even slightly.

A short, quiet laugh jumps from his throat. That feels like a blip of spring: breezy, sweet, comforting. “The pie. …How much are you selling it for?”

You've talked to boys before. Many. Neighborhood boys, schoolyard boys, church boys, all types of boys. They've made you nervous at times, welcomed at others, but it's never felt like this—like you've never spoken a word before, language and life far beyond foreign. 

Your hands pat the glass top, your lips rolling in and out into an awkward smile, “Eight credits a slice. How many do you want, sir?”

“Like I said, I’ll take it off your hands.” It's not mean. It’s barely even stern. He just tells you, softly; he reminds you. “The entire pie.”

“Wow!” You gleam. You practically shove the standing dish into his hands. “Thank you so much! I hope you enjoy it—may the Lord eternally bless you.”

He bows back at you, smiling. The stack of credits definitely equates to more than thirty-six, but you don't question it. It may not be even a fraction of Monsignor’s two-thousand-credit goal, but it’s double, almost triple what you've made the entire morning. It makes your labor worth it. The pain in your feet, the sweat on your skin, the ache in your maw, all of it finds meaning in that fat stack.

“To you, as well.”

Sister Yen packs up her table and you awkwardly follow suit. The young man doesn't leave; he lingers. You don't know what to say or do.

A beat of silence passes like a freight train. Long and moored, like a taunt. You give in. Your will is not all that strong. 

He’s not looking at you, but past you. Almost longingly at the rustic, vine-lined chapel. It’s weathered a thousand storms and bears the scars to prove it. 

Cherubs with cracks on their frames, chips out of their heads, stand on podiums at either side of the entrance. Dirty stained glass windows keep onlookers at bay. Who knows what he’s trying to see? Perhaps Sister Yen dragging her suitcase into the chapel is entertainment.

“Looking for something?” You ask, giggling to ease the tension. 

His eyes hesitate to pull back to you. “Is there another service today?”

You hum, unsure. “At times, Monsignor will deliver afternoon sermons. Usually, for special occasions. I can check, if you're especially curious.”

“I would appreciate that.”

You hesitantly leave him be. Your jar of money shines as the sun hits it. He doesn’t seem to be a thief, but you can’t help but to keep looking back at him. He waves smally each time you do. You wave back, it’s complimentary. 

Entering the chapel wraps you in goosebumps. It’s cold, it’s always cold in there. Dust settles from the ceiling. The shades have been drawn, and the candles have been blown out. Shadows crawl across the church, ignorant of the midday sun. It’s eerily quiet, but you still call. “Monsignor?”

Your voice echoes. He and Sister Yen must have used the back exit. You still take another step forward. You call out again, “Monsignor, have you gone?”

Echo. Silence. You purse your lips and turn on your heels. 

Right as you step, a back door creaks. The entire chapel is old, it often sings with every movement. You would never miss a thing. You know something is back there. Someone. Hopefully, Monsignor.

“Hello?”

You call out stupidly. You cringe at your doing so.

Nobody answers—save for the wind, that spins in the distance, and the door, that cries in response. You immediately go to imagining the worst. Something could have transpired as he was on his way out!

It’s stupid. You can’t help it. You tiptoe past the confessional, around the bend. The hallway is even darker. The relics and statues loom over you like they can see straight through you—your back is ramrod straight as you trek down the inky, quiet hall. You want to call out for Monsignor again, but your throat is dry. You rasp out a breath. 

The door to Monsignor Jing’s office was ajar. A breeze drafted past. 

“Sister Yen…?” You whisper. “Monsignor…? Are you—?”

Slam!

You’re not sure what the sound is. A closing of a book, a door, a nasty fall—whatever it is, it echoes from the front of the chapel. The breeze blows back: it recedes behind you, pushing the hairs on your skin up and backward. You linger for not a second longer.

You don’t run, but you scurry along, like you’ve a tail tucked between your legs. You spare looks over your shoulder, albeit stupidly, hoping to catch the source of your terror. Perhaps a cruel joke by Monsignor Jing’s mischievous children? Or, an ill-twist of fate– the Devil has infiltrated?

Air catches in your lungs, only to be knocked out of you when you collide with the man from earlier. He stands just at the entrance of the chapel, and his arms are ready to catch you. 

Could it have been him?...

You shake the thought. He meets your face with concern, and his touch is featherlight, almost hesitant. His hands cup your elbows, steadying you. “Are you alright?”

You’re…frazzled, to say the least. You look back over your shoulder once more, pushing your way out of the chapel with a deep sigh. “I’m…” you adjust your blouse, swipe your forehead, “fine. Thank you. I didn’t worry you, did I?”

“I only heard a noise, and you were taking a while.” He laughs almost boyishly. It clears the thunder drumming away in your chest. “I don’t know why I assumed the worst.”

“No worries,” you clear, “Monsignor Jing isn’t available. The chapel has been cleared out for the day. I hope that doesn’t dampen you too much.”

He shakes his head. “I was but only wondering. Just looking for someplace to bide my time.”

“Oh?” You perk up. You’ve never heard of a church being a place for someone to waste time in, but then again, that is what you do. You often fail to admit it to yourself, let alone another person. “Are you visiting, then?”

He shrugs, hesitance squiggles across his face. “I have business in the area.”

He doesn’t elaborate further. The conversation stagnates. You find yourselves right on the edge of the street, right at your pitiful table. Your money—the church’s money—hasn’t gone anywhere, at the very least. For that, you can be grateful, you can smile.

“Well, I won’t keep you any longer. I’m sure your work is calling for your attendance,” his small grin makes you smile wider. “On behalf of the church, you are welcomed to the next service. A new face would be wonderful to have around.”

“I just might.” He picks the long-forgotten pie dish off the table. He holds it to his chest. 

Just as he begins to walk off, you stop him—your hand on his arm keeps him from going. It was an instinctual movement, one that blooms heat in your cheeks as soon as you realize. You avert your gaze. You rock on your feet. But you keep smiling. A smile mends all.

“May I get your name?”

“My name is Dan Heng.”

His words carry off into the wind. His frame withers down into dark, unshakable lines, curvature significantly human, the atmosphere much greater than. Something potentially unheard of—unearthly. 

You take it as a good thing. There is nothing horrid about the prospect of new, of the future.

—------

He hasn't left your mind. Lord forgive you, but he’s almost like that damned plague: he’s latched onto your brain after one simple, mindless interaction, and is eating it alive.

In the quiet stillness of your home, your mind cannot stop running. 

People don't usually visit your town. It has been the same, ugly, dry little town forever. It’s stagnant. You’ve spent forever dreaming of something else—the prospect of freedom. Of fun. The future has stood on your doorstep and you’re scared to let it go. If you do, you just might never see it again.

Three days pass and you think the future has up and run off. Service is quiet, same as always. The Jing children doze off, then wake up and whisper-bicker over their father’s sermon. The legless veteran randomly bursts into tears, Sister Yen moves to console him. You all pray for his wellbeing, you praise the Lord for carrying him this far. The drunkard guzzles his bottle of bourbon indiscreetly. No one ever cares. It’s just the way things are.

You sit there, Bible perched on your lap, your hands atop it. You watch Monsignor Jing, you listen to him, you try to find comfort in his words. Maybe even reality. Something to hold on to, something to mend the unease that has wracked through you forever.

Monsignor ends the service early at eight-thirty. His wife is ill. The congregation goes quiet. The room goes still. Nobody will utter it, but your minds all circle in unison. The plague.

“The Devil may lurk, but he will not sink his claws into us,” Monsignor says, “our Father is protecting us.”

You are dismissed. Everyone starts to peel out. The children skip to their father. You linger. “Yanqing, Yunli— may I have a moment?”

They stop. You can tell they’re not interested. You don’t know why you bother to say anything. “I just wanted to say, your mother…all will be well. I wish her a speedy, amazing recovery. And you both, as well. Please, let your father hear my wishes as well.”

“Yeah, sure,” Yunli quips. She rolls the peppermint in her mouth from cheek to cheek. “Prayers didn’t work for you—”

“Yunli!” Yanqing punches her arm.

She grimaces at him. “Just saying. Thanks for your prayer. I’ll keep it in mind when we have to bury my mother in the same plot as everyone—”

“Yunli, come on!” Yanqing looks apologetically at you. But he doesn’t refute anything she says. He just pushes his sister away, up to their father’s beckoning arms. 

You watch, almost longingly. Your heart swells, but with pain. Your life sucks. You’re lonely and sad and miserable. Everything should change for you, but it won’t. You’re stunted by the ghosts of your parents.

The day is young. Perhaps you’ll indulge in soap opera’s and fatty snacks. Maybe occupy yourself with your kitchen, a pie, a cake, cookies, something. Something to keep you busy, to make everything feel normal.

But it’s not normal. It’s new.

Out of the door, you find him. Lined in that same buzzy frame of shadows. Hazy and mysterious. New. Enticing.

“Dan Heng?” You call out.

He stops, the door held open by his arm. The sun beams down and you miss the expression on his face when he turns to you. However, something in your chest is telling you that he’s smiling. He has a nice smile; you remember that fact.

“Hi there,”

You catch up to him. He lets you out of the door first. “Hi. You came.”

“I did,” he nods, “It took a few days though, my apologies.”

“No, no, it’s alright. Doesn’t matter to me. Did you enjoy it?”

He nods again, slower this time, a little more hesitant. “Definitely a new experience. Monsignor Jing is like none I’ve seen before.”

You give a dry, humorless laugh. “I won’t lie, he may be part of the reason newcomers don’t stick around.”

Dan Heng grins widely. “Never say never.”

The breeze ruffles through his hair. He stills to look at you. Like his eyes confirm to you that implication resting in your chest. It feels weird. Your smile turns nervous—you’ve never…met a boy in this way.

“Um,” your voice lingers. It’s hard to find the thing to say. Friends are sparse, casualness is forbidden. Better to be proper and prim than homely and uncouth, your mother would say. 

“Do you have plans?”

“Oh—”

“Sorry—”

“No, it’s fine,” you say, firmly. “I don’t…have much to do. Anything to do, really. I could use the company.”

“That’s great.”

—

Your house is always deathly quiet. Nature croaks around as the day matures. But there’s no life, not for miles. 

The world is sick with an innate loneliness. Darkness, quiet, it runs deep. Most people are lucky to never be acquainted with it—you are not one of those people. You’ve always known it. You’ve always seen what stands in the dark.

For the first time ever, you don’t want to coexist with it. You hesitate to let Dan Heng leave. He should. But you don’t want him to. You like his company—you like any company, period—and you fear the comedown from this high. 

“My ma always told me a little fib can go a long way,” you say, giggling, “but I was forbidden. My mouth had to stay pure.”

“Pure?”

You nod. “The pure live forever…” you’re twiddling your fingers now, you’re talking too much. You can’t help yourself. You’ve never had someone to talk to. “Maybe that’s why they’re dead.”

“They raised you. They couldn’t have been all bad.”

“They weren’t. But the older I get…”

“I get it,” his voice is full of sincerity. His eyes are, too. “Finding your identity when the past has already decided your future…I get it. You just..how much faith do you have?”

“In myself?”

“In your religion.”

You don’t know. You’ve never known. The parables that have lined your life are just stories. Ideas. Guidelines and restrictions to an entirely different world. You’re not allowed indulgences. You’re not allowed personality. You’re not allowed humanity. 

Every day is spent trying to be an angel. 

Dan Heng just looks at you. He doesn’t need you to respond. You can’t see it, you think you hide it well, but pain is all over your face. You’re suffering. He just smiles at you. 

“You’re a good girl. Everything will be okay for you.”

It flusters you. “That’s sweet.”

“It’s true,” he holds your hand tenderly, hesitantly. You let him. You move even closer. “So long as you do what’s true to you…and keep making those delicious pies.”

You laugh, palming your face shyly, “Ah, please! It’s just my nana’s recipe.”

“Mind if I borrow it? I’ve never had something quite like it.”

“Of course!” You grin.

You’d give him everything if he asked.

—----

“Oh—Dan Heng, you really didn’t have to!”

“I know, I know,” he grins, nodding, “It is your recipe, so I wanted to hear if I’d done it justice.”

“I’m sure you did.”

He just looks at you. That sweet, silly little knowing look. You giggle, but you say nothing else; your mother has taught you not to judge a book by its cover, or a man by his word. Actions say all.

You wave, “Alright, come on in. Let me judge this pie.”

“Ah, do spare me!” He winces. Then he chuckles. Over the past few days, you’ve really gotten used to that sound. Light and fair and simple. Cute. 

Dan Heng makes that familiar, quick trek to your kitchen, and you follow closely behind, lagging just to turn your locks and slot the chain. “Dunno if I can promise you that…”

Your kitchen is icy by the hand of a furious breeze. The wind rages outside. There’s been chatter of an onslaught of rain and turbulent winds. Some of your neighbors have taken that as another sign: doom is impending, the Devil is afoot, death returns to claim the survivors. A bunch of hysterical nonsense, you shut it out with a slam! 

The breeze is stifled. You seal its rage with a click, locking the window. You repeat twice, sighing. “I wasn’t expecting the storm so soon.”

Dan Heng nods, pulling a knife out of your block. It glints under the hanging light. A beat of thunder claps, the lights flicker. You both share spooked looks, laughing. 

He runs the knife under hot water, looking over his shoulder at you, “Good thing we have a sweet treat.”

“True,” you chime, pulling two porcelain plates from the cabinet. Dragons line the edges, their snouts meeting on either sides of a red heart. You trace the decoration with your thumb. Your father brought these presents back from a trip as an anniversary gift. Your mom only used them on special occasions. “And warm blankets…and The Jaded and the Wild. …Think we also have wine.”

“Wine? Wow,” Dan Heng chimes, wiping the knife dry. “Special occasion?”

You narrow your gaze, “It’s a rainstorm. A modest glass of wine is mandatory.”

Dan Heng slices precise, sharp triangles of pie. The crust crumbles and folds perfectly; the filling stands firm, but leaks honeyed tendrils as it's pulled. Fine sugar crystals glisten on the lattice. It’s almost pornographic—Lord, forgive you. It’s sin: lust and gluttony…

It’s laughable: you bounce with greedy, excited chuckles, racing to Dan Heng’s side. He masterfully delivers it to a plate with the knife solely, aided by near inhuman balance. 

“Wow,” you’re practically salivating, “I underestimated you. That looks..divine.”

“Thanks,” he flushes a soft, sheepish pink. He rolls his shoulders, preparing for the second delivery. 

You clap your hands excitedly when he lands it perfectly. You immediately rush to the drawer, pulling out two slender forks. Dan Heng catches the sight. He moves swiftly: taking both plates in his hands and meeting you just as you try to pass off the utensils. 

You quirk your head, softly, confusedly giggling. 

He mirrors you, just softly smiling. He holds your eye contact for what feels like a long second, then looks down at the forks. Then back up at you. “Real silver forks, too?”

“Gosh, no,” you laugh. That weird, almost uneasy moment pops like a bubble, and your cheeryness was a sharp needle. “Handles are ceramic, made by my mama. The actual prongs are fake silver, nickel, I think. The upkeep is mad, to keep them from tarnishing.”

Now, he softly chuckles, mirroring your casualness. “I’ll bet.”

The plates catch the forks in a seamless manner of movements, leaving you toward the back wall, where the shelf of wine glasses stands adjacent to the rack of cured, untouched bottles. “Pass me the corkscrew, please?” You ask, pulling the gold foil off the bottle. 

He switches the plates for the coiled screw, handing it off to you. Your fingers brush. You share soft, fluttery gazes. 

You clear your throat, jamming the screw into the thick stalk. “These wines are older than me, y’know?”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Mhm,” you hum, jumping at the pop. “My parents received them as wedding gifts, housewarming gifts, but they never indulged. It was never forbidden, but it made them feel better.”

“And you?” Dan Heng asks. You turn back briefly to look at him. He’s leaned against your counter, his sleeves having ridden up. Your breath catches for a moment. “How does it make you feel?”

You immediately turn away. You pour into the wide glasses, tracking the flow of thick, deep red. It’s sacred. The drink of sacrifice and victory. 

“It makes me feel good, too. I know I’m getting into Heaven, I’m a good woman, I don’t need to try so hard, y’know?” You set the bottle down. You pick up the glasses, raising one to your lips and the other to Dan Heng. “There’s nothing wrong with a little indulgence.”

Dan Heng raises his glass to that; you follow suit. He takes a sip, nodding, “This…this is a good choice.”

You laugh, coming to sweep your plate of pie. “A great substitute for ice cream. Has that, like, nutty-vanilla thing kind of going on.”

“Wait, let me try.” Dan Heng halts you, forking a bite of the pie. He bites it, chews it down, swallows, and immediately swigs from the glass. He takes a moment to ponder, almost cartoonishly, with his finger on his chin and his eyes to the ceiling. “Delicious,” he declares, softly, “A pale comparison to ice cream, though. But a worthy substitute, I suppose.”

“Thank you, Mr. Connoisseur Dan Heng, sir,” you chide, carrying off to the living room. 

The two of you curled up in the living room, and for the next forty-five minutes, ceased to move—save, for a few runs to refill on wine. But that soon stopped, for you began nursing the glasses, instead, fostering conversation over the long-forgotten television.

Dan Heng sits facing the television, relaxed and composed. You sit to his right, completely folded and curled to face him, spinning your wine glass over the back of the couch. The liquid pools from left to right, quietly sloshing. It is no match for your laughter and anecdotes.

You’re no drunk; you’re not accustomed to the fire alcohol births. But you’re familiar with it. This, what is engulfing your body, does not feel like that. 

The lights have dimmed. The storm is slowly withering your power away. The wind rages fervently, crashing against the windows and the roof and the sides of the house; the gusts are too aggressive to be held at bay and creep through the crevices. A draft whistles through, but it pales to combat the heat sweltering under your skin.

And it moves fast, aggressively. Within moments, you’re dripping in sweat. The wine glass slips from your hands and your head is starting to fuzz over.

Dan Heng calls your name, sitting up immediately and discarding his glass on the coffee table. Just beside your plates of pie: yours, completely ravaged, his, only half-eaten.

“Are you alright?” He asks, his hands wrapping around your biceps. He slightly shakes you, and a sickly smile pulls across your lips.

His touch feels like a run of cold, divine water in your scorching drought. Tingles surge where his fingertips press into your skin, and zip all through your body. The weight of his voice sits on your stomach, and it feels like a rabble of enraged butterflies awake. 

You have to keep yourself from moaning when you part your lips. Your mouth is dry. You gasp out, “You should go.”

“What?” Dan Heng asks, “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t…I don’ feel too good…” You slur. You want to lean into his touch, but your sense fights your instinct: you weakly push him away, struggling to your feet. “Go… ‘m..gonna lay down.”

Dan Heng ignores you. You barely get away, but he’s still stalks after you. His presence seems to loom over you. The lights flicker. His hand presses against the small of your back, and you instinctively curl into his touch, halting your escape. “Don’t…” you breathe out, but your body defies you. 

He practically pushes you to the ground, and your wobbly knees don’t object. The lights flicker. Dan Heng squats behind you, running that hand up your spine and around your neck, pulling you up. Your eyes meet amid the darkness; your eyes are practically pitch black, dwarfed by hungry, blown pupils. His seem to glow. A sanctity in his safe, pale blue eyes.

Your lips quiver. Your eyes water. You’re short of breath, practically panting. He can feel your heartbeat racing through your pulse. He thumbs the spot over, and you whimper. “Please,” your voice is broken, barely above a whisper, “help me.”

Your plea goes unanswered. He only leans closer, and you’re like a moth to a flame, innately drawn forward. His lips ghost against yours, and you press forward; you yearn to feel it.

The lights flicker. The wind outside seems to take a deep breath.

“Don’t fight it,” he says, pressing his fingers harsher into your neck. You gasp against his lips, your eyes fluttering shut. “Just let it happen.”

He kisses you.

His lips feel as soft as they’ve looked. You moan instantly. You’ve never kissed anyone, especially like this. Drool is basically pouring out of your mouth, all over his lips, down your chins. Your tongues find each other instantly, and his seems to be long, dexterous, forked. It wraps around yours, and you moan, feeling the taste being pulled out of your mouth. He guides you, smacking your lips together with obnoxious, wet sounds.

And then he stops. 

He pulls back from you. His lips are drenched with your spit. His eyes fight to open.

An image of sin. Lust.

You want to devour him.

He stops you, keeping your reaching hands at bay. He doesn’t say anything, but you obey. Obediently, properly, you hold yourself on all fours as he moves behind you. The sound of his knees knocking onto the ground sounds like a beat of thunder.

From behind, you look like an angel. A beheld vision in white, a docile figure of desire. Like a holy maiden, born for desecration.

The hunger of his eyes, his touch, has a suffocating permanence to it.

It never falters. Even as his nails, which seem to be sharper, drag up the backs of your thighs, pushing the skirt of your dress up your body. Even more so, as they force your legs apart, catching lines of thick, silky arousal. Soft pink panties, completely soaked through, ruined. You whine in embarrassment, trying to claw away, but his nails dig into your skin. They tell you to stop, without him ever having to utter a word.

His eyes revere you in the ways his hands won’t. His fingers hook under the seat of your panties, pulling the soiled fabric down, just under the curve of your butt. Palms press against your skin, fondling your as. You whimper again, but it catches in your throat when he suddenly rips them in half. 

Desecration. The pieces fall to the ground. 

They do not matter, not when he can freely pull your cheeks apart, glaring, carnal eyes finally feasting on your wet, untouched pussy. It shines like the north star. His carnality has found its direction; he dives in, true north.

The lights flicker. His hot breath fans over your heat.

You squirm. “Please,” you draw. Your mind wants to say stop, but your body wants to say take me. Your heart races; it feels like it’s aligned with your body. Dan Heng can hear the true nature of your being, the desires left dormant.

You need to be taken. To be released. To be tasted. 

Fingers pull your labia apart with a soft, wet clicking. Webs of arousal stretch across your cunt. He breaks them with his tongue: slotting between your warm, wet, soft folds, running a long, uncharted course against you. 

You breathe out an airless gasp—nothing, no one has ever touched you there. Not even yourself. Pleasure is indulgence, indulgence is sin. Your knuckles still bear remembrance of the beating they received for wrapping around a book that wasn’t the Lord’s word. Now, they scrape against the floor as you try to use your fists to keep yourself upright, but ultimately, end up slumping into a slope.

Thunder rings out again. Lightning zips through your body as that forked, inhumanly long tongue finds your clit, beating and pearly, begging for attention. The sensation is so foreign but so good, your entire body can’t help but jolt forward and shiver. 

Forked ends of his tongue move independently: one side goes up your bud, the other down, an extraordinary stroking pattern. It feels like every nerve in your body is being pressed. Your thighs shake, your hips lock and jump, shoving your butt into his face. His nose presses against your holes, and that is the first time he makes a sound: a deep, contented groan, like the Earth has just woken up.

The lights flicker. Wind pushes against your house harder. 

He spins his tongue back through your folds, just to pull back and circle your entrance. It feels slimy and inky as he pushes the tip of his tongue experimentally through your walls. You’re tight, untouched.

It was just an experimental push, a lick of you at your core. He needs to feel you at your core, but you’re not ready. So, his tongue is replaced with a finger, careful to keep his nails from ripping you apart.

That feels foreign. It feels like nothing, initially, just an unusual intrusion that soon settles down. Your cunt needs to be stretched. That slight burn, tingling sensation comes with the second finger, that fucks its way inside of you. His wrist rotates 180° back and forth, his arm pulling in and out as he fucks your pussy open. His fingers feel much thicker inside of you; the intrusion of the third pulls you wider. You moan, you cry, you hiccup over drool and cries losing themselves down your throat.

His other hand takes to your clit, and your orgasm follows in quick succession. It doesn’t take much for it to be egged out of you—lust has taken refuge in your body, and you are sanctified. Your girlhood is spilling down his fingers as he fucks your womanhood deep, finding the spot that makes you plead. 

Finger tips that feel like wood, languid knuckles that flex and rub like water. Your high is ridden out on his hand.

You collapse to the ground when he’s done. His fingers part from you and your body instinctively rolls onto your back, your legs folded on top of each other. 

You’re muttering to yourself. It gets louder as the silence persists.

“Father, forgive my transgressions. I have polluted your vessel, my mind has released itself of you, but my soul calls for forgiveness,” you ramble. Tears stream down your hot face. Your hands are clasped against your chest. “Please, amend my sinful actions and guide me down your path of glory. Allow my wretched spirit to repair itself in your just arms.”

Dan Heng sits forward. His hands pull your knees apart, pushing your dress back up your hips. Your body is compliant for him. But you still lay there, fervently praying to the blank sky.

“Please, God,” you meekly whimper, falling into a sob. Tears run down your face rapidly, aggressively. 

Your mouth is stuffed with Dan Heng’s fingers. Your cries are stifled around his digits. They press down on your tongue, they gag you into a full, snotty stop. 

The lights flicker. The wind howls. 

He has horns. Gilded curves sprouting from his scalp like a twisted, demented halo. A tail seems to have sprouted from his back end, ripping through the fabric of his pants and whisking around in the air. 

Your breath picks up around his fingers, but he shoves them further down your throat. Your hands wrap around his arm and his tail, much longer and dexterous than you’d anticipated, lock around your wrists. It’s so tight, you let go of him, and he, you.

“God can’t help you now.”

You whimper, your face scrunching up as more tears stream down your face. The fat, branch-like end of his tail replaces his fingers in your mouth. The taste from your cunt still lingers on your tongue. 

All of his clothes come off in one fell, ripping swoop. The destroyed fabric is shredded beneath you. 

He is pale, but full of life. Abdomen lined with soft, yet defined muscles, his sides carved out with teal scales that glow golden. All the way down his thighs, the scales go, just to where the bulbous, round tip of his cock sits. It fattens up as the fear in your gaze grows. 

The tail pulls from your mouth. The lights flicker.

You sputter, spit coughed up onto your face. The lights turn off. 

“Y-you’re the devil!” You accuse. “Oh, dear God…”

“No.” He stops your murmuring. He presses in between your legs, slotting his dick against your sex. “I’m your savior.”

Dan Heng, or whoever, whatever he is, pushes your legs back, his tail taking up the mantle of holding them at bay. His hands guide his cock right into your spoiled pussy, unforgiving of your cries. 

The stretch is vicious, much greater than his three fingers. And his cock is heavy, you feel it as it inches deeper and deeper, buffing your pelvis up in his shape. Extremities rest on your tongue and you fight your damndest not to say them. You just call out for God, initially asking for his aid, but soon, as a formality—any other word is too hard for you to say.

Your tongue feels like a foreign, useless entity in your mouth. It doesn’t work. You’re slurring the name of your Lord as Dan Heng fucks into you brutally, breaking you in like a battering ram. In and out, in and out, slap, slap, slap, at a moderate pace where he can find your depths and let you breathe all the same.

Fog populates your head; sweltering heat splashes you over like a baptism and you no longer have any humanity, any righteousness. Only pleasure. Only ecstasy. Only sin pumping in your veins, turning your cries of shame and damnation into those of pleasure. 

It feels better than good, better than great, better than amazing. It feels like he’s reaching your soul, fucking it into the shape of debauched perfection. Your eyes squint and cross and roll; your mouth moves over the ghosts of words, only hung open over pornographic, blissful moans.

There’s nothing in your head, nothing telling you wrong or right, sin or holy. You’re stupefied by the feeling of fat cock stretching you wide, kissing your G-spot again and again and again. That bubble in your gut is prodded again and again and again, rougher, more fervent each time. Your pussy latches onto him, and he finally lets out a long, guttural moan.

Virgin, warm pussy is the true Heaven. His presence inside of you is all wrong, but it feels so very right, and all he aims to do is to take his claim on your untouched body and save you from the bonds of righteous evil. You like it. You cry out like a weeping banshee because you like it.

His tail lets your legs fall against his shoulders as he pushes forward, leaning against you. His hips move like undisturbed water: languid and long and smooth, driving his cock to nuzzle against your cervix. Your eyes blow wide and you scream, your voice ripping against your throat. 

His nose butts against your neck, his teeth dragging over your skin. He bites you as he thrusts in, that scream of yours crafted out of pure pain and pleasure. The bite is so deep, blood splashes against his teeth and spills out of your shoulder. 

It hurts like fuck but the mind-numbing feeling of your orgasm rushing out of you amends all of that. He bites you on the other side as you cum, groaning into your wound. Your cunt constricts around him like it's milking him, urging those heavy balls that beat against your ass to empty deep inside of you.

Oh, fuck, that look in your eyes, all teary and heavy and lost. Not a thought in your head except for your true, base nature to be fucked and pleasured and bred full. 

Fuck it.

You cum, he cums in succession, gutturally growling. He’s almost like a beast. You’re like an animal. You grab at him and he sweeps you up, holding you at your hips like you’re nothing, fucking further into you.

“Please, Dan Heng,” you slur. It’s terribly spoken, completely meek, downright delectable. He licks the sweat rivulets off your cheek, and you wince. “Please, I beg of you,”

“Pray,” he grunts, “Pray to your savior.”

“I give to thee my mind, body, and spirit!” You say, mindlessly. Like it’s second nature to you. Submission, faith, praise, the things you were born to do. Not for your false, irresponsible God, but for him, “My savior—keep..going.”

You’re being pulled up and down his length. He’s ripping you apart, storming toward your guts and moving them aside for him. Your clit buzzes with pleasure, your body singes in heat. “Claim me, savior, ruin me! Fuckme, fuck–ing, shit, fuck—!”

“Careful,” he says gently, though his tone carries its usual edge of amused reprimand. “The market is not an obstacle course.”

“I wasn’t trying to—!” Agott huffs, cheeks pink. “They just stopped suddenly!”

“I stopped because you ran,” Coco adds, half exasperated, half delighted, her eyes already darting toward a stall selling ribbons dyed every color imaginable. “Teacher Qifrey said not to get separated!”

Tetia nods vigorously beside her, clutching the strap of her bag with both hands. “It’s so crowded… but also so fun!”

You smile at them, the expression coming easily. It’s rare to see all of them like this—relaxed, buzzing with curiosity instead of tension or fear. Market days are one of Qifrey’s few indulgences for his students, framed as “practical observation of everyday magic,” but really… it’s just a day to be kids.

Qifrey straightens, then glances toward you.

“Shall we proceed?” he asks, offering a hand in your direction—more habit than necessity, but you take it anyway.

His hand is warm. Always is.

You fall into step beside him as the group moves forward, the students fanning out just enough to look at everything while still staying close. Stalls stretch endlessly ahead: jars of glowing ink, bundles of herbs tied with twine, enchanted brooms leaning lazily against walls, pastries dusted with sugar that sparkle faintly under the sun.

Coco gasps every few steps.

“Look at that quill!”

“That bread is floating—!”

“Is that a charm for faster knitting?!”

Qifrey answers questions as they come, patient and attentive, but you can feel the shift in him today. He’s… lighter. Less guarded. The rigid line that often defines his posture softens as he walks beside you, shoulders easing, steps unhurried.

At one stall, Tetia tugs gently on your sleeve.

“Um—can I show you something?”

You lean down as she points to a tiny glass orb filled with swirling light. “It’s beautiful,” you say honestly. “It looks like a captured sunset.”

Her eyes light up. “That’s what I thought too!”

Qifrey watches the exchange, lips curving faintly.

For a while, everything is perfect.

Then it happens.

You’re stopped near a fruit stand—Agott arguing (politely, for once) with the vendor about the authenticity of a charm carved into the scale—when a woman nearby laughs softly.

“Oh,” she says, nudging the man beside her. “Look at them.”

You glance up, confused, just in time to hear her add warmly:

“What a lovely family.”

The words settle into the air like pollen.

Your brain catches up immediately.

Qifrey’s… does not.

You feel it through his hand before you even look at him—the sudden tension, the minute tightening of his grip. He stiffens, posture snapping back into that familiar, composed line, as if bracing for impact.

“P-pardon?” he says, polite smile strained just a fraction too tight.

The woman gestures vaguely toward the students, who are now clustered together, comparing fruit sizes with great seriousness.

“Your children,” she says. “They’re so well-behaved. You must be very proud.”

There’s a beat.

Then two.

You feel Qifrey freeze completely.

Oh.

Oh.

You bite back a laugh—not unkind, just… fond.

Before Qifrey can respond (or combust), you gently squeeze his hand and step forward, offering the woman an easy smile.

“Thank you,” you say lightly. “They’re a handful, but they mean well.”

The woman beams, satisfied, and turns back to her shopping as if she hasn’t just dropped a social spell of unprecedented power.

The moment she’s gone, Qifrey leans toward you, voice low and flustered.

“Y-you didn’t have to—!”

“It’s fine,” you murmur back, still smiling. “Really. It’s an honest mistake.”

He opens his mouth, closes it, adjusts his hat.

“…I see.”

His ears are pink.

The students, oblivious, continue their debate.

“Teacher Qifrey,” Coco says suddenly, “can we get these? They’re only a little enchanted!”

Qifrey clears his throat. “We’ll discuss it.”

Agott narrows her eyes. “You’re acting weird.”

“I am not.”

“You are.”

You step in before that turns into something else. “How about we find lunch first?”

That settles it. Food always does.

You walk on, the market swallowing you up again—but something has shifted. Qifrey is quieter now, thoughtful in a way that pulls his gaze inward. His hand remains in yours, though, and he doesn’t let go.

Not once.

Lunch is eaten on the edge of a fountain, the students sprawled around with bread and fruit and far too much energy. Coco chatters about spell theory, Tetia shares bites of pastry, Agott pretends not to enjoy herself but absolutely does.

Qifrey watches them with a softness he rarely allows himself.

You watch him.

Eventually, he stands. “I’ll… be right back,” he says. “There’s something I need to check.”

You know better. It’s an escape, not an errand.

“I’ll come with you,” you say, rising smoothly.

He pauses, then nods.

You leave the students under Coco’s very earnest supervision and slip away down a quieter side street. The noise of the market fades to a hum, replaced by the soft creak of wooden signs and the distant call of gulls.

For a moment, neither of you speaks.

Then Qifrey exhales.

“…I apologize,” he says suddenly.

You blink. “For what?”

“For being… unsettled earlier.” He adjusts his gloves, fingers precise but restless. “I should have corrected that woman.”

You tilt your head. “Did you want to?”

He stops walking.

Sunlight filters through the awnings above, painting his mask in soft gold. When he turns to face you, his expression is unusually open—unguarded.

“I was caught off guard,” he admits quietly. “The implication was… unexpected.”

You smile gently. “It happens. People assume things.”

“Yes,” he says. “They do.”

There’s something else there. You can feel it, hovering between you like a spell not yet drawn.

You wait.

Qifrey hesitates, then sighs—long and honest.

“…I did not dislike it.”

Your heart stutters.

He meets your gaze fully now, voice low but steady.

“The idea, I mean. Being seen that way. With you.” A pause. “As something… shared.”

The market breeze carries the scent of apples and ink and warm bread.

You swallow. “Qifrey—”

“I know it’s foolish,” he continues, quickly now, as if afraid to lose momentum. “And inappropriate, and I would never allow such assumptions to affect the students, but—”

You reach out, fingers brushing his sleeve.

“Hey,” you say softly. “It wasn’t foolish.”

He stills at your touch.

You smile, small and sincere. “If anything, it was kind of sweet.”

His breath catches.

“…Sweet?”

“Yeah.” You chuckle. “I figured brushing it off was easier than making it a whole thing. They didn’t mean anything by it.”

Qifrey studies you, searching your face.

“And… if they had?” he asks quietly.

You hold his gaze, steady.

“Then I guess I wouldn’t mind either.”

The silence that follows is full—not empty.

Qifrey’s shoulders relax, tension draining from him like a released enchantment. When he smiles, it’s soft, genuine, and just a little shy.

“…If that title meant being together with you,” he says, barely above a whisper, “I believe I would welcome it.”

Your chest warms.

You don’t rush it. You don’t need to.

You just step closer, resting your forehead lightly against his mask, laughter and market noise distant and irrelevant.

“Well,” you murmur, “we’d better get back before the kids adopt a goat or something.”

He laughs—quiet, real.

“Yes,” he says. “Let’s.”

And together, you turn back toward the sound of your very not-children waiting for you.

He does not notice them at first. The path is narrow, the terraces crowded with green growth, and his attention is momentarily occupied with locating the correct house of the elderly widow he has come to visit on behalf of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor. He steps forward—there is a soft, devastating crunch beneath his shoe—and he stops. Slowly, he looks down. A small green sprout lies bent sideways in the dirt. He moves his foot, and there is another crushed stem.

He blinks once. Then twice. “…Oh dear.”

“You have got to be kidding me.”

There is a voice that comes from behind him, and Morax turns. You stand just a few steps away, staring at him in horror as though you have just witnessed a murder in its cold-blooded glory. (Perhaps murder is not far from the truth, of course—the plants are surely dead now.)

Your gaze drops to the ground. Then back up to him. Then back to the ground again. “You stepped on my jueyun chilis,” you say flatly.

Morax follows your gaze again, taking in the small row of plants he has apparently trampled with great efficiency.

“Ah, yes,” he says after a moment, looking only slightly apologetic. “It would appear that I have—my apologies for my carelessness.”

“These were only just sprouting,” you cry, crouching down to inspect the damage. “Now I’ll have to restart these sprouts,” you look up at him, utterly unimpressed.

“My apologies,” Morax says sincerely. “That was not my intention.”

You stand, brushing dirt off your hands, and look him up and down. Morax watches your eyes as they assess him properly—he can practically see the way you pick apart his appearance right before his eyes as you make your deductions. (He is dressed far too nicely to be a farmer or a villager. Too clean. Too proper. He can see it written plainly all over your face that you have already figured he is from the more urban parts of Liyue.)

“You’re not from here,” you say. “Liyue Harbor?”

“That is correct.”

“I can tell.”

He inclines his head slightly. “I am here on behalf of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor.”

Your expression shifts immediately.  “Oh.” The irritation does not disappear entirely, but it softens. Dare he say, your expression even saddens some. “You’re here for Madam Lu, then. For her late husband,” you say.

“Yes.”

“She’s been expecting someone.”

Morax nods as he explains, “I’ve come to discuss the funeral services she seeks. However,” he adds, glancing down at the damaged plants again, “I appear to have caused some trouble before arriving.”

You cross your arms at that. “Yes. You did.”

“I will compensate you for the loss,” Morax offers.

Your brows lift slightly, unimpressed—you are deeply, wholly, entirely unimpressed by him. It is a fascinating change of pace. Morax (or, perhaps sooner or later, he will have to grow more used to Zhongli) is not someone people look at so disdainfully. So dismissively. So irritably. The only individuals who have ever cast a look at him in such a manner are foes long fallen, long since taught the power of the Geo Archon and slain for daring to stand against him in battle.

“Do you think you can simply just pay for the damages you have caused to my agriculture?” you huff at him.

He hums, nodding as he says, “If that is what is required of me, I certainly can.”

You study him for a long moment, then snort softly. “You really are from the Harbor.”

“I take it that is obvious.”

“Painfully.” Then, you look down at the plants again and sigh. “Well, they’re not all dead,” you say. “You only destroyed…several. Not everything.”

“I am relieved to hear the damage is not total.”

You give him yet another look. “You’re very calm for someone who just committed agricultural sabotage to a small, humble villager’s plants.”

“I find panic rarely improves a situation,” he says honestly. 

You stare at him for a second longer. Then, much to his surprise, you laugh. He blinks, slightly taken aback. (Where goes all your agitation from just a few moments prior, he wonders.)

“You’re rather strange,” you tell him. 

“Am I?” he asks, slightly amused. 

You crouch again and gently press some soil back around one of the bent sprouts, trying to prop them upright. “Yes—quite strange indeed. You said you’re from the funeral parlor?” you ask.

“Yes. I am here to help Madam Lu arrange her husband’s funeral.”

Your hands slow slightly at that. “Right,” you say quietly. That sad look is back on your expression. You must have known him, Morax surmises—though, of course, that would not be all too surprising. Qingce Village is a small place, after all. “Master Lu was a good man. He passed last week. His wife is not taking the news well.”

“Yes, so I’ve heard,” Morax replies evenly. “That is why I have come in person. Aside from the fact that she is grieving, it would be difficult for her to travel to Liyue Harbor at such an old age.”

Your gaze softens at his words—something…rather grateful seems to replace the earlier traces of resentment as you look up at him.  “That was kind of you.”

“It is only part of my duties at the parlor. Nothing worthy of praise.”

You stand again and wipe your hands on your skirt. For a moment, Morax locks his eyes with yours—they are rather easy to get lost in, he thinks to himself. Time is preserved so simply when he is looking into them, so effortlessly that he almost feels the eroded fragments of his soul settle down and rest. (This is all he has ever hoped to have for quite some time—just the chance to simply rest his old, eroding soul and enjoy something outside of the divine. How frightening that it is as simple as looking into the eyes of a village girl.)

“Well,” you say, gesturing up the path, “whether you can complete your duties to be worthy of praise or not, we will never know if you insist on going the wrong way, Mister…”

Morax, he itches to say. Instead, he smiles politely, says “Zhongli,” and introduces himself before continuing, “and I had suspected as much.”

You answer him by murmuring your name. It’s a beautiful name, he decides as he tests it on his tongue—as is everything else about you. Your smile, and the simple way you are dressed under the gold cast of light the sun coats you in, are easily the most breathtaking parts of Qingce village. Despite the lush patches of grass and the soft petals of glaze lilies in the distance, Morax finds he cares little for the sights of the village when you are in his line of vision.

“You’re heading toward the terraces,” you tell him. “Madam Lu’s house is in the other direction.”

“I see.”

You start walking off, and he stands there, partly stunned and partly not. Something about you makes it so that he is not entirely shocked by the abrupt way you saunter away, but he finds that being kept on his toes is not all that terrible. Especially not if he gets to watch you walk away, either—you are not a poor sight from behind, that is for certain. Then, just a moment later, you glance back at him.

“Come on, you fancy old harbor man. I’ll take you there before you destroy anything else.”

Morax huffs a small, amused laugh. Harbor man. When was the last time someone addressed him so casually? So carefree? His memory fades to long, distant times. Times he does not forget, of course, but times that are long enough into the past that he cannot help but lose his grasp on what it feels like to enjoy his days the way he once did. 

“I appreciate your assistance.”

“You can repay me by not stepping on any more plants,” you wave a hand off dismissively. 

“I will make every effort.”

He walks in silence alongside you for a few moments through the village. He eyes the terraces and takes in the breathtaking view of such simplistic beauty. The waters are clear, and the petals of the blooming flowers are wide as they face the sun like open arms. It has been a long time since Morax has come to this village—a long, long time, indeed. The last he remembers of this place is the great battle he’d fought before that wretched serpent god had fallen. They seem to be doing fine, he notes in satisfaction. Of course, that is not a surprise to him—he would surely hear about it, perhaps even make an appearance himself, had they not. 

But the villagers of this small, peaceful patch of land are doing well. And Morax is faced with the haunting proof that he has done his duties once again. Quite exceptionally, too—exceptionally enough that he wonders if he truly has any duties left for much longer. 

It’s not long before you glance sideways at him. “So…do you do this often?”

“Do what?” He hums. 

“Travel all the way out here to help people arrange funerals,” you say as you lead him over a small, wooden bridge. He is mindful not to trample a stem of jueyun chilis that grow along a patch of grass on his way. 

“Yes,” he nods, “if the director asks it of me, I tend to travel to clients.”

“That sounds…like a rather depressing job. It must suck the excitement out of the travels when you are working so closely with the dead.”

“On the contrary,” Morax says calmly, “I work with those still living. Funerals are for the living, not the dead.”

You glance at him with a slight scoff. “That is a very funeral-parlor thing to say.”

“I imagine it is,” he chuckles, “but it is true nonetheless.”

You walk a little farther before suddenly saying, “You know, you talk like an old man.”

Morax does not react immediately. He’s certainly heard that phrase before—how many times has he been called old? It’s…not exactly false, if he were to be technical about his age. “…Do I?” he asks. 

“Yes,” you snort, eyeing him in amusement. “Very philosophical. You sound like you’ve been alive far longer than you look.”

“I assure you that is not the case,” is all he says. If only you knew. 

“Mm,” you say skeptically. “I don’t believe you.”

He almost smiles.

Morax, as he follows you, reaches a small house near the edge of the village. Smoke curls faintly from the chimney, and the grass is perfectly trimmed with glaze lilies neatly sprouting along a line beneath the front window of the house. You eye them for a moment before sighing as you murmur, “The old woman hasn’t been watering them again—it can only be expected.”

Morax says nothing. He’s an observant person at his core—he has not reigned over Liyue for a short period of time, and that reign of power did not come to him overnight. Such is his nature as a god, as an adepti, as a warrior, to be observant. It’s easy to see that this old couple—this old widow, now—means something to you. That alone would not be a shock. Qingce village is a small place, and it would not be hard to piece together that a small village and its people are well-connected. 

But the grief on your face, coupled still with that familiar, fond expression as you sigh over the neglected flowers, suggests that there is more to your relationship with Madam Lu (and by extension, her late husband) than the average villager. Morax almost wants to pry, but if there is anything that being a funeral parlor associate—and, of course, a god who has seen many battles—has taught him, it’s to never pry when the grieving grieve.  

“That’s Madam Lu’s house,” you gesture at the door, “she’s home, so you should be able to take care of business rather swiftly.”

“Thank you,” he says. He pauses, then adds, “And again, I apologize for your plants.”

You roll your eyes as you wave a hand dismissively. “You should be. But, I suppose they’ll survive. Well—probably.”

“I am most hopeful that they do,” he nods. 

Morax watches as you start to turn away, walk to the flowers and inspect the slightly dry soil beneath them, and reach for the watering can abandoned at the side with a sigh. 

“You know,” you say, glancing back at him, “you’re not what I expected for someone from a funeral parlor.”

“In what way?” he raises a brow. 

“I don’t know,” you shrug. “I thought you would be gloomy. Or cold. Maybe a little creepy.”

“I see,” he smiles in amusement, “I would hope I am none of those things, lest director Hu receives complaints.”

“Hurt no more of my chilis, and I will allow you to leave Qingce village with no complaints, harbor man.” You grab the watering can and start walking away towards a well in the distance.  Then, you pause and call over your shoulder: “Do try not to get lost on your way out—I cannot escort you every time.”

“I will try my hardest,” Morax hums. He watches you go for a moment before turning toward the house.

────────────────────────

You end up seeing plenty of the harbor man for the next few weeks to come as you help plan Master Lu’s parting. 

Master Lu was a well-respected man in the village, and his doting wife strives for nothing less than a proper tribute for his send-off. Qingce village is a simple place. The people here lead plain, straightforward lives—most are those who seek something quiet and easy after retiring. They are people who have aged and feel the tug and pops of their aching muscles and bones. They are people who know that life is something to cherish before it is easily taken from you, before you are ready. 

As such, funerals are done properly. There are traditions to honor, respect to pay, and well wishes to part the dead with before they are off to the afterlife. 

You don’t know what is waiting for you in the afterlife—nor do you even really know if you believe in one at all, but you do know you cherished Master Lu. He took you in, after all, when you were nothing but a young child—too much of a responsibility for your adepti father, who had enough as is to do, evidently. And too much of a burden for your mortal mother, who could not bear the so-called injustice of having a non-human lover and child. 

So, following the abandonment of your parents—two different reasons for the same betrayal—you end up dumped in Qingce village because that is where it is safest to abandon young children, apparently. And that is where Master Lu, alongside many others in the village, finds you, at your tender age of ten, with your helpless, bitter distrust of adults around you. Slowly, but surely, he is but one of the many who rebuilds your image of the world you are surrounded by, much like he rebuilds practically anything with those adept, carpenter hands of his.

Your first bed, and the swingset in the grass that you played on, and that little bench where you’d sit and watch Madam Lu water her crops in the distance. He had built them all for you with his own callused hands, much like he’d built that easy trust that mended your wounded child-heart. 

And now Master Lu is gone. But he has helped build you a stable enough, sturdy enough foundation that even without his cunning smile and his crinkled eyes, you trust the world around you despite it all. And you trust that funeral consultant, too—clumsy as he may be around your precious plants. 

“Madam Lu tells me you have arranged for a florist to bring flowers from Liyue Harbor,” you hum, walking with him through the terraces. 

He nods, inspecting a glaze lily. “Yes, but there will be glaze lilies supplied by the village itself—we do not often see glaze lilies bloom like this in Liyue Harbor. Not so naturally, that is. They are artificially sprouted by modifications, but they lack the same fragrance.”

“Qingce village didn’t always have glaze lilies as full as these,” you say proudly, “it was only after I came to the village that they grew so fresh and full—it brought Madam Lu lots of business, you know. No one seems to be able to tend to them the same way as I, no matter the effort.”

“I see,” Zhongli says thoughtfully. Almost like he sees through you. 

You quickly change the subject—you wouldn’t want him to realize you aren’t human quite yet. (Not that it’s a dark secret that you keep, of course. But you find mortals tend to feel more at ease around you when they believe you, too, are yet another mortal.)

“Have you trampled any more chilis on your way here?” you huff, “don’t even consider lying because I will find out in due time. I will be deducting the damages from our final bill, you know.”

“I assure you all of your chilis are fine,” he chuckles, “and I have already informed director Hu of the discount you will be afforded for my mistake.”

“I hope your position is still intact,” you tease. “I’d hate for your livelihood to be at stake for such a simple mistake.”

“Well,” he smiles with what you can only describe as a bit of a devious grin, even despite how proper and polite he holds himself, “it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve cost the funeral parlor a mora or two. Such is the risk of running a business—some losses are to be expected.”

At the start, Zhongli left immediately after his weekly visits with Madam Lu to plan the funeral services. Master Lu has already been buried, of course, but the funeral itself won’t be held until the following month to ensure that all the proper traditions are seen through. But, well…Madam Lu is a lonely woman, and Zhongli is good at conversing with the elderly. Almost too good. She has grown rather fond of his presence, and you think that Zhongli is equally as fond of her cooking as he is shirking off his duties for a bit, so he puts up little argument when she asks him to stay for lunch. 

And that is how you end up entertaining him for the time it takes for her to cook her meals. 

Couldn’t you cook your meals ahead of time, you’d asked the old, nagging woman, it’s not as though you don’t have the time to spare.

And how often do you see such a handsome, young face in this village, she’d tutted, giving you a disapproving look, I have to stall for time somehow, so you can charm him. He is a fine man, you stubborn child—make sure you waste no opportunities. I want grandchildren.

You’re already an old granny, you’d huffed, fighting back the flustered look that threatened to make itself apparent on your face. 

That damned old lady and her damned need to meddle where she didn’t have any place meddling. But you suppose that is why you grew up the way you had—so loved and well looked after, despite being practically an orphan in function. And you suppose that Zhongli of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor is not…the worst candidate for a man, should you choose to settle down. 

Not that you would choose. 

Your life span is too long for that of a mortal lover, and adepti are difficult enough to come by as it is. Never mind the fact that they are likely all too old to settle for someone like you—you are still a young lady in mortal years. Surely, if a strong, capable adepti man were looking to settle down, he would spare little time with someone like you who does nothing more than tend to crops with your days. 

You have never dreamed of settling down and loving a man—not when mortals such as your mother can see the true curse that it is to fall in love with a long-lived being such as yourself. Mortal men, especially gentlemanly, smooth-talking, and granny-pleasing funeral consultant mortal men from Liyue Harbor of all places, would waste little time with you. 

But you shake the thought off as you turn to look at the old lady’s house in the distance, and see her waving by her front door to indicate that lunch is ready. You nod before turning to Zhongli to bring him along with you—

—and the world is suddenly shifting. Why is it shifting? Why does it feel like gravity is no longer keeping you firmly cemented in an upright position on the ground, and why does it feel like air is rushing past you all too fast? Surely…surely you couldn’t be falling?

Except you are. If your poor luck as a half-mortal, half-immortal being wasn’t enough to deter you from charming a man, your clumsiness sure is. And you had the gall to call him clumsy, you think. Not…not that you care to charm him of all people anyway because…well, because why would you? You do not. 

But if you were to care, well then. This would be your sign to swiftly put those dreams behind you. It’s a good thing you never cared for such silly fantasies anyway. 

But, just as quickly as you are falling over the edge of a terrace and onto the ground a hefty distance away, the earth beneath you is shifting. It shakes and rumbles, and then it lifts so that soft soil reaches your back faster than heavy impact can. It isn't long before you are carefully raised to the terrace once more, where Zhongli is waiting for you with a polite, respectful hand outstretched just close enough that you don’t have to stretch to reach it, but just far enough that it doesn’t impose on your personal space, giving you the option to decline it. 

You take it. Because you are shaken, and not because you would like to hold his hand, of course. And he gently pulls you, where he steadies you easily as you shake on your wobbly legs when they take your weight. 

“What…” You furrow your brows, confused. Dazed. Still a little shaken. 

“You slipped on some of the wet soil,” he says calmly, “and lost your balance over the edge. I caught you using Geo.”

“Geo?” You furrow your brows deeper.

“My vision,” he explains simply, “I made a construct to catch you.”

“Well, thank you,” you nod slowly. 

Geo…you think to yourself. Undoubtedly, his power certainly was Geo. But…but you have felt the sensation of Geo around you before from a vision wielder, and…this power is different. More powerful? No—more concentrated. Like it is the source of Geo itself. Like it is where it all stems from, with how fierce and deep the energy runs through it. You know little of your lineage or of how the elements work, but you know that for a vision wielder, he seems abnormally strong. Almost…almost like his power is not that of a vision at all. Almost like he is the power—he and he alone. 

And then you blink, eyeing him suspiciously. 

“When did you get your vision?” you ask, hoping to sound casual. 

He hums, looking at you. And there it is again—that look. Like he sees right through you. “Perhaps I will tell you in due time,” he chuckles, still holding your hand as he pulls you alongside his steps forward. “Come, Madam Lu is waiting.”

He is not human, you think—no, you know. And for a short, brittle, fleeting moment, you dare to hope that perhaps Zhongli of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor is not a mortal, and that he might have enough time to spare in this life to waste it with you. 

────────────────────────

Morax values those who follow traditions closely. It is sacred and ancient, the culture of Liyue. And Liyue is a richly cultured nation, indeed. Qingce Village, he is pleasantly surprised to find, pays its respect to the dead properly and does the culture of this nation justice.

You are standing in front of Master Lu’s grave, holding your offering with trembling fingers as he watches in the distance.

“You don’t have to worry about the old lady,” you mumble, voice oddly shaky. Morax never hears your voice shake—you are always so sure of yourself and what you say, so at peace with your existence and the way that your life is. But you are so different now, faced with grief.

For a while, you almost didn’t seem to be grieving at all. You spoke so easily to him—so casual and at times, playful with banter. All that really hinted that this passing was a tragedy to you was just a small, sad smile when you’d think about or mention the late Master Lu and his lonely, widowed wife. Just a tiny, long look like you’d been parted from an old friend rather than lost a dear loved one. 

Morax has seen loss and the many different shades it comes in. It’s a devastating color—it washes out all of the other colors that paint life. But you seemed almost like this passing was just any other passing in the everyday world. Just a natural occurrence that you couldn’t help. You’d been strong when Madam Lu couldn’t—spoke with a strong, steady voice as you continued the discussion on the services when the poor old lady broke down in sobs or simply couldn’t bring herself to speak at all. 

For a while, Morax almost wondered if you were grieving at all. If you were simply at peace with an inevitable goodbye.

But he sees your grief now—here, as you are kneeling on soft yet cold soil, clinging to your offering like it’s the last piece of Master Lu you will ever have. 

“I’ll watch over her. Her and those flowers she doesn’t water anymore—that old granny. Always insisting she isn’t aging,” you scoff—fond, exasperated, sad. “It’s like she doesn’t look in a mirror at all. Doesn’t see the way her skin is sagging more and more. It's like she thinks she’s immortal or something—can you believe it? You’d think losing her… her husband would make her take a look at herself for a second and worry about her own health, but she’s still… still that same old meddling old woman. But I’m going to… t-to take care of her—the stubborn old thing. Don’t you worry.”

Your voice breaks off into a quiet sob as you press a small wooden box into the soil before covering it carefully with dirt to keep it buried in place. It’s worn—Morax had only gotten a small glimpse of it as he’d walked with you to the grave. As the overseer of this funeral, it’s his duty to make sure the offerings made to the deceased are appropriate and respectful, to keep the dignity of those who have passed on intact.

He hadn’t asked you what the box meant to you, nor what was in it, but the way you clutched onto it so tightly, so desperately, could only mean that it was important.

“That old lady keeps talking about joining you soon,” you sniffle, rubbing your chin free of the tears that have collected there. “Says you’ll get lonely over there, dead all by yourself. She’s not alone, even if you’re not here—she has me. And Madam Yundan. And Master Hanfeng is still eyeing her, too—too bad you’ve gone ahead and died and can’t keep an eye out for his advances anymore, you fool. He’d still try to match me with that son of his at Liyue Harbor if he could, I bet. But the old lady needs me here, yeah? So I have to stay. And I need her, so you’ll just have to wait over there for a while before anyone joins you. You…you’re the one who left after all, so that’s on you. You old man.”

You sniff again, quieter this time, and brush some loose dirt from the top of the grave, patting it flat with absent care, like you’re smoothing down a blanket.

“Don’t go wandering off too far, alright?” you mutter. “If there’s an afterlife, you'd better stay where she can find you when she gets there. Don’t go gambling, or go drinking, and don’t go getting into trouble like you always did. You always did say she kept you in line, so you’d better behave until she gets there to do it properly again.”

You let out a small, shaky laugh that turns into something breathier, something that almost sounds like another sob before you swallow it down.

“She keeps pretending she’s not lonely,” you continue quietly. “Says the house is only quieter now, that’s all, without all your hammering and sawing and nonsense. Says she sleeps better without you snoring. But she sits by your chair, you know. Still sets out two cups when she makes tea sometimes. Then she gets mad at herself and puts one back.” You wipe roughly at your eyes, like you’re frustrated with the tears that won’t stop. “So you’d better be waiting for her. I doubt it’ll be too long before…before she comes and finds you. Maybe a few years. Maybe a decade, if she’s stubborn. She always is, so who’d be surprised? I’ll probably take some more time,” you say—it almost sounds bitter. Resigned in a way Morax almost…almost understands. You’ll probably take plenty more time. 

“I only have the people of this village, you know,” you say after a long silence. “So that old lady is stuck with me. And I’m stuck with her. So you don’t have to worry about her being alone. I won’t let her be. I’ll fix the roof before the rainy season, as you showed me. I’ll carry the buckets of water so she doesn’t try to do it herself and hurt her back again. I’ll make sure she actually waters those flowers she keeps talking to like they’re people. I’ll listen to her complain about the heat every morning like she always does. So you don’t have to worry. I’ll handle everything here. So just…rest, alright? You worked enough already—worked until the day you died, you stubborn old man. What’s all that you said about retiring? And to think, you live where people come just to retire, you old fool. But anyway…don’t rush her to come find you. Let her stay here a while longer.”

Your hand lingers on the soil for a moment longer before you finally pull it away.

“…Goodbye, Master Lu,” you murmur, all too quietly. “Don’t be lonely over there. We’ll come visit you—I know you love to hear that old woman babble, anyway.”

You stand slowly after that, brushing the dirt from your hands, but you don’t leave right away. You stay there for just a little longer, staring at the grave like you’re trying to memorize it, like you’re trying to make sure he knows you really did come.

“You must see this plenty,” you mumble finally, looking over your shoulder to Morax. He stays silent, so you continue. “Still, sorry you had to see such a sorry display.”

Morax does not answer immediately. He stands with his hands folded behind his back, gaze resting not on you, but on the grave, the disturbed soil where you’d buried your offering. Only after a long moment does he speak.

“There is nothing sorry about grief,” he says at last, “a funeral is not a display of composure. It is a contract between the living and the dead.” You blink at him, a little confused and a little exhausted, too. “The living bring offerings, words, remembrance. The dead leave behind their names, their stories, perhaps a legacy, even. Both sides fulfill their duty. That is what gives a life a fair and just ending. Grief is proof that the departed were loved. Tears are an offering no less valuable than incense or mora. There is no shame in them.”

You let out a small breath through your nose, something halfway between a laugh and a sigh. “You really do talk like a funeral consultant.”

He inclines his head slightly, smiling just a little. “It is my profession, after all.”

“Do you ever hear people say the wrong things?” you murmur. “At funerals.”

“All the time,” Morax replies without hesitation. “Well, I suppose wrong and right are subjective—but there is always a time and place, most would agree. But thankfully, the dead never show they are offended.”

That pulls a small, real laugh out of you, quiet and brief as it is. 

“That’s good, at least,” you murmur. “I called him an old fool at least three times.”

Morax looks at the grave, then back at you. “Then I am certain he departed this world feeling accurately remembered.” You snort softly at that, wiping under your eye again. After a moment, Morax speaks once more, voice softer now, less like a consultant and more like the old man that he is (not that you would know, of course). “It is the belief of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor, and many, I’m sure, that farewells do not end at the funeral. The living always continue to speak to and of the dead. In this way, the dead are not yet forgotten, nor are they truly gone—they are simply living somewhere else, where we cannot yet follow.”

You stare at the grave for a long moment after that. And he wonders if you perhaps do know that he isn’t the young mortal that he appears, as you say, “You sound especially like an old man now…but I’ll come visit and complain to him a lot,” you huff. “He always liked to gossip.”

“A good plan,” Morax agrees.

You nod once, satisfied with that answer, then brush the last of the dirt from your palms.

“Alright,” you mutter. “Let’s go, harbor man. The old lady will knock me with a watering can if I’m late for dinner.”

Morax turns to walk with you, but before you leave, you glance back at the grave one last time. As if to make sure the old man knows you really did come.

-- — --

Dinner with you and Madam Lu is as pleasant as it is heavy. Both of your eyes are red and slightly swollen from the crying that comes with a funeral service (as to be expected), but there is also the silent, but oh so obvious reality that this is Morax’s last meal with you and the elderly woman.

He will have no reason to return to Qingce village again after this, and as a result, this is the final time he will eat (such lovely) cooking by Madam Lu and converse with you over his food. 

He takes his time eating. 

The goodbye comes all too quickly, and your face is mortified as Madam Lu brings Zhongli down to her height by his cheeks as she says, “Young man, do come and visit! Such a handsome face like yours is rarely a sight we get, you know! You’d keep my stubborn child good company. Think about it, alright?”

“M-madam Lu!” you hiss, quickly intervening as you pry her hands off of him and give her a withering look. “Mister Zhongli is here for business—you mustn’t make him uncomfortable!”

“I assure you,” he grins, just a little too amused, he’s sure, for your comfort, “it is quite all right. I’m flattered you think so highly of my presence, miss.”

Your glare extends to him, then, too. 

And then you are both leaving the old lady’s residence, you on your way to your own home, and he on his way to leave the village and return to the harbor as always after a hearty meal from the woman. 

It just so happens to be the same direction, so you both walk together.

“You could always stay the night, you know,” you murmur. 

“Is this your way of offering your residence?” he raises a brow. 

You sputter, giving him another heated look before you hiss, “No, you sneaky little schemer! I meant there are inns for passing travelers in this village, and the journey to the harbor is surely more risky at night as opposed to during the day. That’s all.” 

He chuckles. “I appreciate the thought, but I assure you, this isn’t my first time making a journey at this time of day.”

“Yes, well, it only felt right to offer, that’s all,” you shrug petulantly, still flustered by his earlier comment. 

Morax keeps his chuckle at bay for your sake, but you seem to know he is holding back a laugh anyway, so you send him a sulky-looking warning glance before continuing to look ahead as you walk to your home. 

You reach it in no time. And now…now Morax must say goodbye to you properly. For the last time, likely. Unless there is yet another death in Qingce village that requires his travels, but he doesn’t think that is an appropriate circumstance to hope for in order to be in your presence some more. 

Your presence—what a fascinating reality it is, now, that he wishes for it more and more. He has taken to thinking of you when he is back at the parlor, and he often finds he leaves earlier than necessary when it is finally time to come make his journey to the village. Almost as often as he pushes back his time to leave. 

Morax turns to you as you stand by your door, unwilling to look into his eyes. 

“Well,” you mumble, “I suppose this is the last time you will have to come to his boring old village, isn’t it, harbor man?”

“Yes, for now,” he nods, “but boring is perhaps not the word I would use for this village.”

“Is that so?” You finally look up, raising a brow as you afford him a smile, “Do tell, what is so interesting about a small farmland?”

“For starters, those who tend to the crops are exceptionally skilled at creating difficult walking paths,” he murmurs, “therefore, I must always be alert when wandering this village. It’s as though they are trying to make it difficult—perhaps for a discount or two from wandering businessmen.”

You laugh, bright and free, and back to that steady version of yourself he is so used to. The grief is gone, even if only for a moment. That is how grief works, he supposes—it comes and goes as it pleases. Chokes and releases when it is feeling particularly punishing or merciful, depending on its mood. But grief is not all bad, he has learned. Both from experience as a warrior and a funeral consultant. 

It is grief that tethers people to the memories of loved ones. Grief that makes it so that life is not just a constant forward-moving force. There are still old, stubborn rocks that stay still, refusing to rush along with the current. That isn’t so bad—sure, the pain is there, but so is the preciousness of old memories. Memories that have no business being forgotten, no matter how much time passes. Memories that make it so that a life is not merely just a life, and an existence is not merely just an existence. 

He wonders then, if he died, how long his memory will go on. How long he will be grieved for, and how long the grieving will keep his memory sitting stubbornly in that stream that pushes forward, so willing to move on with or without him. 

You look at Morax with a soft, delicate look. You are fond of him; he is not a fool. He has lived thousands of years, and he has learned what a look of fondness looks like, even if he has never quite understood what it feels like to be so fond of someone, or to be the object of it himself. 

But you look at him like that, and he finds he enjoys the simplicity that comes with the way life is when you live like a mortal. When you live like you do not have enough time to leisurely be in the same place for hundreds of thousands of years. When you live as if you may pass on to the next life, and must move on from one thing to another, so that you may experience enough. 

Morax has been alive for so, so long. And yet, he wonders if the mortals have lived more than he has. 

So, when you fiddle with your fingers as you murmur, “Perhaps I made it difficult to walk along this village so it would take wandering businessmen longer to leave. It’s not often that they make their company known in a place like this,” he steps closer. 

“Is that so?” Morax asks. 

You don’t meet his eyes as you nod. You’re a funny being, he thinks—so sure of your existence, yet so unwilling to step beyond what you have deemed yourself worthy of. You are confident with your life. Happy with your place and sure that you belong where you are. So certain that you are deserving of what you have and what has been given to you, but you never dare ask for more or take beyond the scope of what you allow yourself. 

Even if you want it. 

But perhaps you are starting to change, he thinks. Because you step closer as you nod, looking at him as you say, “I have never wished for a businessman to stay until now. But there is always a first time for everything.”

He laughs. Low and amused as he says, “I have never felt compelled to stay the night anywhere on my journeys—but there is indeed a first time for everything, you are correct.”

And that is how Morax is kissing you. 

He has yearned for it for some time, he thinks. He has yearned for you for some time, and there is no point in denying it. You and your chilis and your flowers and your simple ways of life. You and your soft smile to the villagers and the gentle way you play with the few children that reside here in this far, distant, yet peaceful land that he saved so long ago. He is glad he saved it—of course, he would never regret this deed, whether or not you existed here. But he is especially glad for it now. 

He has done his duty—hasn’t he? Then isn’t it only fair that he rewards himself with the luxury of enjoying his accomplishments? 

Morax is kissing you, and you are kissing him back, and he thinks you have wanted this for just as long. Your lips are soft, and the lip balm you use is sweet and sticky against his own mouth. He swallows down the taste with a low hum, fingers grasping at your hips as yours latch onto his coat. You are so small against him—he towers over you even in his human form, and you have to crane your neck up just as much as he needs to bend his down to end the gap between you for your lips to touch. 

Your breath is hot against his as you exchange it between every kiss, and he tastes you on his tongue with every time they swipe against each other. He has never felt desire like this—never felt his cock twitch like this between his legs or press so tightly against his pants. (Oh, how he aches, he thinks, to take you in his proper form, and satisfy…both of his endowments. But for now, he must settle for this much, in this form, and that is if you even allow him to take it that far. He is not a scoundrel, after all.)

He is grateful that the front of your home is angled so that there are no nearby houses to see you both this way. The path that people walk along faces the back of your home, and that gives him all the encouragement he needs to shamelessly press you against your own door and kiss along your neck, sinking his teeth into your skin and sucking as you let out a soft cry. 

The sound shoots straight to his growing member—and he is reminded just how lonely he is from these duties as a god. Just how lonely it is at the top. 

He is hard between his legs, and you are aware of it, too, because you boldly move your thigh to slot between his. The first brush of you against his clothed cock, and he lets out a low, satisfied groan that makes you shiver. You are encouraged, it seems, by the sound to keep going, rubbing against his bulge and creating that sweet drag from the friction. 

It’s so good, he thinks deliriously—so, so good. He feels the way blood rushes to his cock, the way it makes him ache with how he swells, and then there is a jolt of something so pleasant and mind-numbing when there is pressure against his girth. 

Morax has been alive a long, long time. Longer than some of the mountains and trees shape Liyue, and longer than some of the villages that make up the nation for what it is. He is no stranger to pleasure, and he is no stranger to what it feels like to grind against something when he is fully hard and aroused.

But he is a stranger to carrying affection for the person responsible—at least, affection of this kind. So he groans, loud and uncaring in a way only someone inexperienced might, and you seem to find pleasure in that with the way you smile against his lips as you tilt his jaw and bring him back to your mouth and away from your neck. 

“My, my, harbor man,” you tease, “it’s as though you wish for the old lady to hear us from here. Are you trying to get her attention or mine?”

“A fine one, you are to talk,” he bites at your bottom lip, smiling smugly when you whimper, “you are touching me so freely out here in the open, where anyone may wander by and hear closely. Tell me, do you wish that they do? Perhaps you are even, dare I say, excited by the prospect.”

You stiffen under his arms before you give him a (weak) glare as you huff. “Alright then, you loathsome man,” you say indigantly, reaching behind you to open your door as you fiddle with the lock, “if you insist on doing this properly, then so be it.”

 Morax pushes you into your home as soon as that door opens. It shuts behind him, and he pushes you and pushes you and pushes you—keeps on going until there is a hard wall behind you, and something to keep you in place as he quickly closes the gap and kisses you again. 

You’re not mortal—he has known that as soon as he met you. How could he be considered the prime of adepti if he did not recognize his own kind? But here, under him, pinned and dripping and so pliant for him, he can smell it. The sweet, lingering scent of adeptal blood in your veins and the way it radiates off of you between your thighs.

(How kind the greater divine has been to him, if they are in charge of destiny, to grant him the luxury of developing these affections for a non-mortal. For someone who will not die in what is considered a small fraction of his time. He will have proper time with you—to explore you and this world that he will now live in as his new self if he allows it to be. And oh, how he wants it to be.)

“You smell sweet,” he grunts, “so ridiculously sweet, I wonder how I’ve held myself back all this time.”

“So you’ve been lusting for me for some time now, is that it?” you hum, and edge of cockiness to your voice. He smiles despite himself, exasperated. “What a shallow businessman you are, indeed. What, the meals didn’t satisfy your fill?” 

“Is it so wrong to hope for seconds?” he chuckles. 

Then he is crouching down, and your eyes widen as you register the loss of him against your upper half, pressing his heat against you. When you blink, looking down, he is already hooking a leg over his shoulder as he kneels between your legs, lifting your skirt and pulling your panties aside. 

Wet—you are, for lack of better words, fucking dripping down your thighs, and Morax is having simply a ball. He grins, trailing his nose along the wet trail along your inner thigh, inhaling the scent of you before pressing his tongue to get a taste of your essence. You let out a mortified, choked sound, squirming, and he tightens his grip along the plush of your leg.

“Don’t move too much,” he says lowly, “that is the agreement we are to have, if you want this.”

Evidently, you do want this—and badly, with the way you still immediately. He chuckles before pressing his lips to your clit, kissing it sweetly once, twice, a third time just to tease and swipe his tongue against the sensitive nub while you whimper. Your walls clench around nothing, and he hums in amusement at the sight. 

“You are a foul businessman,” you huff, “loathsome. You ought to hold your end of the deal, seeing as I am.”

“My apologies,” he grins wickedly. 

And then Morax latches onto you, hungry and thirsty and unwilling to be satisfied until he’s turned an inch into a mile, a drop into a stream. He sinks his tongue into you, tasting your sweetness and exploring between your folds. You whine, throwing your head back against the wall, gripping onto his shoulder tightly as your one knee, not thrown over his shoulder, buckles from weakness. 

He hums, pausing only for a moment as he says, “Put your full weight against me. I can take it.”

“But—” you try to protest, but he cuts you off. 

“I said,” he all but growls, “put your full weight against me. I can take it.”

Morax—Rex Lapis—the warrior, the god, who shaped mountains and slayed more gods than you could ever imagine existed. The strong, fierce divine being who could not be crushed by even the largest of boulders, and you are worried by the weight of your body. How laughable—how ridiculous. You hesitantly lean some of yourself on him, and he grips your thigh, digging his fingers into the meat of it as he pulls the rest of you in. 

You squeal—it cuts off into a high-pitched moan when his mouth latches onto your clit, sucking while he rolls it back and forth along the swollen bundle of nerves. It’s a nice sound—the way you wail. He likes the way it makes him feel powerful. He almost wonders if there is more power now, when you are crying for the mercy of his tongue, than there is when opponents are crying for the mercy of his stone spears. 

His fingers sink into your cunt, feeling your walls close around his digits as he stretches you open—you are so tight. So impossibly tight, he feels his cock twitch between his thighs at the thought alone of sinking past them. He thinks for a moment about how warm it would be when you clench around his fucking aching cock instead of his fingers, and then he is groaning against your heat as he feels a wave of desire burn at the pit of his stomach. 

You seem to like that—you shiver at the vibrations he makes against you from the sound, and he hums in appreciation at that. His fingers sink deeper into you, pressing against the back of your walls until he feels you tense before humping into his hand and letting out a desperate cry when he hits a particular spot. 

So you like him there, he thinks. He can certainly do that. After all, a skilled fighter such as Morax is adept at pinpointing exactly where his blows will land. Striking his fingers is infinitely easier than striking large spears of stone or giant boulders, so his fingertips bully mercilessly into that sensitive spot over and over again as his tongue flicks back and forth along your swollen clit. 

Once, twice—and then you are rolling your hips into his face, completely abandoning your worries about him holding your weight (which he is taking exceedingly easily, thank you very much) while you come undone on his tongue, on his fingers, on his face. 

There is the wet essence of you smeared around his lips, partially on his cheek and his chin, sweet and sticky and delicious. Like a sweet sunsettia that he has devoured without care for having an ounce of shame. There is no shame in tasting you, he would argue—only a fool would savor his taste of this nectar instead of devouring it. 

He works you through the entirety of your orgasm, until you are quivering from the aftershocks and whimpering, squeezing your legs to get away from his hungry lips that stay latched to your cunt. 

“S’too much,” you whine, “s-stop.” 

(It’s a cute plea. He’ll entertain it for now.)

Morax is fucking throbbing between his legs. His cock is hard enough that he knows there is a wet patch on his pants against his crotch—he can feel the dribble of precum even before he has freed himself from the confines of the tight fabric. When he stands, keeping your steady with an arm around your waist, he is burying his face into your neck as he groans deliriously into your neck. 

“I have little patience, if not, little sanity left,” he says, voice gruff and low. “Tell me now if this is what you want because it won’t be long before I will be in no position to stop what you are starting.”

“You are starting this,” you have the gall to argue, even after he has fucked you so thoroughly with his fingers alone, “and I will finish it, so don’t even consider the idea of stopping—not unless you intend to be a coward.”

A coward. Oh? What a fierce, stupid little thing you are. He wonders if allowing yourself to have what you have always denied yourself the possibility of has made you bolder than ever. Maybe now, you consider the possibility that you may take as you please if what you wish for is right there in your reach. 

Morax, the god of Geo, has never been known for being a coward, and he will not start today. So he grabs you easily, bringing your legs to wrap around his waist as his hands dig into the plush roundness of your ass. 

“Which way to your bedroom, then?”

“Down the hall, first door to the left,” is all you can say before his lips are immediately on yours. That lip balm you use—the taste of it will drive him to madness. You will drive him to madness. 

When you are tossed onto your mattress, there is only a second’s interval he bothers to allow you to catch your breath before Morax is impatiently hovering over you. He is raking his eyes over your form hungrily. You, and that skin that he has committed to memory under the sun, and those delicate fingers that tend to plants and pull weeds that are now fisting the sheets. He is going to take you, sink into you inch by inch, and mold you onto his cock, and you are going to look beautiful as he does it. 

And when he is done, he will ask you if there is anyone else better suited to fuck you like that. (The answer, he is confident, will be no. No one could hope to fit you better than Morax himself—and you are only seeing one of his cocks tonight.)

Stripping you fully is easy enough—you are eager, very eager to shed your clothes, and even more eager to pull his own off of him. You marvel at the size of him—first his torso and the sheer broadness of him and his muscled physique, and then his cock and the thickness of him at full mast. His hands toy with your breasts, squeezing and groping as his thumbs roll over your nipples, and you impatiently gasp while trying to roll your hips lower to rub against his hard cock. 

You succeed for a short second—and that short second is enough to make him pause as the wet friction brushes against him. He shivers, lets out a low groan—and then whatever patience he had left snaps. 

“I’m going to fuck you now,” he says bluntly, “and you are going to take me fully. Here.”

His finger draws a line against your belly where his cock lies flat against you, long and thick and fucking swollen with desire. Your breath hitches as his fingertip trails over his tip, right along your skin, and then you whimper as you breathe, “P-please.”

“Say it again,” he grunts. “Say please—I want to hear you want me.”

“Please, Zhongli,” you sob.

Morax, he wants to correct—for a tense, fleeting second, he almost does. He debates it, decides against it, and grits his jaw in frustration. Frustration that he can only be rid of if he sinks into those tight walls of yours, he’s sure. 

So he does. 

He grips your jaw, pulls you into a hot, searing kiss, and presses his tip to your entrance, rubbing along your folds, coating you in his precum while coating himself in your own arousal, and when—and only when—you are sobbing out an incoherent plea of how badly you need him, how hard you want him to fuck you, how deep you need him to be, does he sink into you. 

Because Morax is still Morax. And a god is still a god. He is to be worshipped before he will answer. 

“Zh-zhong—li,” you whine the latter syllable of his name when he sinks fully into you, fully bottomed-out and pressed into your wet, hot folds. You take him well, he thinks—so good and pliant and obediently accommodating for the less than humble size of him. 

(He did take his time preparing you, of course, but he isn’t one to skip out on giving credit where credit is due. You are good—so good. Good to him and good for him. He will reward you accordingly for it.) 

“Yes, yes,” he chuckles, “worry not, I will answer your little prayers.”

“You loathesome, arrogant man,” you hiss, still filled to the brim with him. And yet, that does not stop you from speaking so freely. He’s amused, really. 

“You certainly are not one to sweet-talk those whom you bed,” he notes. 

“And you’re not one to be humble with those whom you bed,” you argue back.

“No, I suppose not,” he laughs. 

And he will prove it to you, he is certain, that he deserves to be at least a little arrogant when he starts to fuck you. His hips pull back, almost fully slipping out of you, before he snaps them forward and buries himself all the way again, rolling and thrusting with a steady rhythm that angles the blunt head of his cock exactly against that same spot he found earlier. The stretch this time, of course, hits harder, hits spots his fingers couldn’t reach, drags along areas that he didn’t press into then. But he does so now, and you clench around him in response, welcoming him in, gripping him hard and tight and so fucking hot, his mind blanks for a second. 

“Fuck,” he hisses, “fuck you’re tight.”

“Yeah, and full, too,” you whisper into his ear as his face buries into your neck, “feel that? I’m full of you—all of you.”

Oh. He’ll get you for that. Get you for the way you make him moan so shamelessly at your words, for the way he loses his rhythm a little and fucks into you a little more desperately, for the way you giggle as he twitches inside of you. 

He’ll get you, so he brings his lips lower, to your breast, and latches onto a nipple, rolling his tongue over it and sucking harshly so that your back arches into his touch when you feel it. 

“Indeed, I do feel it,” he murmurs, switching over to the other breast, not leaving one nipple neglected in favor of the other, “I feel how needy you are around me, squeezing. I can hardly move, you know—are you really that desperate to be fucked?”

“B-be quiet, you awful thing,” you hiss. 

He laughs. Chuckles as he finally lets go of your breast with a pop, before his lips are on yours. Kissing you, he finds, is the only thing that makes it even a little bit possible to lose consciousness of that tight, pleasant sensation of you around him. Kissing you is the only thing that could hope to distract his mind a little bit from you. Kissing you is the only thing that could be more important than this—than you, taking him, fitting him, and making yourself his just as much as he is yours right now. 

He snaps his hips faster, and you drink in the low groans he lets out just as much as he drinks in the high mewls you feed him. 

And when you cum again, erratically clenching around him as your walls spasm with the force of your second orgasm, he can hardly breathe as he feels his own high approaching. He tries—Morax tries, to his credit, to pull away and spill elsewhere, but you insist as your legs wrap tightly around his hips and pull him in closer, deeper. 

“Inside,” you babble, “p-please inside!”

“Are you…” He pants, head spinning and vision blurring as you squeeze around him yet again. He’s so close—and it aches so good. “Are you sure?’

“Yes, yes, yes,” you cry, still babbling away as you ride out the final waves of your pleasure. 

You finish, and Morax starts—the end of your orgasm triggers the beginning of his, like the ebb and flow of the tide, one wave retreating only for another to roll in and take its place.

Hot, thick ropes of his seed spill into you, and he tenses as the force of his pleasure crashes over him, hard and brutal and dragging him into the depths of some hazy, incoherent place in his mind where he can hardly breathe. Your hands are on him—distantly, he’s aware of that. One is in his hair, and the other is shakily gliding over his back, like you’re trying to soothe him while he’s gone—so far gone into the throes of pleasure. 

“Fuck,” he barely registers his own voice, “fuck—th-that’s…good.”

When he’s done—when his hips are finally finished rolling and give you a break from the extra stimulation, he collapses beside your body, and you instantly shuffle closer to cling to him, resting against his chest. 

He lets you—happily, he lets you. His arms are tight and wrapped around your body, and you are so close that he can feel your erratic heart right against his. 

“I don’t think this is what the old lady meant,” you mumble into his chest as you curl into his side, “when she said to keep me company.”

“I don’t believe she specified that this was what she didn’t mean,” he grins tiredly, and oh, you are so beautiful. So breathtaking when you are so small and vulnerable against him, and only him. “So we have not breached any agreements.”

“You are a bothersome businessman,” you yawn.

He chuckles, and then you sleep. 

────────────────────────

When dawn comes, he awakens you with a kiss to your temple, and a soft promise of, “I will return when time allows it of me, this I promise if you will be waiting.”

“I’ll be waiting, harbor man,” you mumble sleepily. 

He hums, presses yet another kiss to your temple, before he says, “Then we have an agreement.”

He is gone by the time you are properly awake, his clothes gone, and his scent lingering. The only proof that he truly was there, and that your mind is not playing tricks on you, is the simple qingxin he leaves on your bedside table and a note that reads, a flower that is not from your own fields, from a wandering businessman who hopes to evade incurring any further losses.

Perhaps time is not wasted, you think with a smile, if time is well spent. And perhaps Zhongli would not mind spending some of his abundant time with you. 

-- — --

Zhongli keeps his word and returns not long after that. 

And then he leaves, and then he comes back again. It goes on like that for some time. He never stays for long, but he comes and goes at least once or twice a month. For now, that is enough—you have a long life ahead of you, after all. What’s a few weeks to you? You can wait. 

The more he visits, the more thrilled Madam Lu gets, much to your dismay—and worse, the more he visits, the more attached the two seem to be with each other. You cannot spare yourself from her horrifyingly embarrassing words now and then, nor can you save yourself from his thoroughly amused looks as she says them. 

Zhongli, you think, could cut your long life span into a quarter of what it is at this rate. He starts every trip he makes, first, with a visit to Madam Lu—who, without fail, insists he stay for breakfast every time (and, of course, she does not have to insist for long because he agrees to her meals so easily), before sending you both off afterwards. Not without giving you a pleased, knowing smile as you leave, of course. 

You shoot her a glare before tugging Zhongli along by the wrist, hissing something like, come—before that old lady says any nonsense that will fry your brain. He chuckles every time, eyeing you with mirth, before following you without much argument.

In the time that you wait for his next return, there is news that the god of Geo has fallen. Rex Lapis is dead, they say. 

You are shocked to hear it—you are part adepti, after all. The Geo Archon is of your kind, and though you were never a devout worshipper, you have heard of the deeds he has done for your village, your people. You glance at Madam Lu as she sighs heavily, shaky and bony fingers watering her plants. 

You grab the watering can from her hand, and she lets you. 

“So much loss as of late,” she murmurs sadly, “how will people deal with so much grief, I wonder. At the very least, I hope they honor the lord well with a proper funeral.”

“I’m sure they will,” you hum, “after all, a funeral is for the living, not the dead—and the living cherish the Geo archon well, wouldn’t you say?”

“You’ve spent an awful long time with that funeral consultant,” she grins, eyes gleaming with excitement—with a certain glint that tells you she knows more than you’d like. “When is he next returning, then?”

“I’ve not a clue,” you huff, “he’s a busy man. He’s no reason to come spend all his free time here.”

You walk off, swiftly crossing over to another side of her garden to water flowers a distance away, but Madam Lu already has heard what she wants to—what she needs to. 

“Not a clue, hm? So you do expect him?”

“Leave me alone, you nagging old lady!” you hiss over your shoulder. She only laughs, and even if it’s at your own expense, you are glad to finally hear the sound from her. 

-- — --

There is much to catch up on with Zhongli the next time he comes—the most current update of the Geo Archon’s passing at the harbor, the investigation and the controversy surrounding it, the rite of parting he is handling on behalf of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor with the aid of some wandering traveler passing by and her odd, floating companion. 

You listen closely, feeling an unfamiliar, unsettling weight on your chest as he tells you about all the progress she has helped him make with the many, many ceremonies. And by contrast, there is little to tell him—nothing more than the idle gossip the older women conjure up in all their free time in the village, or the disagreements there have happening between merchants who purchase and transport the crops you grow and sell here. 

He tells you of all the knowledge he has on Liyue and its history, on its late Archon, on all of the duties he is so graciously carrying out, and you listen with interest—you do. But there is still an acrid taste lingering on your tongue as you swallow down his stories. 

“This traveler friend of yours,” you mutter, “she seems very capable—what a stroke of luck it is that she’s helping you.”

“Yes,” he agrees easily. You are self-aware enough to know that there is a pout on your face—you cannot help it. And he chuckles as soon as it curls onto your lips. “Why the long face?”

“I’ve no long face, you bothersome man,” you huff, “this is my everyday face. You don’t like it?”

“I like your face enough to tell it apart from your everyday one and your sulky one,” he teases with an amused smirk. 

He enjoys this, you realize—enjoys the way you are…well, what are you, exactly? Jealous? Insecure? Bitter? Or simply scared? Or are you everything all at once? You don’t know. 

When the shift occurs on your face, the one where you are deep in thought, he gently pulls you by the hand and laces his fingers with yours as he walks up to your home. You are pressed against the door—and suddenly, you are getting deja vu from very different yet similar times where you were pressed against this very door by this very body.

“There is no need to sulk,” he murmurs. 

“I am not sulking,” you huff.

“Well, in that case, if you were,” he laughs, “then there would be no reason to. I’ve come to keep you company—it was an agreement I made, after all. I am a businessman of my word, you see.”

Your chest is lighter as you look up at him with a small grin, and when he kisses you, you let him back in past your doors again, and into your bed. And you afford him some of your abundant time, just as he affords you some of his. 

You’ll tell him, you think to yourself as you free his cock from his underwear—he groans when your hand wraps around him, and you watch the way his lips tug between his teeth as you stroke him slowly. You’ll tell him that you’re not just a mortal, just like he isn’t either, and that you have plenty of time to spend with him if he’ll spend it with you, too. Time that won’t be a waste.

“You can go faster, you know,” he says tensely, chest falling and rising rapidly as he tries to keep his breathing steady. 

You smile, pressing a kiss to his forehead as you shift on his lap, looking down at the way his girth makes your hand look so small. You marvel at the weight of him in your hold, giving him a small squeeze, teasing your thumb along his slit as he leaks pre cum, and he throws his head back with a choked gasp. 

“Where’s the fun in that?” you quip, “then this will all be over before we’ve begun. Surely, you have better patience than that.”

“I don’t see you enough to have much patience,” Zhongli says flatly, unimpressed by your teasing. Still, he lets you have your fun, as much as it seems to pain him, sitting patiently under you while he waits for you to get him off. 

You kiss his jaw, his chin, his Adam’s apple as he swallows thickly, before finally moving your hand again, gently squeezing around the tip with every upward tick of your hand. Zhongli likes it that way—you’ve learned that when you touch him with the intention of making him cum, he likes it when you squeeze at the tip and when you slow down when he’s close and drag it out a bit longer, even if he might complain. He likes showing off his stamina—for such a polite and polished man, he can be a bit of a show off when he wants to be. 

You watch as his face slackens, as it morphs beautifully into that look of raw and pure pleasure. You admire the way he bites his lip and parts his mouth and says your name when he feels particularly good. You admire the way he looks when his abs clench, his hips buck, and his brows crease when he’s getting close. 

“You came to spend time with me,” you murmur against his cheek as you nuzzle your nose into it, kissing it softly. “Right?”

“Yes,” he pants, giving you a flat look even despite the way he is teetering so close to the edge, so worked up. “Of course I did, or do you think I let just anyone touch me so freely?”

“Just making sure,” you giggle. “Businessmen are known for being greedy.”

“I think the real greedy one is you,” he breathes. 

You kiss him softly, quickening the pace of your hand, and with a twitch of his cock, he spills into it. You drink in the low moans and gasps he lets out as he cums, smiling when he croaks your name in between ragged breaths. It tastes so lovely when you drink in the sound of your name from his tongue. So sweet and decadent and rich. 

“I’m the only one who waits so patiently for you, you know,” you peck his lips as he catches his breath when he’s finished coating your hand with his seed, “so you should only keep me company.”

He chuckles, shaking his head as he wipes the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “Is that the new term of our agreement?”

“Yes,” you huff. 

“Well, as I said, I am a businessman of my word.”

“Good.”

You’ll tell him, you think resolutely. Soon, you’ll tell him the truth of who, of what, you are, and perhaps he will tell you the truth of his in return. And you can continue to spend more time in abundance together, you can finally stop wasting your days and simply passing them by—they’ll have meaning soon. 

────────────────────────

“Qingce village was ruled by a terrible god once,” you murmur to him one day, “or so the legends say.”

Morax feels your fingers trace aimlessly along his bare chest. He breathes steadily under your wandering little digits. For a moment, he tries to decipher what pattern it is you are tracing into his skin. He comes up with nothing. Another intricate design on the cloth that is mortality, he thinks—such seemingly frivolous acts of touch. Shapes drawn without thought, wandering lines with no meaning in mind, and yet they are not meaningless at all. There is something tender in it, regardless. Affectionate, perhaps, and expressed by the small comfort of touch alone.

He wonders if such things will become natural to him if he tries his hand at this life for long enough. They are natural to you—and you are far from mortal. He knows you are, even if you don’t tell him. Surely, if it were possible to become natural for you, then there is no such thing as impossibility for him. 

“Ah, so you are familiar with the legend of Chi,” he murmurs, “though I suppose it’s to be expected of someone who was raised in this village.”

You pout, gaping at him in shock. He smiles at the sight. “Is there anything of Liyue’s history you don’t know?” you huff. “Just when I think I can teach you something.”

He chuckles at that—you feel it rumble under your cheek against his chest where you lie. The deep, fond sound alone washes away any lingering trace of irritation you had just a moment prior. “Very well,” he hums. “Teach me.”

“You already know the legend,” you point out flatly.

“Teach me anyway,” he insists. “Hearing the same story told by numerous people is advantageous still. One comes across many different viewpoints, you see.”

“You still talk like an old man, huh?” You snort. “Imparting life lessons one after the other—I suppose working at a funeral home and seeing so many losses has all but turned you into one.”

“A terrible fate,” he says mildly.

You huff again, though there is little heat left in it. Your fingers continue their idle wandering over the warm expanse of his chest as you begin.

“Well,” you say, “the people of Qingce say there was once a great demon called Chi. Some sort of dragon-like creature that forcefully took over this place. They say he was powerful enough to challenge the gods themselves.”

Morax listens silently beneath you.

“But he was defeated,” you continue. “Slain by the Geo Archon long ago. Afterward, his body was broken apart so he could never rise again. Each of the parts was sealed away in different places—hidden in the mountains and fields around Qingce so that none might gather them. Rex Lapis even taught the people of Qingce Village to make Geo statues to crush the Chi’s remaining power.”

Your fingertip traces a slow circle over his sternum as you think.

“Oh—and the villagers say those ruins scattered around Wuwang Hill? Those are the seals. Old mechanisms the Archon left behind to keep Chi’s remains locked away. If they were ever undone…” You pause, wrinkling your nose faintly. “Well. I imagine that would be rather bad.”

“That would be a reasonable conclusion,” he murmurs.

“And the old stories say the people of Qingce protected those seals for generations,” you go on. You tilt your head, glancing up at him. “That’s why the village values its stories so much. They’re not just stories. They’re warnings told through traditions, you could say.”

His gaze lowers to you.

“An admirable tradition,” he says quietly. “I did not realize the people of this village looked at it that way.”

Your finger pauses against his chest as you beam. “Ah, so I did teach you something.”

He smiles faintly—fondly. Yet there is something hollow in his eyes as he says, “Yes. You did. You’ve taught me quite a lot more than you realize, you know.”

“How so?” You raise a brow, reaching over to poke the tip of his nose. “I taught you the joys of bedding an easy woman, is that it?”

He laughs at that, bright and warm as his arms tighten around you. There is something akin to affectionate exasperation in his expression as he leans down and presses a kiss to your forehead.

Your breath hitches at that. He notices it so easily. Morax notices so much about you. He cannot afford to give you such physical affection as often as he’d like, given how little you see of him. He holds these small, fractional moments close to his heart the same way you do, as well, whenever they come—they are few and far between, after all.

“You have taught me the joys of sharing a bed,” he agrees, pinching your hip teasingly (and he makes sure that he is rather careful to remain gentle, too), “the joy extends elsewhere, too, however. Not just the bed.”

“Mister Zhongli,” you gasp, “dare I say a businessman such as yourself has turned sentimental on me?”

“Ah, yes. A most strange development indeed,” he plays along, shaking his head in amusement. 

────────────────────────

When you awaken in the morning, your bed is empty. Zhongli has already made his departure for Liyue Harbor. Before disappointment can claw its way to your chest and make you bleed, however, you pause as you sit up and look to your bedside table. 

A single qingxin is laid carefully there, waiting for you, along with a single coin of mora. 

You smile to yourself—time is not wasted. Zhongli will afford you more time. 

-- — --

The next time you are visited by Zhongli—or rather, this time you suppose it would be more accurate to say he hunts you down—he is desperate to touch you. You have never seen him this way.

You are tending to the crops when you notice him striding toward you across the fields, his pace unusually hurried. You straighten, brushing dirt from your hands as a smile pulls at your lips.

“Back so soon?” you call lightly. “Don’t tell me your bed was so lonely you had to come all this way just to see—oh!”

He catches your wrist before you can finish, his grip firm but not painful, and immediately begins pulling you along behind him.

“Zhongli—?” you protest, stumbling once before matching his pace. “Where are we—?”

He does not answer. Instead, he guides you away from the fields, away from the paths the villagers usually take, toward the rocky edges of the mountains that loom behind Qingce village. The ground grows uneven beneath your feet, tall grass giving way to weathered stone and uneven ground. There is a small opening for what seems to be a cave of sorts at the base of the mountains, and he leads you inside. 

You recognize the place soon enough. And then your eyes widen.

“Zhongli,” you hiss, tugging slightly at his hand as he finally stops inside the cave. Moss-covered stone walls and old mechanisms greet you, and you shiver just from looking at them.

The ruins. The seals. This is one of the places, you are certain—one of the places where, according to the stories, remnants of Chi still lie, dormant and fragile.

“What are you doing?” you whisper sharply. “We cannot—” Your protest cuts off when he pulls you close. The movement is sudden enough to steal the breath from your lungs as his hand finds your waist, and his other settles against the back of your neck. “Zhongli—!”

Your words dissolve the moment his mouth finds yours. It is not the slow, measured affection he usually affords you. This kiss is urgent—desperate, almost. He pulls you flush against him like he fears you might disappear if he loosens his hold even slightly.

For a moment, you are too startled to respond. Then you melt and kiss him back. Then, when your senses return, your hands brace instinctively against his chest as you pull back just enough to stare at him.

“Have you lost your mind?” you whisper, scandalized. “We cannot do such…such indecent things here!” You gesture vaguely toward the ruins around you. Of all places. “Do you not see all this around us? This has to be where the seals are, Zhongli!”

He does not release you. If anything, his hold tightens slightly, amber eyes searching your face with an intensity that makes your irritation falter.

“I am aware,” he says quietly.

You sputter at how calm he seems to be. “That does not make it better!” 

But he is already kissing you again, slower this time, though no less needy. His fingers curl into the fabric at your waist as if grounding himself. The mountains around Qingce stand silent, but it feels strangely like the ancient stone is watching over the two of you.

You are weak to Zhongli, however. Not even ancient deities and the thought of awakening them to wreak havoc on your home is enough to change that. He presses you against the hard wall of stone, and you let him, angling your head so he can kiss your neck.

He hums in appreciation. “Allow me to make it better then,” he tells you. And your resolve crumbles instantly.

────────────────────────

Morax knows exactly what sleeps beneath this place. After all, he is the one who sealed the parts of Chi away all those years ago. And his memory is exceedingly good—he does not forget such things so easily. In fact, he does not forget them at all.

He also knows what is coming to Liyue.

Soon, the sea will rise, and soon, an old god will stir. Morax knows what such god lies beneath the seas, pinned by his own stone spears. Osial has never been anything short of a tyrant—he remembers those days well. How tall and unforgiving the tsunamis were, and how easily Osial tormented the mortals of this land with such harsh waves, all for the sake of his own gain. The people of Liyue will not suffer at the hands of such shameful deities. Whether it is because they have fended off this threat alone or because of Morax himself, he will have to see soon enough.

But oh, how Morax longs for the day that he will step away from this role he has carried for millennia. How he longs for a time when he is nothing more than a wandering man in the streets, living peacefully among his people in bliss. And how he longs for the simplistic joys indulged in by the lifestyle of mortals—of affection and delicate touches and fond smiles.

So he kisses you again—because in this moment, with your hands fisted in his coat and your breath catching against his lips, he needs to know that choosing this life will be enough. That stepping away from being a deity, should his people succeed, is a proper choice and not a foolish mistake. Morax is not known for being a fool. He is a wise god and a capable fighter. He has led his people to prosperity, and in return, he is worshipped sacredly by the people of Liyue.

Morax does not make mistakes. Not when his decisions involve Liyue.

But then he wonders—what god leaves his people to fend for themselves during an oncoming disaster? A disaster that they are unaware of is on the horizon, no less. What god would step in only when his people are at the brink of defeat, and not simply from the beginning to ensure they are always guarded? That is his role, is it not? And such roles surely do not expire, do they?

But erosion has chipped away at his heart of hard stone—until the unyielding bedrock of it has worn thin, leaving something far more fragile beneath.

Morax, after so, so long, yearns for a life outside of what he has always known. What he has fought and slain countless divine beings for. What he has always thought to be his fate forever. 

You break his kiss once more, breathless. And he, when you gently cup his cheeks with those tender hands, feels weak to his knees in a way he has never felt. The Geo Archon called Morax has never felt weak. (What a laughable choice in word, in fact. And yet…that is the unbearable truth. You have weakened Morax—far more than any erosion is capable of doing.)

“I still think this is a terrible place to do this,” you mutter weakly.

His quiet laugh brushes your lips. “Noted.”

And yet he does not move away. If anything, he makes sure to settle his hands more firmly at your waist, drawing you closer until there is scarcely a breath of space between you. 

“You are impossible,” you murmur, though, he notes, your protest lacks conviction now. Your fingers remain curled loosely in the front of his coat, as though you have forgotten to let go.

“Am I?” he hums.

You open your mouth to retort, but the words falter when he leans in again—not quite kissing you this time, but close enough that your breath mingles with his. His gaze drops briefly to your lips before lifting back to your eyes, searching your expression with intensity. He finds exactly what he is looking for—want, need, desire. Love, dare he say. 

Do you love him? Morax knows he has grown to love you. You have taught him what it means to be human, after all—or at least live like one, and he has never wanted to live like a human more than he does now in all of his long, endless life. 

“I know you are aware how dangerous this place is,” you scold him softly.

“Mm.”

“That should concern you.”

“Perhaps.”

You huff faintly, glaring. “You are not taking this very seriously.”

Something warm flickers in his eyes at that—at the way you so easily make his heart squeeze with something as simple as an expression on your face. Everything he has sought you out for has fallen into place. You are the clarity he has searched for. His people will prosper, he thinks—a new age of Liyue has grown for years now. The age of the mortals. No longer do they need him to guide their way of life, and perhaps…perhaps Morax can take his place alongside them. As an equal and not a deity. 

And perhaps he can take his place alongside you, as well. 

His hand slides from your waist to the small of your back, guiding you a fraction closer, until your body presses fully against his. Your breath catches.

“Zhongli—”

Your warning dissolves when his lips find the curve of your jaw instead, slower now, lingering in a way that sends a shiver down your spine. The sensation steals the rest of your protest before it can form.

“You said this was a dangerous place,” he murmurs softly against your skin.

“Yes,” you manage.

“And yet you have not left.”

Your fingers tighten slightly in his coat. Your heart pounds traitorously in your chest.

“Well,” you say, attempting dignity and failing somewhat, “that is because you have not given me the opportunity to.”

A quiet chuckle rumbles against your throat. 

“Ah,” Morax says gently. Then his hand slides higher along your back, and the rest of your protest fades into another kiss. “Alright then.”

He steps away. Your fingers tighten their clutch along his coat for a moment before letting go, and you stare at him incredulously. Like you cannot fathom that he has pulled away. 

“What—”

“Go on then,” he challenges. Rather smugly, too—Morax is a god, sure, but he is not without his own flaws. He remembers his less-than-humble days during the era when he was a much younger deity. “You may leave if you so desire. I won’t stop you.”

“You are a loathesome man, you know,” you grumble. And then you pull him back in, and he hums in satisfaction against your mouth. You kiss him—just as desperately as he does, and this is how Morax knows that his place has changed. 

His place is no longer on the throne of the divine, watching and guiding a nation that has evolved to survive without him. No, his place is here. With you. Where you will make his old, aging heart feel young and new again, learning and experiencing the joys of a life he has never thought possible for himself. 

“So you’ve said,” he murmurs in between kisses. 

His hands work at the bottom of your skirt, gently lifting it to trail his fingers at the thin hem of your panties. He slowly pulls them down along your thighs, just midway, and enough to expose your heat to allow his fingers to sink in. And sink in they do, feeling the warmth of your walls squeeze around his digits. 

That familiar scent of yours invades his nostrils—that scent that he finds he can no longer ignore. 

“...You are not human,” he says thoughtfully.

You freeze. For a moment, you simply stare at him, utterly incredulous, breath still uneven and labored from his fingers working your folds apart, pressing into your deepest, most sensitive parts. 

“Y-you…you cannot possibly be bringing that up right now.”

Morax’s expression remains maddeningly calm. “I felt it best to confirm.”

“Confirm?” you repeat, aghast. “You choose now to confirm?”

You gesture vaguely between the two of you, clearly referencing the rather compromising position he has put you in. His thumb brushes idly along your hip as though he does not find the timing nearly as outrageous as you do. You glare at him for that, and Morax is all too pleased by your expression. 

He only smiles in amusement. 

“I have known since the beginning,” he says.

Your eyes narrow. “…You have?”

“Yes.”

“And you are only saying something now?”

“It seemed the appropriate moment.”

Your mouth opens. Closes. Then opens again. “This is the least appropriate moment imaginable!”

You are just adorable, he thinks as a chuckle escapes him. “I happen to disagree.” 

And then, because Morax cannot help himself, and because he has decided that leaving his divine duties behind means that he can allow himself a moment or two to be utterly distasteful, he thrusts his fingers into you faster, his thumb brushing over your clit in slow circles. He watches as your mouth falls open, a soft, ragged moan tearing from your lips as you breathe his name. 

“U-unbelievable,” you stutter, “have—oh, fuck—have you no sense of shame?”

“You are half adepti,” he continues calmly, with his fingers still inside of you. “It is not difficult for one such as myself to recognize.”

“Oh, is it not?” You glare at him between your panting.

“No.”

You squint up at him. His fingers hit a particularly sensitive spot in the back of your walls, and your eyes flutter shut as you let out a long, wanton moan. Then, slowly, your eyes blink open. A faint, unimpressed smile curls at the corner of your mouth.

“Well,” you say breathlessly, “that makes two of us.” His brow lifts a fraction. “You think I h-haven't figured it out by now? You—ngh—are n-not…human either, Zhongli.”

For the first time since this conversation began, he actually pauses. The pace of his fingers in your cunt does too, and for that, you give him a hard glare as you whine in protest. But he cannot bring himself to care. 

“…Oh?”

You snort softly. “Please. Your eyes glow when you use elemental energy. Humans do not do that—I had my suspicions you were also some sort of adepti.”

A quiet laugh escapes him then—low, warm, and thoroughly entertained. “How perceptive,” he murmurs, “I did not realize you noticed me so closely.”

You huff, flustered. “And for the record,” you add dryly, “most people would have this conversation before putting their hands where yours currently are.”

Morax hums thoughtfully at that, resuming his earlier movements along your folds. “…Duly noted.”

You cum on his fingers not long after, and once you have just barely caught your breath, he pulls you into a deep kiss. 

Morax, despite all the growth and wisdom he has accumulated in his…well, thousands of years' worth of growth and wisdom to accumulate, still has his moments where he is nothing but an arrogant, cocky bastard. 

And that is exactly why he is going to fuck you here, in these ruins, where there is a god laid to rest. A god that could easily awaken if these ruins were to be tampered with too carelessly. He needs to see it for himself—as fucking pompous as it is—that he has done an undeniably good job at his duties. That he can disrespect a god by fucking the woman of his affections in their ruins, and still risk nothing. Still worry not one bit about the safety of his people. Still exist and live his life exactly as he wants it now—with you and only you, and not deal with the headache of a threat. 

“You always take me rather well,” he murmurs, groaning as he pulls his fingers from your cunt, as your pussy flutters around the digits while he unburies them from your heat. 

He means it when he says that—you always do. You take him in so easily, so effortlessly, so readily. Of course, he’d like it if he could take you properly here—and if he could have it his way, he’d strip you completely, pin you against this wall, fuck you from behind as he glares smugly right at the vault that holds Chi’s spirit, and make you cum before he fills you to the brim with his seed so you can walk out of here with the evidence of his accomplishments. 

But he doesn’t have that time nor patience, and something tells him that being that zealous would perhaps break you from your own need-filled trance and force you to draw the line. 

He doesn’t want that. 

He wants to feel you—he wants to watch you fall apart on his cock, feel himself fall apart as he kisses you senseless, and then leave knowing that he’s making the right decision for the right reasons. 

You are his reason. And you could never be a mistake. 

And now, with the fact that neither of you is a mortal acknowledged and out of the way, he can fuck you how he really wants—with both of his cocks. He pulls his own slacks down just enough to free two hard, aching cocks, giving one of them a few slow strokes and gritting his jaw as his breath grows labored, before staring down between you both as he brings the tip to your entrance. He watches as his tip sinks into you, disappearing with the slow press of his hips forward. This much, you’re familiar with, of course. 

What you’re not familiar with is the second hard, curved length that mirrors the one buried inside of you. Your eyes widen, and you stare at it in awe—maybe, dare he even say, a little bit of fear that shoots right to his crotch and makes his second length twitch. 

“Two…?” You breathe out, “what—”

“Surely this much is not hard to believe if you know I am not a mortal,” he chuckles lowly, pressing a kiss to your cheek as you quiver beneath him, itching for him to move already as he stays perfectly still while buried to the hilt inside of you. 

“But…th-they won’t…they can’t both fit,” you breathe out in alarm. 

Morax laughs—low and smug and amused enough that you fix him with a sharp glare as you flush under his slightly egotistical gaze. 

“Maybe not today,” he agrees, “but I know you’re good—good for me, good at taking me. With a little patience, I think you’ll handle them just fine, don’t you think?”

You shiver, swallowing thickly as you stare at his second, well-endowed arousal before slowly nodding in a trance. Morax grins—because of course, of course, you would be so perfect for him. So pliant and easy to agree to his whims and requests, with how plainly good you are to him. And he is, as he always has been, a generous, giving deity, so he will reward you well for it, as he always does. 

For now, though, he focuses on gently grabbing your hand, bringing it to the cock that isn’t pressed deep into your dripping cunt, and watches as you instantly, obediently make a fist and wrap your hand around him, slowly stroking just the way you know he likes. You’ve done this plenty of times before, but he never gets used to how well you know him—how easy it is for you to do all the right things and touch all the right places in all of the right ways and make him feel so fucking good. 

“Fuck,” he curses, “you have always known too easily how to drive me mad, you twisted woman.”

You huff, using your free hand to tug him close by his jacket, pressing his forehead to yours, “And you have always known too easily how to do the same, you loathesome man.”

That’s all it takes for him to decide that he wants you now. Needs to feel you good and proper. Needs to watch you as he sinks in and out of you, and watch as you struggle to concentrate as you pump the cock in your hand while the one in your cunt drags along your sensitive folds and presses deep into all the right places. 

The first roll of his hips, you hiss. The second, your jaw slackens, and you whimper his name. The third, you squeeze your fist around him without realizing it, and he feels his mind fucking blank for a moment as he feels the tightness of you around him—whether that’s your hand or your cunt—not once, but twice. 

Morax groans, leaning forward and pressing his forehead against your shoulder as he snaps his hips and fucks you, and you mewl when his thumb finds your clit, rubbing circles mercilessly against the delicate, swollen bundle of nerves. 

“You—your company was a dangerous agreement to make,” he breathes against your shoulder, “do you realize that? How easily you have taken over my head. Every thought I have, every agreement I make, every contract I sign—it all reminds me of you. You, your smile, your annoying chilis, your stubborn words.”

“I’m not stubborn,” you argue. 

He chuckles, disbelieving and out of breath. You drag your hand up along his cock, squeezing around the tip before quickly dragging it down and twisting at the base—he moans. Loud and uncaring, giving that damn vault (the one with Chi’s defeated spirit, he likes to haughtily remind himself) a smug look because, well fuck—he can simply just do that if he pleases. And he does. And he will continue to. 

“No,” he hums—it comes out more like a low rasp. “No, I suppose not. I suppose I only think you are stubborn because you will not leave my thoughts, and perhaps that blame is on me to bear, not you.”

He snaps his hips once, twice, a third time—by the fourth, you’re already clenching around him as you come undone, letting out a soft cry of, Zhong…li!, while he chokes on the feeling of you squeezing so tight and so fast around him like that. 

Morax wants this life. You. The easy, simple knowledge that he can step down, spend his days freely with you, beside you, (and yes, perhaps in you, too), all without breaching the contract he has with his nation, with his people. He wants to tiptoe around your chilis, and leave qingxins on your nightstand, and tell you stories of Liyue’s history, and laugh when you are flustered by that old woman whom you love so much. 

He wants this easy, simple, mortal existence after so long. The one where affection and endearment are so simply woven into his being, where power is not the reason he is here, where wisdom is not the burden he must bear. He wants you and the life you make him fantasize about. And he wants it badly. 

As badly as he wants to cum and fill you up right now—and one final thrust of his hips, sloppier in pace now that he’s so close, and he spills into you. You pull him into a kiss, and he thinks about what it would be like to kiss you like this every day, and he feels himself spill onto your hand at the thought as you continue to pump him through his high. 

“You—” he gasps, cutting himself off with a low, needy moan, “you are the one I want to keep me c-company. Always.” 

You smile against his jaw at that, leaving soft, open-mouthed kisses as he finishes riding out the last few waves of his orgasm before murmuring into his skin, “I’ll keep you company if you keep me company, too. Deal?”

“Deal,” he breathes, cradling your cheeks like you are gold as he brings your lips to his. 

And Morax, if his people pass this final test, he decides, will have his answer for good this time. 

-- — -- 

The crisis of Osial’s summoning ends not with the drowning of Liyue, but with its salvation.

The sea recedes. The waves calm. And the people—his people—stand victorious. From afar, Morax watches the harbor where mortals and Adepti come to a truce. He watches proudly. Watches in relief. Watches with a quiet ache, despite it all, as the end of his era as the Geo Archon is finally, after so long, solidified. 

And almost immediately after he takes care of the loose ends, he leads his feet away from the harbor and up the narrow paths toward Qingce village.

Toward you.

────────────────────────

You find him near the edge of the fields just as the sun begins to sink behind the mountains. The sky burns amber, turning the terraces gold. Zhongli stands where the path curves, hands folded neatly behind his back as though he has been waiting for some time.

You slow down when you see him.

“…You’re okay,” you say gently.

Zhongli tilts his head faintly. “I was not aware my well-being had been in question.”

You cross your arms. “Oh, forgive me for worrying,” you mutter. “There was only a sea god trying to drown the entire harbor.”

At the mention of the event, his gaze shifts briefly toward the distant horizon.

“Yes,” he says quietly. “So there was.”

You study him for a moment. Something is…different. Not in his appearance. Zhongli still stands as composed and elegant as ever—still in such fine silk, even with little mora to his name. (How he has such poor finances, you will never understand.) But there is a strange ease to him tonight, as though some invisible weight has finally been set down from his chest.

“You didn’t come all this way just to stare at the sunset,” you say eventually.

“No.”

“Then?”

He is quiet for a moment. Long enough that you begin to wonder if he may not answer at all.

Then he says, “There is something I have not told you.”

You snort at that. “Well, that’s not unusual,” you reply flatly. “You are a very secretive man.”

“This matter,” he says carefully, “is somewhat…larger than most. And not one I could evade in good conscience if…I would continue to pursue you in this way.”

That gets your attention.

Pursue you. 

You have not discussed the details of this…arrangement between you and Zhongli. Not outside of when you might next see him, or if either of you will be particularly busy in the coming weeks to meet at all. Hearing him say so candidly that he considers himself to be in pursuit of you brings a delicate ache to your heart—an ache of longing. 

You want him. All of him. And you have avoided asking him all this time if that might be a possibility for fear of losing him altogether—but he has handed you your desires so easily with one sentence—confirmed he wants it just the same as you do, even. That he has been seeking you out all this time and not just the familiar convenience of your body. 

You smile at the idea and look at him with bright eyes. 

“Alright. Pursue me properly then, Mister Zhongli of the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor.” He winces at that title a little. Your brows furrow. 

“You are aware,” Zhongli begins slowly, “that I am not human.”

You blink at him like he has grown two heads. “…Yes. We have established that, or did you forget? And neither am I, so there is no need to be concerned that I would worry over something as meaningless as that.”

“That is not the issue,” he sighs. 

“…Okay,” you say slowly, a bit more cautiously now. “Then what exactly are we talking about here?”

Zhongli exhales slowly. “I…am Rex Lapis,” he says bluntly. 

You stare at him. Blink once. Then twice. And then you break out into a fit of giggles as you look at him incredulously. 

“No, you are not. What a silly thing to say—now tell me really what this is all about.”

“I am,” he insists, almost mildly offended.

“You absolutely are not.”

“I assure you—”

“Rex Lapis is the Geo Archon,” you interrupt, pointing vaguely toward the harbor far in the distance. “The god of Liyue. The one who—”

Your voice falters as you take a look at his face.

You know that face. You have studied it over the course of weeks. How it looks when it is sleeping and peaceful, how it looks when it is tired and glum, how it looks when it is bright and joyed, how it looks when it is lax with pleasure and need, and how it looks when it is painfully serious and honest. 

You know him. You know how to read him inside and out. How to tell when he is telling the truth or evading it altogether. You know him because he is yours—he has been for quite a while. And you know that he is being truthful. 

Your stomach drops.

“…Oh. I see. You are not lying, then,” is all you say.

Zhongli inclines his head slightly. “No, I am not.”

“Fascinating.” You nod slowly. 

“You are taking this rather well.”

“Let’s not be so hasty to assume—I am still deciding if I should throw something at you.”

“That would be understandable.”

You run a hand over your face. “Let me get this straight,” you say slowly. “You are telling me that the man I have been—” you pause and clear your throat, “—um…spending time with is actually the god of Liyue?”

“Yes,” he says easily. His eyes flash with a momentary fit of amusement. 

“Well, disregarding the matter of why the Geo Archon would be parading around as a representative of a funeral parlor—you thought it would be appropriate to mention this only now?”

“There were…complications.”

You stare at him. “Complications,” you repeat.

“Yes.”

You let out a long breath. Then you gesture vaguely at him.

“Well, go on then, Your Divinity. Explain.”

Zhongli does not react to the sarcasm. Instead, he looks out toward the distance. “For thousands of years,” he says quietly, “I have ruled Liyue as its Archon.”

You huff, “Yes, I am aware of the history.”

“But Liyue is no longer the nation it once was. Mortals have grown. They have built their own institutions, their own systems of governance. Trade flourishes without divine intervention. Contracts are honored by people who no longer require a god to enforce them.”

Your expression softens slightly. “Your people still have reason to need you,” you say, stepping closer, “there is no need to doubt your purpose as their god—”

“It is not about what they need,” he shakes his head, staring down at the grass as he sighs. “It’s about what…what I need. What I want. I have longed for ages now to know that I have done my duty. And perhaps rest this old, eroding soul of mine. Osial’s defeat has given me the reassurance that I may step down without worry.”

“So the sea god…”

“Was a test.”

You stare at him again. “…You let a sea god attack Liyue as a test?”

“Well, I was not the one to summon it,” he defends, smiling faintly with mirth at your bewildered look, “I was simply aware it would happen. But I was prepared to intervene if necessary.”

“Well, did you intervene?” You ask.

“No. I was pleasantly impressed to see the Qixing and the adepti handled it swiftly.” 

Silence settles between you again. Then you let out a soft, delicate sigh. “Well,” you mutter, “that explains things, I suppose.”

“Does it?”

“Only a little.”

A faint smile touches his lips. “Erosion is not the only reason,” Zhongli says quietly.

You look back at him. “Oh?”

His gaze returns to you. “I have carried the role of Archon for millennia,” he says. “Longer than most living beings can even comprehend. And yet, in recent years, I have begun to wonder whether there is more out there to experience than simply being a powerful deity.”

“Being a powerful deity is no simple matter,” you scoff in disbelief. 

“No, it isn’t, I suppose,” he chuckles. “But, still, there are more things to experience in life—I learned that when I met you.”

You blink. Your chest tightens slightly. “Meeting me hardly seems that relevant.”

“But it is. You…” he says quietly, “your chilis and your flowers. Your laughter. Your skin under the sun. Your voice. Your stubbornness. You have altered my perception of what it means to be alive as opposed to simply be living. Even your scolding,” he hums with a pointed look, and an endeared smile. 

You pause as it sinks in properly who he really is, and how you’ve been engaging with him—and then, your breath hitches before you gasp in horror. “Oh—I insulted the Geo Archon.”

“Yes, it would appear you have. Repeatedly.” He gives you a slightly cheeky look as he says, “Some would consider that an unforgivable sin, you know.”

You cover your face. “I am never showing my face around you again.”

“That would be unfortunate.”

You peek at him through your fingers. “…Why?”

“Because I would miss you.”

The words are spoken so simply that it takes you a moment to process them. Your hands slowly lower. “What do you wish to gain from such easy flattery?”

Zhongli—or perhaps Morax, you should call him, maybe even Rex Lapis—meets your gaze, laughing softly. “I stepped down because Liyue no longer needs its Archon,” he says. Then, more softly: “And because I wish to live as a normal man. To walk among the people I once ruled. To learn their customs not as a distant observer, but as one of them.” His voice grows quieter. “To experience the small joys of mortal life.”

“You will not be mortal,” you scoff, “even if you step down.”

“But I can live like one,” he says easily. “There are many joys to the mortal way of life.”

Your throat tightens. “Is that so?”

“Yes. And I find,” he says gently, “that many of those joys seem to involve you.”

You stare at him. “Me?”

“Yes.”

You look at him a little longer—cautious, careful. You think back on all the little moments that led you here—that first damn day he came to your quiet, small village, stepping on your sprouting chili plants as he walked confidently in the complete opposite direction of where he needed to be. That easy, effortless way he’d helped your grieving heart fill the empty place left behind by Master Lu’s passing before you’d even realized something was missing at all. The kind, thoughtful way he spoke to Madam Lu and ate her cooking, talking with her like an old friend, like someone who understood her loneliness without her ever having to say it aloud. And that soft, delicate way he slowly made you realize that your existence, outside of this small, gentle village, could belong beside other people. That you, with your half-adeptal blood and that quiet, lingering sense of abandonment you had buried down all those years ago, could still be worth something to someone beyond the only place you had ever believed you were allowed to belong.

You love him—oh, you think, how you love him so easily and desperately and hard and deep and fierce. You love him with that mixed blood in your veins and that broken part of you that has always wondered, somewhere in the back of your mind, if you truly, really belonged anywhere at all. You love him because he keeps you company, and you love him because keeping him company is the easiest thing you have ever known how to do.

You want to keep loving him. When years and years and more years pass—ten, then twenty, then fifty, then one hundred—you want to love him still. And you want him to love you, too. You want to spend your long, endless days with him and watch time pass slowly and steadily at your side. He has so much of it to spare, and so do you, and you want to spend that time believing that not one day is a waste if you spend it together.

You love him, and you want to dare to believe that he could, after all this time, grow to love you the same way.

“This sounds like a confession,” you whisper. 

He looks at you with a small glint in his eyes. “I believe you could call it that, yes.”

“You are the former god of Liyue.”

“Yes.”

“And you are confessing to me.”

“Yes.”

You let out a long breath. It’s relieved. It’s joyed. It’s fucking exasperated and annoyed. “Well,” you mutter, “be that as it may, you have deceived me, deity or not. And any man who deceives a lady must make up for such egregious wrongdoings.”

A quiet laugh escapes him. “Then I will do that. I hope it will be satisfactory. Do offer me some leniency, if you will—I have only been living as a mortal for so long.”

You study him for a long moment. Then you sigh, stepping closer. “…You are still a loathsome man.”

“I have been told.”

“But,” you add reluctantly, stepping closer, “you are the loathsome man I have grown fond of, nonetheless.” 

He steps closer, too, invading your space so freely and easily, as if he exists simply to do that. Like it is his right to do so, no questions asked. He grabs you by your wrists, pulling closer and flush against him, pressing his forehead to yours as he studies your eyes. You love him, you think, oh, you love him so much, it could kill you—it could rob you of all the endless time that you have. 

And if he knows that, then he decides to spare your poor heart and your poor life span, too, as he murmurs, “I have fallen in love with you. Won’t you let this old, eroding man settle down in your company and pass his days in peace?”

You laugh (and it’s a watery little thing) as you shake your head in disbelief. “Say that again—and then I will believe you.”

“I love you,” he chuckles, raising a brow, “must I write it in a contract before you believe me?”

“I love you too, you loathesome, bothersome man,” you sob, “I’ll keep you company too if you stop deceiving me like the shady, untrustworthy businessman you are.”

He brings you into a deep, desperate kiss, cradling your face like it is the precious remainder of his long, endless lifespan pressed into his palms. You kiss back. It’s familiar. It’s new. It’s weird and odd and frightening, all at once—and yet, somehow, it is the most effortless, and correct thing that you do. 

“It’s a deal,” he murmurs, “yes?”

“Yes.”

-- — -- 

“Does that traveler girl know that you are Morax?” you ask against his bare chest, tracing your fingers along his skin. He is still catching his breath as he pulls your naked body against his, sighing as he gives you a look. Like he already knows where this is going. 

“Yes,” he says, warily. 

“So she knew before me, then,” you narrow your eyes. 

“Technically, that is the case, yes. But that is only because—”

“Perhaps you should seek her company, then,” you say petulantly, huffing as you dramatically roll away from him. 

Zhongli—after much questioning from you over whether he should be Morax now, or perhaps Rex Lapis, he has firmly insisted that this is the name you are to call him by—sighs as he takes your wrist and tugs you back against him. He gives you an exasperated look (and yet, despite it all, there is unmistakable fondness beneath it) before leaning down to press a kiss to your forehead.

“Do not sulk.”

“I am not sulking.”

“And don’t be so stubborn all the time.”

“I’m not stubborn,” you say defiantly. 

He gives you a flat look. “Seeking out your company is not for the weak, is it?”

You give him a smug, bright grin at that—and you almost think you watch him fall in love with you all over again. “Get used to it, then, old man—you have a long, long time of my company ahead. And it certainly is not for the weak, you’re right.”

He laughs—low and warm and quietly endeared, but above all, certain. “Good,” he hums. “That is fine by me. I have always been known to be rather strong, you see.”

You curl into his chest, and he holds you close, and you and Zhongli have all the time in the world.

(And no—none of it is a waste.)

sukuna would catch the way your eyes lost focus for a second too long when he lounged your bed (because apparently he was immune to exam week stress) and how your shoulders always seemed to stay hunched more often.

he didn’t say much, just watched you with that knowing, sharp look that told you he saw right through the i’m all good act.

but your breaking point finally comes on a random wednesday night. well, it wasn’t so random with how you’ve been bubbling over in stress lately. you have your biggest midterm on friday and you feel hopeless no matter how much you’ve been studying.

the library had been suffocating you. but when you moved to your dorm, the trashy fluorescent lights only made a headache pulse behind your eyes.

you didn’t even think about it—you packed your bag, shoved your notes inside with zero care, and trudged toward sukuna’s dorm.

when you knocked, you didn’t wait for him to answer before leaning your forehead against the cool wood of the door.

it opened a second later, and you nearly tumble forward into his chest.

“still at it?” he questions with a light edge, low voice vibrating through you. you completely miss the concern laced in his voice though his teasing tone.

you don’t even attempt to look up at him, only walking past him and dropping your bag on the floor with a heavy thud.

“i hate everything,” you whine.

you throw yourself face down onto his bed that seemed to be fluffier than yours, the silence of his room finally drowning out your mental noise.

sukuna shuts the door, the click of the lock echoing in the small space. he only stands there for a moment, looking down at the absolute mess of stress you’d become. he notices the way your fingers still twitch as if you’re trying to type out an essay in your haze.

you let out a long, jagged groan into his mattress, your fingers curling into the sheets as you suddenly kick your feet in a fit of pure frustration, “it’s not fair! i read the same paragraph six times and i still can’t remember it! i’m gonna fail, sukuna. i’m gonna fail and then drop out and live in a box—”

you’re halfway through another ramble when he finally reaches over, firm but not rough, rolling you onto your back.

“hey. look at me.”

you squirm, trying to push him off, frustrated and jittery, but he still doesn’t let go.

“i’m gonna fail! i can’t do this!” you blurt, throwing your hands over your glasses, smudging them in the way you hated in process.

he tilts his head, eyes narrowing. his tone hardens just enough to cut through your panic. “stop talking like that.”

“what?!” you groan, “i can’t help it!”

“yes you can,” he says steadily, almost clipped. “you’re the smartest girl i know. the smartest.”

you finally pause at that.

feel your face flush.

“…sh-shut up.”

he scoffs because he can’t help himself even now, “no you shut up.”

he sukuna doesn’t let you hide behind your hands any longer.

one of his hands, firm but careful, brushes your fingers aside and tucks them gently to your sides. “m’sorry. didn’t mean that… but i’m still not gonna let you hide,” he grunts softly. “now look at me.”

your eyes are glassy and there are angry tears their corners. you’re too tired and too stressed to be embarrassed about how much of a wreck you look, so you meet his eyes for just a second before flinching away.

“sorry…” you mumble.

he sighs. “don’t apologize, baby.”

without warning, he pulls you onto his lap, and memories from last week flash sharply through your mind. you try to ignore them because you want to focus on being pissed at the world for now.

“…sukuna,” you whine in frustration.

he holds you steady, hand on your hip, anchoring you. “shush. don’t whine. just breathe.”

you tilt your head forward, pressing it against his chest. “i’m not whining! i’m— ugh!” your hands twitch against his shoulders, trying to push him away, but he moves his other hand to move them gently pinned in front of you.

“yes you are,” he insists, tone teasing. the heat of his chest against you makes your words die on your tongue. “and stop squirming. you’re not going anywhere.”

you groan, flustered and frustrated, cheeks blazing. “i’m gonna—i can’t think like this!”

he hums softly, releasing your hands and using one of his to brush them through your hair, tucking stray strands behind your ear. “then stop thinking,” he says firmly, “you’re smart enough for whatever test you’re stressing about. take a break.”

your hands tremble where they’ve settled for gripping at his sweatshirt. “no i’m not…” you huff shakily, a few hot tears slipping down your cheeks despite your effort to hide them from his gentleness.

“you are,” he practically coos.

you press your face into his chest, letting out a shaky breath. your fists clench the fabric of his shirt, your legs kicking restless against the mattress where they bracket his thighs. your body is tight with frustration, heat crawling up your neck, and every muscle aches from holding in hours of panic and exhaustion.

he finally realizes your crying and soothingly presses you more firmly into his chest.

your face burns, eyes wet, but you can’t stop squirming, twisting against him even as he holds you steady. part of you wants to shove him away, to get up and run, but another part can’t—not while the steady weight of him beneath you keeps you from tipping over completely.

your legs clench and that’s when you break.

“sukuna…” you whimper.

you don’t know what’s gotten into you.

“hm? tell me.”

you shake your head violently against his chest, tears soaking into his sweatshirt. “i don’t know— i just—”

he feels the way your thighs clench—the little tremors in your thighs—and something flashes behind his eyes.

“don’t fight it,” he murmurs, one hand sliding up to cup the back of your head like an anchor. “just let go for a second.”

your breath hitches as another hand starts moving slow circles at the base of your spine—the spot that makes you melt.

it’s too much… or not enough… but god does it feel good after days of tension coiled tight inside you.

another whimper slips out as instinct takes over. your hips roll weakly against his high thigh before freezing with sudden horror at what they’re doing on their own accord.

sukuna feels it.

he stills instantly beneath you—not pulling away from contact but stopping all movement with sharp control.

“...baby,” he grits out lowly under his breath.

“sukuna…” you repeat, more breathily, cunt pulsing against his hard muscle.

he groans—a deep, punched out sound that vibrates through his chest and into yours because he feels that too. feels it even though the fabrics separating you.

his thigh flexes.

you whimper yet again because it feels so good even though you’re shaking with frustration and tears still leaking down your cheeks.

“i can’t help it...” you lie pathetically.

he scoffs darkly against the crown of your head before tipping it back just enough to make eye contact. your glasses are fogged up from crying against him and maybe something hotter.

“shoulda just told me what you wanted, huh?” he grunts, suddenly grinding you down harder onto him. “what you needed?”

you gasp but you’re too far gone to deny it, nodding shakily.

“want you… please… ‘kuna….”

he hisses under his breath your sweet words. your begging and that nickname that always slips out when you get needy— to gone to even get out his full name.

he lifts your chin further, just enough to keep you fixed on him.

your lips are parted and shiny, glasses slipping down your nose now. your eyes are glassy, still pretty when you cry.

you make him feel drunk with desire, seeing you like this, frustrated and pent up. he knows he shouldn’t be this way. he should definitely comfort you. but… you want to feel better. and well, this was one way of doing it.

besides, who was he to deny you?

his voice drops even lower, almost dangerous. he’s had enough of holding himself back recently.

“yeah? you need me, baby?”

you pout without realizing it, humping his thigh with more desperation.

“y-yes— please—”

you pawing at his sweats, not even knowing what you’re asking for at this point, brain too muddled.

you know you’re not ready for sex yet. but god, you just want something. you want to feel something more.

sukuna hisses.

fuck that. he has to hold himself back for your sake.

“tch. none of that yet, baby. come on.”

your eyes widen and you shake your head, snapping out of it the same time he does. you try to come up with a quick excuse.

you wince, “i- i just meant— i wanna um… y-your thighs—? oh god. nevermind.”

his eyebrows shoot up. you’re not even sure how he understood what you wanted to say through your stuttering.

“you wanna ride my thigh without my sweats in the way?”

fuck.

you shouldn’t have tried saying anything at all.

you gulp and hesitate—even though yes. yes that’s exactly what you want.

he leans in close, a hand coming up to grip your chin softly, “don’t go quiet again on me, baby. answer me.”

your cheeks heat even more than before.

he’s always so patient with you, it feels like your heart is gonna burst.

you swallow and manage to squeak out a quiet, “y-yeah… i want that….”

he grunts. and then before you know it, he’s pulling you into a kiss. its slow, but messy and it makes you cling to him even harder as your wet mouths slide with one another.

you don’t even notice how you haven’t stopped grinding onto his thigh.

he pulls away first, just to breathe, and then he’s taking pulling you off of him just for a second in order to toss off his sweatpants.

finally.

your eyes go wide at the sight of him in just his boxers, cunt pulsing again in helpless need as you try to ignore how hard he looks. this is the first time you’re seeing him in just his underwear.

“sukuna...” you whine, moving back towards him.

“shh,” he soothes darkly as he pulls you back onto his bare thigh. with the rough fabric gone you can feel the warm, toned skin of his thigh pressed to your soaked panties. “just ride me like this.”

you clench around nothing at all and let out a broken moan.

he feels your cunt pulsing even better against him now, and he has to ball his hands into fists to stop himself from just grinding you against him.

sukuna watches every little reaction on your face—the way your lips part with each shaky breath and how they wobble as you try to hold back more tears of frustration.

“fuck,” he mutters under his breath once you finally start rolling your hips. the sight of you on his thigh, trying to get off is the prettiest thing he’s ever seen.

you’re so gone. so perfect.

the next roll of your hips particularly sharp on purpose. you gasp as your swollen clit catches against his muscle, making you whimper and only speed up your movement.

he groans, “shit— take it easy, yeah?”

“mmh- yeah…” you breathe. but you don’t slow at all. it feels so good. just his thigh is relieving your stress so so well. “f-feels good—” you admit with a whine, gripping his shoulders.

“yeah? feel better already?” he grunts, thigh flexing, making you fall forward into the crook of his neck.

“mmhm!”

you nod frantically, pressing yohr forehead press against his shoulder.

he chuckles—a low, rough sound. he places both his warm palms onto your waist in order to keep you steady.

“good girl,” he murmurs into the shell of your ear before nipping it lightly with his teeth. “just like that… let go for me.”

you swear the praise is enough to make you cum.

your hips stutter a rhythm, desperate little circles grinding down onto him, every drag of sensitive flesh over his hard muscle pulling choked whimpers from you.

you’re lost in a haze before, without warning, sukuna’s hand slips under your panties—fingers sliding effortlessly through your soaked folds.

“fuck! sukuna!”

but he’s pulling away, just as quickly, sucking on his fingers and the slick he had gathered there. you watch him, jaw slack, eyes half lidded—panting yet not stopping your needy grinding.

“always tastes so good,” he grunts, eyes locked on yours.

your body is strung tight—every nerve alight from the friction of his thigh and the filthy sight of him licking your arousal off his fingers like a man starved.

he moves his hands to grab your hips with both hands again, except this time, he’s guiding you harder against him in rough circles as he watches your face twist with pleasure.

“gonna make you cum just like this,” he promises darkly, voice wrecked.

you’re close so fast it’s embarrassing—legs shaking around his thick thigh as wetness drips down onto where his skin meets your cunt.

he grunts at the noise you make in response, only grinding you against him harder, pupils blown black.

“look atcha… dripnin’ all over my leg.”

you hiccup wetly, completely out of control of your own body, letting your boyfriend manhandle you as he grinds you into his thigh hard.

he pauses just slightly, so momentarily you almost don’t notice it if it wasn’t for the way you ached from losing just a second of pleasure.

his touch is warm and heavy against the small of your back as he calls out your name, slowing the way he’s pressing you onto his thigh.

“baby?” he tries, voice rougher than before. “can i see you?”

your breath hitches.

you know what he means—the way his eyes flick down to your heaving chest for a split second too long before dragging back up to meet yours. nervousness coils in your stomach… but so does something hotter.

he feels the tension in you instantly—his thumb brushes over the fabric covering one nipple as if soothing and begging all at once.

“...wanna look at you,” he pleads.

you bite your lip in hesitation.

even though you’ve already let him finger you and eat you out, letting him see your tits feel like a whole other realm of exposure.

besides, what if he thought they were ugly? uneven?

your grinding falters just a little. but he notices immediately.

his hands brush your sides, soothing. “hey, don’t do that sweetheart. look at me.”

ugh. he knows what that pet name does to you.

your eyes lift up to his and then he’s swallowing the worry on your face with a gently kiss, his hands on your waist squeezing softly.

“you don’t have to be nervous. just you and me here, yeah?” he mutters against your mouth. “you don’t gotta do anything you don’t want to.”

you gulp.

your cheeks burn hotter but you manage to get the words out anyway.

“n-no… i- i want to…”

he smiles that warm and possessive look and it makes you feel a little braver.

he moves to pull the hem of your top—but not before making sure you absolutely want this one last time, pausing to ask, “this off then?”

your stomach does a little flip.

you chew on your lip as you nod. “yeah.”

once it’s off and you’re only in your bra, he looks up at you, one more time, making sure this is all okay. you nod shakily again. and this time, you’re the one reaching back to unclip your bra, pulling it off clumsily with shaky hands.

but now your chest bare in front of him for the first time ever.

his eyes drop immediately… then soften in a way that surprises even him.

“...fuck. you’re fuckin’ perfect,” he rasps out like an oath, like the words are ripped out of him. “all of you is so perfect.”

the uttered words send a searing heat through. your body can’t help but jolt on his thigh.

but when his warm, calloused hands finally cup your breasts gently?

you’re gone.

“ngh— ‘kuna!”

he fucking loves the way you moan his name.

he groans, thumbs brushing over your peaked nipples—watching you squirm with heat. “say my name again?”

your back arches into his touch as he pinches one gently between his rough fingers—and then leaning in to drag his tongue along the other before sucking hard enough to make you cry out.

“‘kuna! p-please!”

his hips jerk up involuntarily beneath you at that broken plea—your sweet sounds and the friction of you grinding your cunt his thigh almost too much for him too.

he pulls off with a wet pop and smiles down at where your sensitive tits are already swollen from his mouth. “fuckin’ beautiful… this all for me?”

“mhm!” you gasp, “all for you… p-please just—”

he cuts you off with a rough groan, pinching your nipple harder as he leans in to kiss the other one now, sucking until it’s peaked and puffy.

“hmmm? tell me,” he demands against your damp skin. “wanna hear you say it.”

your hips stutter, grinding faster on his thigh like a woman possessed—chasing that sweet friction while his hands and mouth work your chest.

“i- i wanna cum,” you sob out shamelessly, face burning but too far gone to care. “p-please let me cum…”

“fuckin’ hell,” he mutters—like you begging for him like this is ruining him faster than anything else could.

his hands slide down your body in one slow drag.

“c’mon,” he rasps darkly against your ear. “just take everything you want. use me.”

it wasn’t enough. you needed him to help. touch you—but you don’t want to admit that.

you were close though. so close to cumming. you could feel it.

perhaps you could do what he’s asking.

as if he can sense your internal debate, he encourages you again, “c’mon baby.”

so you finally do what your muddled brain tells you to.

you push him down onto his bed—you’re only able to do it because you catch him off guard. and then? you’re move to sit from his thigh to where his hard length is straining against his boxers.

sukuna groans.

it’s nasty. guttural. full of lust.

his eyes glazing over as he finally feels the heat of your cunt through the fabric of his wet boxers, onto his neglected cock.

he practically chokes—back arching off the bed as you grind down onto him.

“f-fuck!” his hands fly to your hips, grip bruising as he tries to stop you from moving again… but it’s too late.

the wet squelch of your cunt soaking through the fabric of his boxers stained in his precum is obscene—and so is how much more his cock swells, as you do, throbbing against you.

his face is twisted with pure agony when he looks up at you panting like a man who’s been starved.

the look on his face only spurs you on.

you reach for the hem of his sweatshirt, tugging, before he finally rips it off himself.

you immediately drool at the sight of him.

him underneath you in his muscled glory. cock twitching against your cunt. his pretty lips panting and his brows furrowed. it’s the hottest fucking thing you’ve ever seen in your life.

and you never want to stop seeing him like this.

fuck. you’re getting greedy.

he looks up at you through lidded eyes, the intensity in them leaving you breathless. sukuna is completely at your mercy like this. he’s flushed red from the tips of his ears to his chest.

the thought of having this man so willingly beneath you, is dizzying. addictive.

you’re trembling with the urge to wreck him. make him cum.

you groan at the thought and roll your hips again—watching how his abs clench and a bead of sweat rolls down down down to his happy trail.

you’re practically drooling.

your tits are in his face now as you put your hands onto his chest to anchor yourself—but sukuna is only leaning onto his elbows to stuff himself between them—mouthing at the softness of your breasts and palming them.

you moan again, feeling his cock jerk against the constrains of his boxers.

and suddenly, you’re being hurled towards your orgasm.

you speed up every debauched grind against him, humping him like an animal in heat.

he growls—lifting you up and off of him just enough to slap you and your practically see through panties back down onto his cock through the fabrics separating you… almost as if you could be really riding him in that moment.

“do it,” he hisses. “wanna feel ya.”

your back bows as pleasure rips through you—eyes rolling back at the filthy sound of wetness soaking into his boxers while your body locks up in ecstasy.

you don’t even realize how hard you’re clenching around nothing until sukuna lets out a pained groan beneath you, hips jerking wildly like he’s chasing friction.

“fuck!”

his hold tightens on your waist as he forces you to continue humping him, chasing his own high.

“ohh! s’too much! ‘kuna!”

“haah—too much? fuck. shut up, baby…” he pants against your skin. “you feel too good… can’t stop.”

he’s a man on fire—hips stuttering almost embarrassingly as he grinds you down harder, his cock throbbing against your overly sensitive cunt, the fabrics between the two of you simply too soaked to be of use at this point.

your whimpers only make him lose it faster, hands squeezing your ass to keep you trapped in the mess of fabric and sweat between you both.

“you feel that? he rasps, dragging his nose up the column of your throat. “how bad i need you? how much i’m gonna ruin you and these pretty panties?”

you shake violently at the filthy words—body still pulsing from cumming and now dripping onto him.

he feels it. every gush and every aftershock.

your cunt still pulses from your orgasm when he drags you down to press a sloppy kiss onto your lips.

that kiss alone makes him snap. feeling your plush lips on his is what finally does him in.

he cums. hard. his cock twitching violently beneath you, leaking hot streaks into his boxers as pleasure rips through him.

he curses under his breath like it hurts—yet he’s shivering in delight because finally—finally he’s cumming with you after weeks of holding himself back.

“oh my god,” you whine as he finally stills, completely spent—face burning from the heat of the moment. your arms wrap around him, feeling the sweat against his flushed skin—and you slump forward to crash your lips back onto his.

his arms immediately circle you in a loose, tired hug as you both breathe heavily, trying to cool down.

after a long moment, you finally manage to breathe, enough to gather your thoughts and attempt to vocalize just how mind altering dry humping him was.

“that was... amazing.”

he hums—lazy and utterly satisfied, mouth twitching into a smile as he drags a hand up your back, pressing you tighter against his chest.

“damn right it was,” he mumbles into your hair, voice still rough.

his fingers trail down to grip the waistband of those soaked panties—giving them a slow tug just to hear you squeak. “aw… they’re all ruined…”

you bury your face in his neck on instinct while sukuna chuckles darkly beneath you—the sound vibrating through where your bodies are still stuck together in the mess of cum and slick.

“we should get cleaned up, baby.”

you whine, snuggling into him more, eyelids heavy—sleepy already, just like the first time he had made you cum. “noooo… jus’ wanna stay here…” you mumble.

he pulls away slightly at that, just to look at your cute face.

he pats your backside, “nuh uh. you’ll yell at me tomorrow for bein’ unhygienic. come on, baby,” he murmurs as he lifts you up off him.

he picks you up, strong arms lifting you like you weigh nothing and carries you to the bathroom, kicking the door open before setting you down on the counter.

you’re too sleepy and much too content as he cleans you up like the gentleman he is. you end up completely forgetting why you were stressed out and at his dorm in the first place.

well…until the next morning when you scold him for letting you fall asleep—you could have gotten more studying in! alas, he quizzes you on shit he has no clue about, just to make up for it.

series masterlist

barely proofread!😻

do we like it when our reader is freaked out??

A lot of people like him. Like, like him a lot. You’ve heard there’s even a Twitter account set up just to post live updates about his whereabouts.

People take photos pretty much constantly - though most just manage to capture a blue blur. They film with their phones during fights, creeping closer to dangerous situations just for a better view. A thousand images that make up a mosaic of Metropolis’ biggest hero.

You certainly aren’t one of those silly people.

You know that danger = run. In the other direction.

You’re fairly certain everyone had that taught to them as a child, but maybe that’s being presumptuous. Not everyone has had the same upbringing as you.

Or, maybe, Superman is the exception to that rule.

Though, you swear you’d read his statement in one of Clark’s articles, asking that people avoid active danger zones. Cited civilian injury rates, the estimated cost to the city, and everything.

Do people not read Clark’s articles? You like to think they’re pretty good. You’re definitely not biased just because Clark is your boyfriend.

(You are, a bit.)

Perhaps, it was just another thing that you couldn’t get. That the sight of Superman was enough to warrant putting yourself in danger for.

Either way, whatever the true reason was, you’ve chalked it up to brightness. Or rather, a lack thereof in Metropolis’ population.

It also means you’re probably one of the only people in the city who hasn’t actually laid eyes on the hero.

Sure, you know what he looks like… you think.

Blue suit, red cape, occasionally with a dog.

(That makes him quite a bit more trustworthy in your opinion —but you need to see him with a cat to know for sure.)

And you’re quite alright with that - with not seeing him. Because, to be honest, if you do see him, it probably means you’re in a bit of trouble.

Like—“Don’t run, don’t scream, and we won’t have any trouble.”

Like now.

You freeze on the staircase leading out of your work, hand still on the railing, a little perturbed. You’re sure you don’t know the woman who was coming up the stairs, opposite you.

Her words take a second longer to process. It’s in part due to tiredness and in part due to the noise-cancelling headphones you’re wearing.

So much so that you actually push back the headphones and say, “Huh?” before you realise what she’s said.

Ah, you’re being mugged.

A glint of the knife in her hand confirms it. Well, wielding a knife at you is a more apt description.

You blink at her, dead-tired, and wonder what the hell you’re supposed to do in this situation.

“Good,” The woman flashes you a smile, faux and worse than some of your own masked smiles. She gestures with her free hand towards your bag. “Your wallet.”

You blink again, finally some instinct kicking in to raise your heartbeat and get fear running through your veins. You grip your bag tighter and blink violently again.

Oh. You don’t want to get stabbed. You imagine it would hurt very, very, very much.

What did Clark say to do again?

Your poor boyfriend, despite his size, seems to be the pick of the litter for mugging. That’s why he comes home with cuts and bruises from time to time.

If someone threatens you, just go along with what they’re asking, okay? He’d told you, blue eyes serious. If you do, they won’t hurt you.

You listen to him because he’s survived enough muggings, so he must know what he’s talking about.

Knowing exactly where it is in your bag, your hand dives in— and stops when the woman threatens the knife again.

“Slowly!” She barks, her wild eyes darting between your hand and your bag frantically.

You eye the knife warily, pulse still skyrocketing. Then you wrinkle your nose, because it’s never nice to be shouted at, especially by someone robbing you.

Besides, she didn’t specify any speeds to begin with.

It’s hardly fair. You’ve never been mugged before.

“Okay,” You say timidly, so she knows you’re listening. “I’m moving slowly.”

Doing as she says, you move at a much, much slower pace. You’re not exactly sure what she thinks you might pull out of the bag that could constitute a weapon.

Your notebook wouldn’t stand much of a chance against a knife. Not that you would sacrifice it. Your water bottle, maybe?

“Not that slow,” The woman growls when it’s been a few seconds and you still haven’t retrieved your wallet. “Are you stupid?”

That one stings a bit, with a tinge of frustration. Have you encountered the most indecisive mugger in all of Metropolis?

You swallow back your fear with a shaky inhale. Then wonder if she’s mugged Clark before.

With a shake of your head to answer her question, you pull your wallet out at a regular pace — then hold it out to her. “There isn’t very much money in it,” you tell her truthfully.

Ignoring you, she gestures flinchingly to the ground with her knife.

You follow the motion, then follow her instructions and open your fingers, letting the wallet drop. It bounces once and lands just a couple of inches from your feet.

“Oh, you are stupid.” She hisses, beginning to advance forward, knife still wielded chest high.

You watch her, wide-eyed, breathing coming heavier as your own feet shuffle back, panic spiking. You’re probably going to get stabbed now.

Every first-aid thought you can recall rushes to the front of your mind, furiously trying to remember the acronym for RED to deal with surface wounds.

If she stabs you, you’ll keep it in, you think bravely.

The woman bends down and snatches your wallet up, her knife trained on you the whole time—

“I don’t think that belongs to you.”

There’s a third person in the stairwell with you.

The mugger stumbles back, whipping around with a ferocity that makes your heart a bit weak. She certainly has no qualms about slicing people up with her knife.

You can’t tell where the other person is, same as your attacker. You watch, eyes still wide, as she looks left, right, but there appears to be no one else with you.

Her gaze slices back around to face you, and the knife follows, raised again, trembling this time. “I don’t know how you’re doing that, but—”

“I said,” the voice repeats, sounding nearer. “I don’t think that belongs to you.”

You’re caught between floors. The library you work in sits within a high-rise building, closer to ground-level. There are several stories above you, a roundabout staircase weaving its way up to each floor, but most everyone uses the elevator.

You’d been the last one out of the library. Unless it’s someone from many stories above…?

You both locate the new voice at the same time.

It’s somewhat satisfying to hear the choked noise your mugger makes as Superman drifts down the spiral in the middle of the stairwell.

Funny how the first thought in your mind is how this opportunity is probably being wasted on you.

Sure, you’re being mugged—but apparently getting a save from Superman is a pretty coveted thing, according to the internet. Looking at him now, you guess you can see the appeal.

He’s pretty. You mean, he’s not as pretty as Clark, but, yeah, on paper, you get it.

He’s tall, he’s strong, he’s come to your rescue.

He lands without flourish, his eyes scanning across the situation with a furrowed brow. Then his eyes land on you and he does a sort of double take.

Whatever it is, he focuses instead on the woman before you, one hand held out placatingly.

He doesn’t appear to blanch in the face of the knife. You wonder if super-bravery is one of his powers.

“Ma’am,” he says calmly. “I understand that it’s hard conditions that tend to drive people to commit these crimes. I also choose to believe that you don’t want to do this.”

There’s a tense moment, then, surprisingly, the woman nods tersely. The knife is still shaking in her hand, slowly lowering.

“Alright,” Superman says, offering a comforting smile now. “What is it you need?”

The knife is completely lowered now; the woman transformed from her angry state just a moment ago. Suddenly, she’s skittish. Embarrassed.

“Money,” she murmurs. Then, louder, with a gesture of your wallet, “I need money.”

Superman nods, no ounce of judgement on his face.

“Alright,” he says again. “You don’t need to take it from others, though. There are resources for when you’re in crisis. People who can help. Tonight, I hope I can be one of them.”

He reaches back, one hand searching beneath his cape. When he pulls his hand forward, there are several crisp bills in his grip.

The woman eyes it widely.

She looks up at him as though she can’t believe he’s serious. You suppose that’s understandable - how many superheroes carry cash?

He offers it out.

You realise at the same moment that the woman does that in order to take the money, she needs a free hand.

She glances down at the knife, then your wallet — then tosses the latter at your feet.

It lands with a loud slam in the empty stairwell, making you twitch violently. Superman’s eyes dart to you, a quick furrow to his brows. It’s wiped away in the next second.

The woman steps out, reaching for the cash - but when she pulls, it doesn’t budge.

You watch closely as her gaze rolls up apprehensively to look up at Superman. There’s a tinge of nervousness to her expression now.

“I give you this—” He’s still calm as ever. He should seriously consider being a hostage negotiator, you think. You’d be much worse in this situation. He bargains, “You give me the knife.”

He tilts his head, nodding to the knife still in her grip, wavering at her side. A strand of hair falls over his forehead, curled and the colour of coal.

Again, a little bit of you gets it. He’s handsome.

Not that you’d choose to be mugged again. Or run into danger to see him.

The woman nods again, still tense.

It’s a quick transaction — she holds the knife up, non-threatening this time, and Superman releases the grip on the cash as she hands it over. He grabs the knife by the blade with seemingly no problem.

Then the interaction is done.

With the likeness of a rodent who’s narrowly escaped a trap, your mugger quickly scurries away, down the stairs and out the door you were supposed to be out of 15 minutes ago.

You watch her go, still tensed up, your heart rate still far too near tachycardia for your liking. You can’t tell if you’ve under- or over-reacted in this situation.

The door slams loudly behind her, and you flinch in surprise. You hate loud noises enough as it is.

The slam echoes up the stairwell, empty now, except for you.

And Superman, of course.

“I believe this,” Superman breaks the silence with ease, shortening the distance between you to retrieve your wallet from the ground. “Belongs to you.”

The knife has been hidden away already, as you can’t see it anywhere. When you look up at his face, he’s smiling at you, a softened and comforting expression.

His hand holds your wallet, a well-worn purple butterfly one that your mother has been begging you to throw out for years. It looks small in his grip.

You take it. Nod and make your best attempt at eye-contact, which is barely a glance up, then down.

You say, “Thank you,” but it comes out much quieter than you’d like.

Are you supposed to say goodbye before you leave?

It would feel impolite not to. There’s a good chance he just saved your life. Or at the very least, keep you from getting stabbed.

Should you give him some money?

He did sort of just pay to keep you stab-free.

But finder’s fee is a thing, right?

But, well, your wallet wasn’t actually lost. In fact, you knew exactly where it was the whole time.

Too many questions. You don’t have any answers. Unknowingly, Superman adds another to the mix.

“Are you okay?” He says, taking another step forward, bringing you closer. “Are you hurt at all?”

Fingers flexing on your wallet, you swallow heavily and force yourself to meet his gaze.

There’s a furrow in his brow that looks like concern. Combined with his closeness, the interaction feels oddly… intimate.

“Yes,” you say in response to his first question.

Alarm flashes over Superman’s face. “You are hurt?” He questions, blue eyes already scanning over your body for the apparent injuries.

“No,” you remedy, with a shake of your head. “You asked if I was okay. I am. She didn’t stab me.”

“Oh,” Superman deflates in relief, enough to drop his shoulders a few inches. You’re not sure if this is his usual memo, but you’re a bit taken aback by how much he seems to care.

A different question niggles at you. You ask it before you can think the better of it.

“You carry cash?”

Something close to surprise ripples across his face before it settles into a smile. You spot the dimples on his cheeks, and it makes you think of Clark.

“Sometimes I get hungry,” Superman says, as if admitting a guilty secret. “Can’t exactly use a card to pay, can I?”

You blink at him for a moment before — ah, yes, secret identity.

A card would have been connected to a name. Would a bank let him open an account as Superman? You haven’t thought about that before.

You nod, a little unenthusiastically, because, with the danger gone, what little energy you have is being sapped from you.

“I’m—” You wave at the door with your wallet—remembering mid-way that you still need to put it away (you don’t want to get mugged again).

You bury it away in your bag before you forget, head ducked, before looking back up at Superman.

“Um.”

Wow, no one mentioned the awkward part at the end of being saved.

The one where Superman lingers closely, an expression you can’t puzzle out on his face, and the journey back home you still have to make.

“Thank you. I have to go now.”

Then, before he can catch you with another question, you turn and head down the stairs, feet pitter-pattering rapidly.

Maybe that’s rude - or maybe he’s used to people asking for a selfie, which you really don’t want to have to explain that you’re okay without if he offers. The cringe at the mere thought of that awkwardness is enough to make your skin crawl.

You’re out onto the street in record time.

The streetlights are a little brighter. You’ve missed your usual train. Frustration irks in the back of your throat.

Shaking it off as best you can, you stride fast towards the subway station. In your back pocket, your phone buzzes with a text.

You’ve set it to only do that for important people, so it pulls you up to a stop. You fish out the device, squinting at the screen.

Clark (Lois’ Co-worker): Hey :) I miss you, can I come see you tonight?

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

Clark always knocks with a special pattern, so you know it’s him, before you even open the door.

Tonight, when you hear it, it sounds a lot like relief.

You don’t move from your spot on the couch — where you’ve been since you got home — because Clark has a key to let himself in.

A moment later you hear it, his key jiggling into the lock. It clicks with its unlock. The door opens and your boyfriend follows in.

“y/n?” His voice wraps around the corner to find you in the living room. “Knock-knock.”

He comes round the corner of your front entrance into the living room in a manner of steps. Your apartment has a small front entrance. And a small everything else too.

He spots you, seems to melt a little, and a smile spreads across his face.

“There you are.” He sighs, the sound laced with relief. As if maybe you wouldn’t be here, even though you said you would.

He’s wearing his work clothes still, but one of the buttons of his dress-shirt —the one you sewed back on— has been put in the wrong hole. You wonder if it’s been like that all day. He nudges his glasses up his nose.

“Hi,” you say. You haven’t moved, but you’re already beginning to smile. “Why do you say knock-knock when you’ve already knocked?”

Clark grins wider at your question, rounding the couch and moving to sit next to you.

He pauses when he notices the boots still on your feet, and instead, he kneels beside you.

He’s going to take your shoes off for you, you realise with an ache of love.

“To be polite, I guess,” He answers you, flashing you another smile. He beckons your foot forward, and when you shift it slightly, he begins the task of undoing the laces for you. “Let's you know that it’s me who’s coming in.”

“That’s what the knock is for, isn’t it?”

Finished, he pulls on the boot, and you give your ankle a little wiggle to help him. It slides off.

He starts on the next, giving a little shrug. “Yeah, but still, it’s nice to do. Maybe you didn’t hear the knock.”

He tugs the other one off, and when it comes free, you slump a little further into the couch, happy to have one less thing touching you. Clark notices, as always.

“Rough day, huh?” He says sympathetically, pairing your boots together. “Give me a quick sec.”

He rises to his feet, your shoes in hand, and quickly deposits them at the door. This time, when he’s back, he finds a spot on the couch next to you. Close, but not touching.

“Alright for a kiss?” He asks.

It’s one of the things you and Clark do to make sure he’s not overwhelming you. Particularly after tiring days—much like today.

But a lot of your usual boundaries break down for Clark. Because he waits. Because he asks.

You nod, because yeah, a kiss sounds like something you need right now. “Yes, please.”

Clark smiles again, dimples appearing, and he leans in slowly, his hand finding the curve of your jaw. He waits for the adorable hitch in your breath.

Kisses from Clark are a bit like coffee to your system.

His lips are warm. The feeling it gives you perks you up. You sink into him, letting him sap some of your tiredness.

You don’t even realise how much you’ve let yourself rest on him until he’s pulled back and you’re still leaning into his hand. He doesn’t make a move to pull it back though, so you figure it’s alright to rest here a little longer.

“Rough day?” He asks again, a little quieter this time. His thumb swathes across your cheek dotingly.

You nod with a sigh, and it moves his hand in time with you.

While he’s still close, Clark dots a kiss on your hairline, soft as sunlight. He keeps his tone low as he murmurs, “Want to tell me about it?”

You cast your eyes downward, thinking back to the stairwell. It had been scary, but ultimately you’d been okay.

Really, you’re most miffed about the change in routine.

It’s evidently not safe to take the stairs anymore, but you don’t want to have to start taking the elevator now.

The one at your work was old. It creaked and juddered terribly before it got to any floor. It wasn’t anything like the nice one in Clark’s apartment building.

Pulling back from Clark’s gentle hold, you let yourself slump back against the couch instead. Clark follows suit, matching your position, his head leaned up against the back of your couch. His hair looks particularly tousled tonight, you note.

“I have to start taking the elevator at work.” You say.

Clark blinks, bewilderment passing across his face so fast you almost don’t catch it.

“Oh,” He says, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice. A moment later it’s replaced with his usual compassion. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry. Did something happen?”

You give a little shrug. “Not really. Like, nothing technically.”

That makes Clark squint just for a moment, thinking hard on your words. He chooses his next carefully.

“Did something… almost happen?”

Which, well, yeah, a lot of things almost happen every day.

It feels like a vague question, but you know Clark isn’t prone to asking those. Even so, you shrug again, unsure how to answer that correctly.

Instead, you tell him, “I met Superman today.”

That makes him sit up a bit straighter.

“What?” He says. “Why? I mean, what happened?”

You shrug again. You’re shrugging a lot tonight, maybe because you’re not quite sure how to put it.

You were almost mugged? You were in the middle of getting mugged when Superman stepped in and said, ‘Hey, mug me instead’?

“A lady at work had a knife,” you say candidly. Then you hear the words and quickly correct yourself, “Not a lady from work. She was just at my work. In the building.”

Clark frowns, thick brows knitting together in the middle. “A knife? Was anyone hurt? What did she want?”

He’s usually better at not asking so many questions in one go, but you forgive him this time. If anyone showed up at his work with a knife, you’d be pretty worried too.

He sounds pretty panicked as well, his voice a little more strained than usual, discomfort obvious on his face.

A bit of your stress must show on your face, because Clark’s suddenly filled with apologies: “Sorry, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to ask so many questions or overwhelm you, honey. I just — I’m surprised you didn’t call or text me about this.”

For the nth time, you shrug again.

“Technically nothing actually happened. She just tried to mug me.”

“She tried to mug you?” Clark repeats, brows raised. His voice is pitched up a bit, which isn’t like him. He breaks eye contact, staring at your coffee table with a strange intensity. “Gosh…”

Tracking your eyes to the coffee table, you check to see if there is something specific that’s caught his eyes. Finding nothing, you nod to answer his question.

“Which, I tried to tell her I don’t have much money, but she didn’t care.” You frown, recalling the interaction. “She was quite mean, too.”

That makes Clark frown too. He nudges his glasses up again.

“So, I have to start taking the elevator now. So, bad day.” You explain, with a put-out pout, already sighing at the thought. “It’s like a superpower that you knew to ask to come over tonight.”

That makes Clark laugh for some reason, a loud barked-out noise that he clamps down immediately after he makes.

“That,” He says, adjusting his glasses once more. “Ha, well, I actually wanna ask that every night. Just got lucky, I guess.”

His eyes widen. “Not that you getting mugged was in any way lucky! Just, y’know, lucky that I… happened to text.”

He’s nodding along so much, you feel you should nod too.

It feels nice to know he wants to spend every night with you - and nicer that he knows you need some nights by yourself. Tonight isn’t one of those.

“What did you think of, uh, Superman?” Clark asks after a moment. He’s stopped fidgeting with his glasses, but his fingers toy with his tie, giving away his nerves.

It’s sweet. Clark has always been a sweetheart. You also know he and Superman are sort of friends. As you’ve learned over the years, that probably means he wants you to like him too.

“He was… nice.” You say, making sure you’re not too honest.

He had been nice. He’d also been… well, a bit too nice for a stranger. Stood a little too close. Was that wrong of you to judge when he’d saved your life?

You decide that if he’s Clark’s friend, you won’t speak ill of him.

“Nice,” Clark echoes, nodding enthusiastically. “That’s good, right? I noticed you, uh, don’t have much to say about him. Not like a lot of Metropolis.”

You’re not sure if that’s a compliment or not.

“He’s… Superman,” you say with another little shrug. “I don’t think he cares too much about what I think of him. He’s busy saving the world.”

Something in your words must be funny because Clark’s grinning again, his fingers no longer fidgeting with his tie. Instead, he reaches for the knot of it, beginning to loosen it.

“I’ve got a feeling he cares,” Clark says, blue eyes bright. “He cares what everyone thinks. But Superman-Schmuperman, enough about him. Have you eaten yet?”

The way he says schmuperman is enough to make you giggle. Clark gets that besotted look in his eyes that you just adore. You shake your head to tell him no, you haven’t eaten yet.

He makes breakfast for dinner for the both of you.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

You do take the elevator when you head back to work the next day.

It creaks and it judders in that terrible way, but it delivers on its intended purpose and gets you to your floor. Does the same on your way home.

It’s a new normal that you’re gritting your teeth to come to terms with.

Except, surprisingly, apparently not.

Because come Friday morning, there’s a sign taped over the doors with a big arrow directing people to the stairs.

And when you enter the stairwell, you’re far from the only one taking the stairs.

“What happened to the elevator?” You ask one of your coworkers, the first words out of your mouth when you get behind the desk.

It’s Sandra, a nicer older lady who wears perfume a bit too strong for your sensitive nose. But she never yells when you wear your headphones on quiet shifts, so you decide you like her.

“Oh, didn’t you hear?” She says, eyes glittering. Sandra also loves gossip - which is a good and bad thing. Today, it’s good.

You shake your head. Sandra’s eyes shine brighter.

“Some big-shot reporter at the Daily Planet published a scathing review on how poorly kept up to code the elevators in Metropolis are. Name-dropped our building. Big advocate for us less-than-able folks.” She taps her leg, the one with the bad knee, and grins.

“Body-corp had to step in. The whole thing is being replaced.”

You feel your eyebrows raise, surprise parting your lips. You have a feeling you already know who wrote that article.

“That’s good news. Do you still have the article up?”

She nods, then waves you closer, behind her cubby at the main front desk. Her monitor has a dozen different tabs open, but like you, Sandra seems to know exactly where everything is.

She clicks her mouse, and the screen reloads.

A Daily Planet-style article fills the pixels, with the familiar globe spinning on its axis in the corner. Your eyes search, and even though you’re half-expecting it, your heart still lurches.

There, the byline.

Written by Clark Kent.

Which—oh. It never stops being unexpected, the ways in which he loves you.

Your knuckles rise to your sternum without thought, pressing in to try to calm yourself.

“That’s really good news.” You say, smile a bit wobbly. The strong dose of affection passes after a moment, and you speak a little clearer, “I hated the old elevator.”

“I know you did,” Sandra hums knowingly. “Don’t you have a boyfriend at the Planet?”

You smile because it’s nice to know other people are paying attention to you as well as those who are supposed to. Even simply co-workers.

“Yeah,” you say, pressing your knuckles harder again, just in case another wave threatens you. “Uh, yeah, I do. That’s him.”

“Oh!” Sandra lights up at that news - and you briefly wonder if it’s a mistake to have told her. But she smiles sweetly, goes to put her hand on your arm and then seems to think the better of it.

“That’s wonderful. He seems like a good egg.”

You’re not quite sure what she means by that, but it sounds like a good thing. Smiling, you give a little nod.

“Yes. He’s… very nice to me,” you say, almost bashfully. “I love him a lot.”

“How sweet,” says Sandra, though she’s already turned her attention back to the screen. You see her mouse move, drifting up to Clark’s name, blue and linked. She left-clicks with a satisfying click!

That feels like your cue to leave. Quietly, you readjust the bag on your shoulder, treading past Sandra and her oogling stare, now zooming in on your boyfriend’s work identification photo. Guess that's what you get for telling her.

You just catch the last of her words as you turn into the backroom.

“Well, he’s nice to look at, but he’s no Superman…”

You smile to yourself, think of your darling Clark, and quietly disagree.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

Post-attempted mugging, you like to think you have a pretty uneventful week.

Beyond the elevator replacement, which started kicking in on Friday, nothing much happens that you would warrant calling an ‘event’.

Well, nothing that affects you in particular.

A kaiju finds its way into uptown. Superman and Justice Gang fight it off.

You, as always, don’t join the swathes of foolish people who run towards the dangerous sounds of battle.

It all goes down on a Sunday, the day you always go over to Clark’s to make dinner with him. Thankfully, his apartment isn’t affected, and the battle is all wrapped up by the time you'd planned to head over there.

The elevator makes your stomach swoop, as always, and you nearly knock the fresh chives in your bag loose by accident. You silently hope you picked a good enough cauliflower for tonight’s dish.

At his lime-green door, you rap your special knock — then, after a moment, let yourself in with a key.

This is usually where you’re greeted.

Tonight… You stand in the entranceway of Clark’s apartment, and he doesn’t come to meet you. So you strain your ears. There’s water running.

Wandering further in, you deposit the bag of groceries atop the countertop and pause, head tilted. The kitchen looks clean. Nothing’s been started, not even a chopping board out on the bench.

It’s odd behaviour for Clark.

You follow the sound of running water to the bathroom, walking slowly.

You’ve been here countless times, but without Clark greeting you, it feels wrong to stroll around as if you own the place. You don't call out — though you probably should, as it might help you locate him.

“Honey.”

You jump, even though he’s spoken softly. You turn to where the noise came from. Head poked around the bathroom door, Clark looks… a little worse for wear.

There’s a cut on the bridge of his nose and his left eye has definitely taken a punch, evidenced by the yellowed skin around it. He’s breathing a little heavily.

“Hi,” he says. “I know. Looks worse than it is, promise.”

It does look bad, you agree. But he smiles so brightly that you can’t imagine he’s not telling the truth.

“What happened?” You ask worriedly, especially as Clark cringes at the question. “Did you get mugged again?”

Something relaxes in Clark’s face, and you think it might be understanding. He nods ruefully. The bright smile is back on his face in an instant.

“Did you find a good cauliflower?”

You blink, surprised by the change in topic. Though, he had complimented you in the past on your particular penchant for picking perfect produce.

Maybe he likes this dish you make — cauliflower steaks — a little more than he'd let on. He's impossible to get an opinion out of sometimes; you maintain that anything you make does not qualify as a favourite food.

“I did.” You nod. “It’s in the kitchen.”

Somehow, you can’t leave without offering help. “Do you need any help? I can find the arnica, or—”

A shake of Clark’s head cuts you off, his handsome smile still at full beam. “No, no, I’m almost done. Had, uh, had some arnica already. Just give me a minute in here, and I’ll meet you in the kitchen, okay?”

Six minutes would’ve been a more accurate time estimate.

You try not to hold it against him, especially considering he's obviously had a bad day already.

You manage to mince five cloves of garlic, then wait, because you like cooking with Clark, then begin chopping the chives before he appears in the kitchen.

“All better,” he says, sidling up behind you, hands reaching out to gently rest on your waist.

You put down the knife and turn in his arms, eyeing up the new improvements.

The bridge of his nose is now sporting a light pink bandaid. The bruising on his eye already looks better — which makes you think it was just the lighting of the bathroom making it look as bad as it did.

“Was it a woman?” You ask.

“Wha— what?” Clark trips over the word.

“Your mugger. Were they a woman?”

You want to know if it was the same one who tried to take your wallet. Though, she had a knife, and Clark looks like he got punched. Unlikely to be the same perpetrator.

“Uuuh,” He draws out the sound, thinking it over, even as his hands on your waist pull you in closer. His body presses against yours, warm and firm. “I don’t think so. If I had to guess, I’d say… gender non-conforming?”

His earnest choice of words makes you smile. You reach up, hands carefully finding a resting place cradling his jaw. "Progressive," you say as a joke.

Clark laughs, and you feel his hands around your waist give an affectionate squeeze.

He leans in and kisses you quick, a hello — and you pat yourself on the back for only giving a little bit of a strangled inhale in response.

"Did Superman save you too?"

The second after you ask the question, you feel a bit silly. Superman has been uptown all day, flying around and doing whatever it is he does to fight against kaiju's. He probably couldn't have—

"Uh, yeah." Clark says after a moment, nodding. One of his eyebrows twitches strangely. "Yeah, he did."

He looks a tad apprehensive, mouth pursed, eyes not quite meeting yours.

You deduce that the mugging, as you're now familiar with, is probably not something he wants to talk about. Feeling a tad guilty, you change the subject.

"I'm worried people aren't reading your articles."

You say this as you release his face, and Clark's hands instinctively loosen their hold to let you turn back to the countertop.

Someone has to keep cooking, and you've already been sidetracked once tonight. There's not a schedule or a time limit, but there kind of is to you.

Besides, you know it has to be you keeping dinner on track.

You're pretty sure if it weren't for your insistence, Clark wouldn't mind spending all his evenings wrapping you up in his arms, doling out kisses galore.

The thought makes your face burn. You focus on your grip on the knife; instead of the vibration of Clark's surprised laugh you can feel against your back, resuming your chopping.

"You're…? Sweet girl, why are you worried about that?"

Hearing him call you something as nice as sweet girl makes you feel as though you've swallowed a firework.

It burns all the way down, hot and bright, and finds a home behind your ribs. It takes a long moment to compose yourself, hand-halted, and a bite to the inside of your cheek to do so. After a moment, you start chopping again, a little slower this time.

His surprise has made you second-guess the logic you've followed.

Maybe he'll think you're being daft. (He wouldn't). Maybe he'll entertain your theories just because he loves you. (He would). You um and ah over whether to tell him.

Clark hasn't put his arms back around you, which you're thankful for because it's distracting and it makes it harder to chop.

He's instead stepped to the side, leaning against the bench to stay close.

You finish with the chives, put down the knife and reach out, the counter digging into your stomach slightly as you pull the bag of groceries closer. You decide to tell him.

"Well, the kaiju today," you begin.

You pull out the cauliflower, handling it with two hands. It's hefty, nearly the size of your head — but it wasn't pay by weight, so it's a steal you're proud of. The market usually yields well.

"Good cauliflower," Clark compliments. You brighten up at the words. His gaze softens, his smile a little fonder.

"The kaiju, please continue."

"Right," you nod. "I was on 14th Street when it, like, arrived. So, pretty close. Maybe like four or five blocks? But I've noticed this — and this is why I'm worried that people might not be reading your articles — because you wrote that Superman piece, where you interviewed him and asked about civilian safety?"

The end of your sentence goes up a bit, becoming an unintended question. You glance over at your boyfriend, reassured when he nods to say you're correct.

You make the first slice into the cauliflower, splitting it right down the middle.

"And I remember it because you asked me to proofread that one, though I remember a lot of your articles too, but this one had that really helpful statistic about the likelihood of civilian injury rates increasing or decreasing based on civilian responses."

Carving out the 'steaks' takes a little more focus, so you stick out your tongue and halt talking for a moment. Clark makes himself useful, disappearing from your side to dive into his cabinets.

"Keep talking, I'm listening," he assures you.

"Well," you continue, "you remember the five categories?" You feel yourself over-explaining his own article to him and wince. "Sorry, you wrote the article, you know. Sorry."

Cumin, coriander, salt, and pepper find their way to the bench beside you, little glass jars glinting beneath the lights. "No need to apologise."

"Okay," you say. If Clark says it, it must be true — he's the most truthful person you know. Maybe besides yourself.

"The category, the reckless one? I can't remember the number it turned out to be exactly, but it was high. Do you remember?"

Clark has pulled one of the oven trays out and placed it beside you on the countertop, preparing to place your meticulously sliced 'steaks' on it.

A sunny-coloured oil has been drizzled along the bottom, greasing it up. You hear the whir of the oven somewhere to the side, behind you, beginning to preheat.

"Yeah, yeah," Clark says, back to his spot beside you, prodding his glasses up with a knuckle. You hope they don't hurt the cut on his nose.

"The likelihood of civilian injury increases to 70% if they exhibit reckless behaviour during an active emergency." He rattles off the statistic easily.

"Exactly," you say.

Where did this conversation start again? Your brain jumps around, trying to find it — cauliflower, mugging, Superman.

"Right," you pick up the thought. "But when I was out there today, a lot of people started going towards the kaiju. But I remember in that interview, Superman said he wanted people to do the opposite."

You realise you're still holding the knife, but there's nothing left to chop.

You place it down on the board, twisting and leaning your hip up against the counter.

Clark's tall — tall enough you have to lift your chin to look at him properly. You let your gaze roam over his face attentively.

He's so handsome. He's always handsome, and you love seeing him in his suit and tie, but dressed casually, like he is today, is a treat.

He's in loose jeans, wearing a quarter-zip jumper. You can see his white t-shirt beneath it.

His hair is tousled and loose, barely dried from the shower he must've taken earlier.

He's still smiling at you, now half amusement, half something else. His dimples beg to be kissed. You're barely restraining yourself.

You wonder if the look in his eyes is what novels would describe as starry-eyed. Either way, it undoes you in a quiet, gentle way.

"That's why you're worried?" He questions.

One of his hands snakes forward to find the curve of your neck again, cupping your face gently. It's as though he does it without thought, like his hands have a mind of their own and they're all about touching some part of you.

You feel your heart rate go up at the touch. Then you see Clark's smile widen a little — though the two can't be connected.

"Yes. Why would people go towards danger?"

Clark's thumb begins its familiar swatch across your cheek, one of his favourite motions. He tilts his head a little, giving your question some thought.

"I think some people want to see Superman."

"They'd get in danger for that?"

"Apparently," he shrugs, looking suddenly bashful. "It's good to hear that you wouldn't, honey. And to hear you're concerned about who's reading my articles, but trust me, if people weren't, Perry would've had my… backside some time ago."

That's true. While the logic you followed to assume people might not be reading Clark's work is somewhat sound, the truth of his boss is a far stronger point of reason.

You've met Perry just once. He's very to the point. You weren't fond of the smell of the cigar he carried around with him.

He'd taken a look at you, the one time you'd dropped off lunch to Clark after he'd forgotten it and raised his brows, turned to your boyfriend, and said, "Well done, Kent."

It had taken a minute before you realised he had been referring to you when he said that — which led to you fleeing the scene with haste.

Clark had made up for it with dozens of kisses later that evening.

As Clark begins seasoning the 'steaks', pushing his sleeves back to reveal toned forearms, you ponder over his words.

Ponder the idea that Superman was worth running towards danger for.

You think back to your interaction with the hero and puzzle over it, but it's not something you can seem to make sense of.

You can't think of anyone you'd do that for.

Turning back to face the countertop to help Clark, falling into that Sunday-evening rhythm, you sneak a look at him out of the corner of your eye.

He catches you and pokes out his tongue, nudging you softly with his elbow.

You laugh, such a common sound in his kitchen, and think: yeah, maybe for him.

For Clark, it would be worth running towards the danger.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

Your uneventful luck runs out.

It runs out rather quickly too. It hasn't even been a month since the mugging - or mugging attempt, you should say - when something happens on the subway.

Living in Metropolis, there's a sort of intuition one gains for otherworldly interference.

Like knowing when your subway car screeches to a halt as though someone's pulled the emergency brake, it is not for maintenance reasons.

It happens jarringly.

Which, well, there isn't exactly a non-jarring way to pull the emergency brake, but it's the word that springs to mind when it happens.

The lights overhead flicker once, twice.

Then, with a most awful screech that dives under your skin, it is as though the whole subway car slides to the left.

It doesn't.

Actually, you and every other person within the subway car are the ones who move.

The half-car full of people gets shoved suddenly to the right, the force of the abrupt braking enough to knock everyone off balance. Distressed noises go up all around.

You're sitting down, on one of the edge seats, but it doesn't stop you from getting banged around.

The unanticipated halt mobilises you, pushing you harshly into one of the handrails.

You collide forcefully, not prepared enough to stop your head from snapping against the pole.

It's your forehead, right above your left eyebrow, that takes the brunt of it.

Pain radiates. It splinters across your forehead with an agonising throb, causing you to yelp in response. You clutch the pole tightly, just in case the subway car plans to throw you around again.

The lady who's sat next to you has slid over in the commotion too, ending up pressed up against your side.

She wiggles back as soon as she gains her balance, which you're thankful for, but she's focusing on you too closely for comfort.

On your forehead, more specifically.

"Shit, kid," she says worriedly, mouth downturned. "You're bleeding."

After she says it, you can feel that she's right. There's a warmness to the pain on your head that's dipping dangerously close to light-headed.

Your fingers reach up, grazing the wound—and the pain burns hot again, fiercer this time. You wince, regretting touching it.

You bring your hand down. Scarlet paints the tips of your fingers.

The lights flicker again.

Then go out for good.

It's as though you've inhaled a mouthful of smoky panic. You're not the only one, the distressed sounds of the car climbing in volume.

"What's happening!?"

"Someone's pulled the emergency brake!"

Several torches click on, phones held up to cast the subway car into moving, white lights. Shadows jump across the walls, tall and pointed.

"What? Why!?"

"Yeah, why would someone do that?"

"How the hell are we supposed to know that, dipshit!?"

You shrink down in your seat, overwhelm crowding in on you rapidly. The subway car seems suddenly far too cramped.

Is this car smaller than usual? The loud noise is enough to make you tick — having to consider what may have caused the delay in transport begins to pick at your stitching.

You try to take a deep breath, finding it too shallow.

No, it's fine. It's fine. You're travelling home, and you'll be late, but just by a little.

It's fine. You can still be on schedule. Clark won't mind if you're late.

Clark!

You remember your plans with him tonight with a sinking feeling. You fish out your phone, already drafting the text to tell him you're going to be late, but the sight on your screen stops you.

No bars. You're in a dead zone.

Cool. That's fine. No, really, it is, you tell yourself. If it had been Darren, maybe, yeah, a little worrying would be warranted.

But Clark would understand. He's late himself from time to time.

Your fingers clench tightly around your phone as you force yourself to take another deep breath.

There's an unnerving crackle over the PA of the subway, and as your eyes adjust to the dark, you see every face in the subway car tilt upwards, listening.

"Good evening, passengers on the green line." A voice filters through, the words buzzy and distorted. "We apologise for the abrupt stop. A bank on Meridian Avenue is currently undergoing a robbery, in which explosives were used to access the vault."

It's less shouting and more murmurs that ripple through the crowd, passed from one person to another. Anxiety festers, a well opening within your chest.

You exchange a glance with the woman beside you, your eyebrows creased in concern.

You regret it when your head gives another blazing-hot throb of pain in retaliation.

The subway, which had been slowly drifting, finally reaches a standstill with one final shudder.

"As you may or may not know, the green line passes directly beneath Meridian Avenue for several blocks, including beneath the bank in question. Due to the use of explosives, it is highly unsafe for any trains to continue on their route."

Unease seems to evaporate in the subway in an instant, replaced with a grumbling annoyance — as if everyone can predict what's coming next. You cling tighter to the pole for stability.

"The fire department has been contacted for your extraction, and they are on their way. Sit tight folks; we're hoping to have you out by the end of the hour."

A loud, synchronised groan erupts from the passengers. You glance down at your phone, checking the time, and grimace. It's 5.09pm.

"We'll keep you updated if anything changes, and we apologise again for the inconvenience to your day."

Then with a fumbling click, the PA disconnects and goes silent.

The subway car, comparatively, does not. Several voices burst out at the same time.

"Oh my god, so we're stuck here?"

"I can't be here, I have an appointment!"

"Lady, we all have places to be, okay?"

"The fire brigade? Can't they call in Superman?"

"He's probably fighting the robbery, idiot."

You don't much like the continued outburst, nor the idea of being here for the better part of an hour.

The lady beside you, in scrubs, you now realise as your eyes fully adjust to the dark, seems to be in agreement. She's muttering under her breath, annoyance evident in her tone.

She catches your gaze — making you feel guilty for watching her — but, surprisingly, she seems to perk up. You realise after a moment it's because you've provided her with a task.

"Let me get something for your head," she offers, diving into her purse before you can answer. "I always keep a little first-aid kit with me."

The kit she pulls out you wouldn't describe as little.

It's the size of a lunchbox, tin and has a graphic of Superman on the outside, blue, red, and gold.

She pulls it out onto her lap, unclipping the latch and flipping back the lid. Inside boasts several bandages, wipes, and bottles with labels you can't read in the low light.

She pulls out a wipe and holds it up, facing you. You blink, then realise she wants to wipe the blood from your face.

"That alright?" She asks, gesturing with the wipe.

The task is distracting you too, you realise. Feeling a bit awkward, yet thankful she's helping, you nod tentatively.

It stings like all-fire — enough to draw a hiss up your throat. The woman makes a sympathetic tut, but she's good at her job because she doesn't let it deter her.

Sterile alcohol mixes with your blood, slowly clearing it away and bringing a blistering agony to the surface at the same time. You grimace, eyes screwing shut, which only serves to agitate it more.

She makes quick work of it. You try not to look at the concerning shade of pink the white wipe turns, sullen with your blood, and watch her dig around in her kit again.

"Shine that over here, will you?" She says to the person on the other side of her - a young-looking man with a nervous disposition - and he obliges hastily, looking rather relieved to have a task as well.

A rustle of plastic as she digs around. A bandage or two between her dexterous fingers.

"Is it a bad cut?" You ask mousily.

"It's not too bad," she tells you, glancing over with a kind smile. "Just bled a lot because it's on your head. It's a little thing."

Another blister of pain rises to the surface when she presses the first bandage to your forehead, nimble fingers warm and calloused. The bandages are small and white, which you recognise as butterfly stitches.

That makes you panic a little more, but you trust in her words. She is wearing scrubs after all.

(It occurs to you that, technically, anyone can choose to wear scrubs. A glance at her clipped Metropolis Central Medical ID makes you feel better again.)

"There." She gives it one final press, making sure everything's in place. "Just to keep it closed so it doesn't keep bleeding. You got someone to check on it later, hm? I know it can be difficult putting bandages on yourself. Probably a good idea to change them sometime tomorrow."

"Yeah," The knowledge of Clark's worrisome state when he sees the state of you is enough to make you smile, still a bit shaky. "My boyfriend can help me. Thank you."

"Don't worry about it, kid."

She sets about packing her first-aid kit back up, moving slowly and precisely. You suppose she has no real reason to hurry— not with the expected 50-minute wait time.

You lapse into silence, the pain in your forehead dulling down to a quiet throb as you fold your hands up tightly in your lap.

Silence, you notice, has become contagious within the subway car.

Voices that had shouted now became muted, murmured, low and whispery. Like you're all hidden beneath a thick blanket together. One thick, concrete blanket that separates you from the bustling world above.

One minute slips into two, then five, then twenty.

You can only wait.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

There's never a day where Clark doesn't love being Superman.

He's serious. It's never a chore, never feels like a job. Some days the responsibility of doing what he can to help Metropolis, to step up and fight the battles others can't — well, it's hard not to get a little chummy over the immense honour.

Then some days it gets… a little tedious.

Not tedious in a spiteful way! More in a tiresome way.

Like, for his sake and for everyone else's, it would be nice to go more than 48 hours without criminal activity being inflicted on the city.

But there's no rest for the wicked, or so they say.

Which means, if you squint and read the fine print beneath that, no rest for Superman.

Today's villain of the week was a pack of thieves with the very original idea of robbing a bank.

There's no crime that Clark likes, but these cases he dislikes more than most.

He's been around this block enough to know the stories that will unspool in the interrogation room — raised rent, medical bills, one bad accident that dries up years' worth of savings in a single afternoon.

It's tough — one of the tougher injustices that he knows he can't fight with the cape on.

It all adds up, though. Tonight's foiled robbery marks another case in Clark's latest project at the Daily Planet, investigating the wealth disparity and the links to money-motivated crime.

As Superman, Clark's had enough run-ins with this kind of crime that he could probably estimate an accurate percentage in his sleep by now.

Unfortunately, an eyeballed number from a superhero with a secret identity doesn't fly with Perry.

So it's still a work-in-progress kind of project — and it stays shelved until people are out of danger.

For the most part, they are.

It's not imminent, but perhaps the only danger the passengers of the green line subway are potentially subject to at the moment is boredom.

Clark had tuned his ears in to a police scanner as soon as trouble started kicking up, ensuring there weren't any civilians being sent closer to the danger zone without knowing.

He'd advised the officers on the scene to send firefighters in for the people on the subway, but now, staring down at the dark, winding tunnel of the subway tracks, he knows he's beaten them here.

He sighs heartily.

It's not their fault — public funding, job cuts, the works.

Yet, at the same time, he wonders how he might explain to you why he's so late coming over tonight.

Maybe he should send you a text now — but that feels a little selfish with so many people still stuck, waiting for help.

Besides, he's since learned that flying with a phone is a recipe for disaster. His phone is tucked away in his work clothes, hidden on a rooftop somewhere — but he could reach it in a split second.

He peers down the tunnel again, X-ray vision peeling back the darkness. A scattering of human bodies present, just over 200 feet away, caged in by metal.

It's a short flight to find the first carriage.

"Man, this shit sucks," he hears a man inside say, slumped on the ground and leaning up against the seats. "Where's Superman when you need the guy, huh?"

"Did someone say Superman?"

It's as good an entrance as any — and it actually gets a few inhabitants within the subway car to perk up — but Clark can admit it's not his best.

Face forming a sheepish expression, he sucks his teeth.

"Golly, not my best. My apologies, folks." He says it all as he scans over the crowd, flicking in and out of X-ray vision, hunting for serious injury. Coming up with none, he smiles, genuinely relieved. "Now, who'd like to get out of here?"

This inspires a more merry response from the despondent crowd of people — enough that the grimy window between carriages fills up with new faces, eager to know what's causing the ruckus.

It's quick-fire from then on.

Word gets passed down, chatter and shouts of 'It's Superman!' that get the remaining passengers crowding forward into the first carriage.

Clark tries to keep it quick for everyone's sake. A brief introduction ("Hi, I don't believe we've met before; I'm Superman"), then an explanation that he can fly them ("It will be windy, and I will have to hold you - but perfectly safe"), or they can wait for the fire brigade if they would rather not fly ("You can't be on the tracks, ma'am; they're electrified").

So far, everyone's opted in for flying.

It's not slow per se, but it does take time—humans are much more fragile than Kryptonians. He can't exactly fly at his usual top speed.

But bit by bit, the crowd dwindles down until there's no one in the line to be rescued that he recognises from the initial first carriage.

He surveys the length of it, tallying up how long it might take to move them all.

The minutes stack up. The length of time between now and getting home to you is feeling immeasurably too long.

He tries not to worry about how late he is. It's futile.

He pictures his abandoned phone in the pockets of his slacks, buzzing and ringing, going unanswered. Then he pictures you on the other end, your retro landline pressed to your ear, worrying your bottom lip between your teeth in the adorable way you do.

You're good at lots of things. Unfortunately, worrying about Clark is one of them.

He sighs silently to himself. His worry doesn't speed up this darn unfortunate situation that these folks are trapped in. It does lend him some more food for the thought of telling you his big blue secret.

For now though— "Hi there, I'm Superman, in case we haven't—"

"—we have."

The familiar voice finally snaps Clark out of his distracted trance, and he turns with a haste that surely gives him away. His furrowed brows and concerned face are no help either.

Because it's you. Here. On the trapped subway, waiting in line like all these other passengers.

With a bandage on your forehead that you definitely didn't have this morning.

Several thoughts clamber over each other, each vying for Clark's attention. You're here—which means you're not waiting for him, thankfully—but you're hurt—and how do you keep getting into these situations?

He, intelligently, opts for simply staring at you and saying nothing.

"We have met." You clarify, suddenly looking a bit more awkward. "You stopped that mugger for me."

Right! Right. Because you have met Superman before, when he'd had to intervene at your work, just earlier this month.

He opens his mouth, but the strangeness of it all halts his words.

It's just… It's been months since he's seen you look at him this way.

Obviously, given he's a stranger to you as Superman — but it's a reality check like nothing else.

The way your shoulders curl in. The tightness of your mouth. You make yourself smaller, and the eye-contact you do give looks far more painful than usual.

He hadn't realised, not until right now, just how much closer you'd grown—how you usually gravitate towards him.

You glow and grin, you nudge him, touch him, you laugh like it's the easiest thing. It's apparent now, the stark difference when compared to that very first day on the train.

Except, there seems to be an extra frostiness to your character right now. Probably something to do with being stuck in a subway car for an hour or so.

Only when you shuffle on your feet, an awkward motion, does Clark realise he still hasn't said anything.

"Yes," Clark breathes, and immediately he clocks his tone as too relieved — too fond for a stranger. He clears his throat, nodding with purpose. "Yes, yes, I can recall. At the library."

You nod to confirm, expression still tight and your gaze still averted.

The question wrestles out of Clark's mouth before he can stop himself: "Is your head alright?"

There are two little bandaids on it, but there's still a bit of dried blood in your eyebrow. Concern swims up to the surface, pooling in Clark's heart, urged on by his feelings for you.

You're not accident-prone enough for this to be a common sight. The sight of your blood inspires a protectiveness he struggles to curb.

You touch your forehead gingerly, brows pinching together in pain. "Yes. That's what the bandaid is for."

Your bluntness nearly makes him laugh, like it does when you're home together.

He squashes it for a smile, for the sake of not making Superman any stranger to you. If he laughs, you'll probably think he's laughing at you.

"Alright, I'm going to have to pick you up now, if that's alright?"

You nod stiffly. Clark does a motion he's done a thousand times before— one hand around your waist, another behind your knees.

He reminds himself to treat you as a stranger, keeping his hands polite, even as they beg him to pull you in closer.

It's one of the oddest flights of Clark's life. You're stiff as a board in his grip, actively leaning away from his chest in a way that can't be comfortable.

When he reaches the platform, where people are still milling about, waiting for others from the train, he can't help checking in again.

It's with a gentleness he sets you down, the words already out of his mouth, "Are you sure you're alright?"

He expects another brush-off - that's what most civilians do, frazzled from whatever situation he's happened to save them from - but he certainly does not expect— "I have a boyfriend."

Clark blinks down at you, your standoffish posture.

He notices the step back you'd already taken and your clenched hands at your side — the same thing you do when you're working yourself up to tell a waiter your food is wrong.

And—oh.

Your standoffishness is cast into a new light suddenly, which is that you can perceive his fondness — which in itself is a feat, considering how long it took for you to get together in the beginning.

But you can tell — somehow, somewhere under the suit, beneath the hero name, some part of you intrinsically recognises him.

Knows what he sounds like trying to keep the affection from his voice, knows the ways in which Clark Kent loves.

It had been a journey to convince you of it the first time around, and now, you can't unlearn it.

You can see it, even if you don't know why.

Clark smiles, throat a little thicker with the knowledge that he's very, very well loved. "He's a very lucky man," he says, completely genuine.

You nod assertively. "He is. And me, I'm lucky too."

You seem relieved by the change in his tone, that he isn't upset with you for being unavailable. "Thank you for rescuing me. And him — you've done it a couple of times, I think. He's quite muggable, apparently."

You nod, a little jerkily, and Clark can't help but grin this time. He knows he should get back to the subway - especially with other civilians waiting on him.

He can't resist one last word, "You're welcome. Please be nice to your boyfriend if he's home late, okay? It's been a hectic day for everyone today."

You give him a strange look, eyes narrowed like you don't comprehend why he's given you advice.

Maybe you're even piecing it together, connecting the blue dots that lead to his secret. He decides that, after today, he doesn't mind the idea at all.

"Okay," you say hesitantly.

"Okay," Clark echoes, with a professional Superman nod. "I love you."

It's pure instinct that pulls from the words off his tongue - a habit that he's never broken since he first found that list, all those months ago.

Now, he'd been so caught up in his gooey thoughts of your loyalty that he didn't even consider— he hadn't thought—

Uh oh. Your face says it all. Utter surprise and that same awkwardness creeping back in, your hands clenching back up.

Damage control, quick!

"And I love you!" He says, quickly turning and pointing to another person on the subway platform. They look surprised, perking up, pointing one finger to their chest as if to say Who, me?

"And you!" Clark can't stop now; he's probably overdoing it, but your hands are still clenched up.

He gestures a bit too wildly to the rest of the crowd, who have, humiliatingly, all started paying rapt attention. "I love… all citizens of Metropolis!"

He spots the glint of a phone camera in someone's hand.

Oh, cheese and crackers, he thinks to himself in dismay — already imagining how Justice Gang will have a field day with this video.

Gosh, even his damage control needs damage control. With a stilted and awkward nod, Clark remembers he does actually have a job to finish here—taking a few steps back and taking flight back through the subway tunnel.

Wind rushing past his noticeably warmer ears, Clark doesn't doubt it'll be an interesting conversation with you tonight.

Regardless, with one final glance over his shoulder, he can't help but think of it as the final sign he needs.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

It takes you until you're at least halfway home, stopping right in the middle of the sidewalk, to remember that you should text Clark.

The love confession from Superman, the subway stopping—either could be responsible for providing a rampant distraction. You're really late now, without any forewarning.

You hope he's at least let himself in and made himself comfy in your space while he waits.

Though, you should text him about what happened on the subway.

It had worried him so much last time, not knowing about the mugging - not that he seemed annoyed with you, thankfully. You pull out your phone and narrowly avoid getting shoulder-checked by a stranger, stepping to the side just in time.

You're still sort of frazzled, so the stranger's rudeness manages to bounce right off you for once.

You're staring at your phone, eyes a bit glazed, when a text slides onto the screen. You blink, focus, and it takes another second to comprehend the words.

Clark (Lois' Co-worker): I got held up at work, sorry! Still coming over :) See you soon! I hope everything's okay with you.

It's a relief. You're not sure when he sent the text, it says delivered just now, but at least he was late too.

Acutely, you realise you'd actually have been quite miffed if there was no update from Clark, given how off schedule you are.

Which, well, that in itself was surprising—Darren had never cared about your lack of updates. Or rather, he seemed quite happy to never bother to give you any.

Obviously, it had taken some time to adapt to Clark's nature - where caring is as easy as breathing.

And now it's not him that surprises you; it's your own expectations.

The want to know there was someone waiting on the other side of the line, prepared to leave the light on for you.

It's… a nice feeling, knowing that you expect it now. Knowing that it's what you deserve.

You send off a text, short and to the point, and find yourself rushing a little faster back to your apartment.

Lights on, shoes off, coat off, lamps on, big-lights off. You go through the motions of getting yourself comfortable in your home, and it soothes your hackles the way only routine can.

You just get around to taking a peek into the fridge, though your appetite is missing, when there's a familiar knocking pattern on your door.

You know he has a key — you meet him at the door anyway.

"Hi honey," He's talking before he's even in the door, all rushing and flustered in a way he often isn't. "I'm real sorry I'm late—"

"Clark," you interrupt. In an uncharacteristic move, you're reaching out first, your hands resting on his arms, pulling him in so you can be nearer. "It's okay. I just got home too. We're both late today."

The door snicks shut behind him, and Clark matches your touchiness with ardour.

His hands slide along your arms to sit on your lower back. They're so warm. You tilt your chin up and think of how lucky you really are that he keeps coming around to see you.

"I'm still sorry, I—" He's talking as he slips his shoes off, til he notices the bandage on your forehead, eyebrows creasing. "What happened to your head?"

"I hit it," you explain. "On the subway. It stopped a bit fast."

Clark looks relieved at that. His shoulders fall, but his hands on your back tighten, tugging you in a little closer. You scuff your foot and step on his accidentally. He doesn't appear to mind.

"Didn't you get my text?" You ask.

He shakes his head. "My phone died, and I had to stay late at work but, all day, I had a bad feeling that you were in trouble."

He's not smiling like he usually is when he looks at you. His concern is still there, pulling down the edges of his mouth, changing his handsome face.

"I'm okay," you assure him, hands shifting up, sliding up to loop around his neck.

One of his hands shifts up, delicately drifting over the bandages, but not quite touching.

"You are?"

He's frowning at the wound as though he can heal it through sheer sympathy.

"I am," you say.

"You're sure?"

You can't help but smile, because usually you're the one double-checking everything. Your smile seems to settle something in Clark because it's what gets him to relax, a relieved but tired-sounding sigh escaping him.

His eyes soften on you, lashes kissing together at the ends, a sheepish smile pulling on his pink lips.

"I'm sorry to fuss. I get it from my Pa." He leans in and kisses just beside the split skin of your forehead, a quick peck.

You shrug in his hold, suddenly feeling a bit shy. "I like the fussing, I think. When it's you."

"Yeah?" Clark says, eyes brighter. "Good. Great. I love fussing over you. Did you eat?"

You shake your head. "No, but a lady on the subway gave me a muesli bar, so I'm not too hungry."

"I can make you something later, if you like." He says, easy as pie. "What about the subway? Want to tell me about what happened?"

You don't, you've decided. Now that he's here, in your arms, a part of you that doesn't arise all that often has awoken.

You shake your head, still smiling, and push up on your toes. "I just want you to kiss me."

This time, it's Clark who takes a little inhale before your lips reach his. His surprise gets muffled against your lips, but there's no part of you that can doubt his enthusiasm when he kisses back, arms tightening around your back, pulling you ever closer.

"Kiss you?" He murmurs against your lips, his smile melting into a grin. "Absolutely, ma'am."

It's like a floodgate opens. Clark's hands shift down, gifting a squeeze to your hips before— there's sudden motion, and you squeak against his lips as you're abruptly hoisted up into his arms without warning.

He carries you like you weigh nothing, strong hands gripping your thighs, bracketing you against him. The show of strength - the display of desire - sends something white-hot down your spine. You're on the same wavelength tonight, you can tell.

And he does it all without breaking the kiss.

Clark is devastatingly good at kissing you.

He kisses, kisses, kisses your mouth, like it's all that he wants, like he's envious of everything else your lips have touched.

It feels a bit unfair, you decide, that he just seems to know how to flip every switch to turn you on. Something warmer is definitely pumping through your blood, feeding itself on Clark's insatiable kisses.

But his adeptness, paired with how fervently he kisses you, strikes a sudden, uncomfortable thought in you.

The thought that he may have been holding back—for your sake.

You know couples tend to have sex a little earlier on. Some people even have sex with people they barely know. You're not one of those people.

Clark is also pretty good at not assuming. What you do or don't want— you like that he just asks.

But, still, there's some beaten-in worry from past experience. Where people get to know you and all your finicky ways, they start assuming what you want, without ever just asking.

It starts as care. It always ends as overshadowing.

Pulling back from the kiss, you ask outright, "Does it bother you that we haven't had sex yet?"

Because it's true. In the eyes of the law, if you had to pick a standard, you and Clark have fooled around but done nothing more.

In medieval times, you'd likely have brought shame on your family for not consummating the marriage.

(Not that you and Clark are married at all, in any way - though the thought brings a hot flush to your face. He'd be a very good husband.)

Clark comes to a stop, still holding you up effortlessly. His cheeks splotch a jammy colour, his expression coloured with surprise. "Wha— we've- I mean, we've had sex." He seems unsure, as if your question has perplexed him. "Haven't we?"

"I mean penetrative sex." You clarify.

Clark blinks, still holding you halfway through the doorway. His glasses are slipping down his nose and you slip your hand up to press them back up. You leave it there, cupped on his cheek.

"No," he says easily, his eyes searching yours. His brows pinch together. "No, it doesn't bother me. Does it bother you?"

You shrug.

He asks, "Do you want to?"

You find it a peculiar question.

"Do I want it to bother me?"

"No," Clark laughs - not at you, never at you - back to that ever-endeared smile you think might be reserved only for you. "Do you want to, uh, well…"

It's somewhat amusing to see Clark fumble for the right words, the pinkness of his cheeks reaching up to his ears.

"Is that something you'd want?" He says finally, cheeks still the colour of strawberries, but something more set in his expression. "I don't mean to be forward, especially if this isn't something you're interested in, but I… I would like to."

You feel like you don't think about sex as much as the average person. Well, there's thinking about it, and then there's having it.

It had been one of the points of strife in your last relationship. You've been trying hard not to measure yourself against other standards — trying especially hard not to compare it to the one and only other person you've slept with, Darren.

Clark is different. He's proven that a thousand times. You'd quite like to know what that kind of sex is like with him.

Given everything else you've tried, each and every lusty feeling Clark's managed to draw out from you with just his fingers, you can't imagine it will be anything other than maddeningly good.

"I think so, yes." You say decisively.

After a moment, with Clark still unmoving, you realise you've forgotten your manners. "Please." You tack on.

He's still as pink as ever in the face, but your politeness seems to knock him out of his train of thought.

There's a moment where his gaze roams your face with ardent affection — then he's leaning in again, mouth finding yours, a kiss that sets your stomach stirring.

"Yeah," he murmurs. "I can - we can, of course, honey. No need to say please."

His feet finally begin to wander, this time towards your bedroom.

You let yourself fall into his kisses, let him carry you to bed, let him kneel upon it and lay you back like you're a princess in a fairy-tale. You feel like one, being carried around in his burly arms.

He begins to kiss your neck. It tickles, so you giggle.

You might not quite fit as a princess in your mind, but Clark is definitely a righteous knight.

"What?" Clark asks, pulling back from your neck, eyes shining brightly.

"You're like a knight." you tell him, reaching up to bury your fingers into his hair. "I bet you'd look really good with a sword."

Clark laughs, the sound like spun-gold, and catches one of your hands trailing through his hair. He plants a kiss on the palm of your hand. "Sweetheart, you sound delirious." Another kiss, this time to your knuckles. "I love it. I love you. I'll be your knight."

You really like that idea. He's already so good at being devoted to you that you're not really sure what would change.

"I love you too. Please keep kissing me." You say, a little breathier than before.

Clark obliges, more than willingly.

Together, you fall into the familiar dance, heated and close, lips chafing as the kisses come easily.

All the while, you can feel it—the drizzle of something hotter pooling low in your gut. The buzz under your skin. The rabidness that rears up in response to being kissed so readily, so hungrily.

It's a kiss-fest.

And your neck must be a feast— is what you would be thinking if there was any comprehensible thought in your mind, with Clark's mouth on your pulse point.

He’s so good at what he does — so good at knowing just what you like.

He kisses messily, licks gently, and nibbles teasingly, and you give up a myriad of gaspy-sounding noises in response.

His hands move in small motions.

One hand stays planted on your waist, his fingers caressing in small, baby circles. Stable. Reliant.

His other hand is more exploratory. His thumb dips beneath the fabric of your shirt, drawing a slow, skirting line across the skin of your stomach. It feels like molten lava. The blood beneath his touch sings gloriously.

You shudder and clutch his back — enough to make him pause.

"Okay?" His voice is lower, his breath a bit more ragged. It never takes much for him to get like this, you've found. "Need a breather?"

You shake your head, because the last thing you want him to do is stop. There's a heat gathering between your thighs you desperately would like some relief for.

"No," you say, but it's a bit shaky.

He takes your word for it - which is still so nice. He trusts you to know yourself, even when you're unsure yourself.

But this part isn't new to either of you. Clark leaves your neck riddled with lovebites until he coaxes your shirt off you, after asking ever-so politely in a rasp that only adds to your growing lust.

He doesn't near the clip of your bra — you've told him you feel a bit sexier when it stays on — but still drags his fingers across the seam of the cups, his eyes darker, with a hum, "You're so pretty, honey."

The sheets are soft against the bare skin of your back. The sounds in the room are sweet, heavy.

Your low-light lamp paints the ceiling golden. Clark's hands are focused on the edges of your pants, fingers curling in only slightly.

It's a rhythm you know well. This lead-up, this push and pull, where you and Clark reduce each other to kiss-flustered messes in your bed.

The fact that this desire is a well-known feeling now makes you feel so damn sweet on Clark, so in love, you want to bury your face in your pillow. It's the same firework feeling as when he called you sweet girl.

You feel your hands on his back begin to tremble, so you tip your head to the side and press your face firmly into the comforter.

You don't want Clark to take it the wrong way, even if you've done this before.

You don't want this to be the time it's too much for him - not when you'd asked him. You try to swallow down the big emotion as subtly as you can.

Clark notices — because he always notices.

His mouth is pressed to the hollow of your throat, and you feel it pause, then feel him shift up, face to face with you. "Honey?"

"M'okay," you tell him honestly. You squeeze your eyes shut tight to try to control that buzzing rabidness that's running rampant beneath your skin.

You can't tell if it's making you uncomfortable, just that it's a lot - but you still know that you really don't want Clark to stop.

Especially when you move, shifting one leg up to press against his hip and feel the hard shape of him against you. A heady warmth throbs between your thighs. God, he's so hot and nice, and he's all yours.

"Just-" It comes out jittery, the word barely beating your sharp inhale.

Your eyes are still closed to keep the sensations at a minimum. Clark, lovingly, stays as still as he can for you.

"Just, it's like, being wound up. It's good. You make me feel good, just it's," A jagged exhale now. "A lot. I haven't felt it - like, it hasn't always been this way for me. I'm worried."

You finally open your eyes, and Clark's above you, his dark hair messier than usual. He's still pink in the face, dimples showing, blue eyes fixed on you.

"You're worried?" He asks sincerely.

"Yes."

A beat, his smile a little less now. "About what?"

You try to consolidate it all down into one sentence. A car whirs by outside, a kiss of wind brushing past your window.

Your hands slip forward, one holding his neck, to feel for his pulse. The drum of it grounds you.

"That it's not going to be good," you eventually say. Then, the more truthful answer. "That I'm not going to be good at it. With you."

Clark studies you for a moment, his maddening dimples disappearing as he thinks it over seriously.

There are no rushed assurances. You're thankful for that — people don't tend to mean those as much.

"Do you trust me?" He asks. "To be honest with you?"

He swallows thickly as he says it but holds his attention on you strong. You're so used to feeling unnerved by eye-contact, but Clark's gaze is like the buttery warmth of the sun. You glow beneath it.

"I do." You say. "You don't lie to me."

You watch Clark's throat as it bobs with another swallow. "Right. Well, then you know I mean it when I say there isn't anything you can do wrong."

Another car engine drones by on the street. His words take another second to sink in.

There isn't anything you can do wrong.

It's such a sentiment, such a wholly encompassing love he offers you, that you struggle to comprehend it. Surely, he can't mean…?

You're so used to it being a problem somewhere. Your different ways, your particular needs — it's always a thing.

You didn't realise you've still been waiting for it to crop up between you and Clark.

There has to be something he can't handle. Something you do wrong — because you always do something wrong.

You have to double-check. "Nothing?"

Clark shakes his head with vehemence, curls flying. He grins, dimples back on display, and gives another squeeze of your middle. "Honey, everything you do is right."

He says it like an oath. Now that's a goddamn sentiment.

One that feels less like a firework and more like a shooting star to your system. Bright, burning hot, right into your sternum. You choke on your next inhale, hoping you aren't making some ugly emotional face.

You can't really put into words what it means to hear it. You try your best.

"That's," you bite your lip, hard. "That's really nice." Despite how you try, you still sound a bit teary.

"Oh, sweet girl," Clark crowds in close, peppering kisses across your face.

He doesn't kiss you on the lips, like he can sense you need the oxygen. One dots your forehead, then your temple. His care only feeds your craving for him.

It takes a second to compose yourself enough to ask him, the words still a bit shaky when you ask, "Can we keep having sex even though I almost cried, please?"

Clark pulls back, expression earnest. "Absolutely."

He kisses you now, like he's sealing the promise.

You hum into his mouth, letting him taste the gasp in your throat when his fingers find your waistline again, deftly working open the button of your jeans.

You don't want him to stop kissing you, but it's impossible to wrangle your jeans off without it.

He works them off your ankles and then looks back up at you, warm hands resting on your calves. "Do you want to keep your socks on?"

"Yes, please."

"Okay, honey." He grins again, like every word out your mouth is endearing.

He begins working on the buttons of his work shirt, getting them off much faster than you have in the past. You get too excited to focus on such little motions.

He sheds the button-up and it makes a pale pool on your bedroom floor. He's wearing a white undershirt beneath it - that's quickly removed too.

His arms shift up, reaching behind his neck to pull it over his head. His biceps bulge. The sight of Clark's chest, tan as the rest of him, broad, and made up of pillowy muscles you know are good for sleeping on, inspires a feverish heat in you.

God, you're the luckiest girl in all of Metropolis.

You watch him, feeling like the whole world is soaked in honey, everything sweet and golden and good.

There's more kissing. Clark is so very attuned to you; it's like he can sense the tides of your desire as it washes in and out.

Too much time spent on removing clothing, however necessary, and you get finicky and worried. Kisses soothe it all away.

You're holding his shoulders, toned and strong. The cords of his muscles shift under your palms. You have the delirious urge to bite him — or give him a hickey right between the pecs, where the trail of hair begins.

He's so handsome. You love his arms, his chest, his stomach. You give thought to calling off the sex so you can spend the evening kissing every inch of him instead.

Clark discards that thought for you with a touch of his fingers.

He eases you into sex gently, deft fingers drawing a warm line up the inside of your thigh. When he reaches the apex, his fingers give a soft rub through your underwear, just the right pressure.

You burn hotly, lust brushing at the fringes of your nerves, and try not to squirm too much.

"Clark," you murmur his name — it's half a sigh of relief, half a plea for more.

"I got you, honey," he says easily, increasing the pressure, his thumb angled more precisely. His breath fans across your stomach. "M'just going slow, making sure it's gonna be good, yeah?"

The cotton between your legs grows stickier, and you can't resist shifting around. You're still not used to this - to it being this good.

He makes you feel unwound. You're not used to being so unstitched around anyone else. But it's Clark, so you trust him.

"Okay," you say breathily. "I love you."

Clark smiles— not that you can see it with your eyes closed — but you feel it against the skin of your stomach. He kisses your navel. "I love you too."

He works you open with his fingers, slow and gentle, with that coo in his voice that keeps you tethered to reality.

You can feel the sweat on your lower back, the tightness in your chest, but it's all overshadowed by the drool of pleasure that's aching through your core.

The air is heavy, swirling with the scent of lovers, imbued with the little noises that escape you.

Clark knows they'll haunt his dreams; the hiccupy gasps, the breathy groans. The sound of his name in your mouth, soaked with pleasure, makes him a little light-headed with how fast his blood rushes south.

At some point, Clark loses his pants, though if you tilt your head, you can spot them at the edge of the bed. He's wearing plaid boxers. There's a trail of hair on his stomach, leading down into them.

The quavering feeling returns, the tremble to your body that isn't so much to do with pleasure.

Clark checks in, blue eyes focused on your face, both hands stilled where they hold your hips. His fingers are still slick, and they feel cool against your blazing skin.

"You're doing good," he tells you, low and gentle. "Take your time, sweetheart."

You take a deep, staggering breath and nod to let him know you hear him. Your hair scrunches against the sheets.

It helps too. You can feel every tingle upon the surface of your skin, but you're trying to think that isn't a bad thing.

He's told you that you're doing good — he told you that everything you do is right.

The overwhelm you feel, the breathers you take — it doesn't have to be good or bad; it just is.

He loves you all the same.

It's a different sensation when he eases himself in to you, fire zinging up your spine. An ache like no other settles between your hips.

But there's something new in Clark too, a furrow in his brow, his bottom lip trapped behind his teeth. His chest heaves, and desire-drenched sounds drag from his lips, a beautiful low moan.

This is different. It's not him taking care of you. It's you together, taking care of each other.

Your back arches off the bed, chest pushed out, as he buries himself in you at a slow, sensual pace.

The shooting star feeling remains in your chest, driving your hands to wander fervently — you cup his face, stroke his neck, coax him down and finally give in to the urge to bite his shoulder.

Clark groans, a deep sultry sound that begs you to widen your legs. You whisper to eachother, admissions of love, pleases, and thank-you's too.

When it's over, the room smells like sex. It's humid in a way it wasn't before.

There's a satisfaction that's bone-deep, a happiness that wriggles through your veins and comes out in the form of a very content sigh.

Clark is much the same, his face half pressed into your pillow, back still rising and falling with his breaths. He's smiling, but he looks a bit tired.

You comb your fingers through his hair because you can't stand to not be touching him right now.

People talk of soulmates, and you think that, given the probability of that being true, combined with the statistics on finding them with all the billions of people on Earth, it's probably a bit of hogwash.

Well, you did think that. Whether or not they exist, found or made, there's some part of Clark you think might be made just right for you.

Fate, as he first proposed to you. It feels like the only explanation for this — for Clark. For the easiness in which everything comes with him.

Your nightstand clock tells you it's late, evidenced by the darkness outside too.

It's been a long day. You stroke through Clark's curls, his eyes resting closed, and the orgasm loosens your tongue. You feel compelled to tell him what happened earlier today. You don't like to keep secrets.

"Clark," you say, smiling when he makes a little mhm? in response, peeking open an eye. "Superman said 'I love you' to me today."

That gets his attention. Both eyes open, blinking at you across the bed. He pushes up, resting his head in his hand, then clears his throat.

"Oh," he says. "Well, actually, about that." He looks as though he's steeling himself, and a tinge of worry feathers through you.

But then Clark says, "The thing is… Superman didn't say I love you; I did."

You blink at him. The words don't comprehend. You know what you heard today.

"What?" You ask, genuinely confused.

He seems to realise a mistake he's made. "Crumbs. Sorry, I'm not trying to be elusive. I'm trying to tell you that I'm, uh, …I'm Superman."

You still can't understand.

You can hear the words, can understand what they mean individually, but you don't get what he's trying to tell you.

"I don't understand," you say, pressing yourself up to sitting. This feels serious.

"I'm Superman," Clark repeats gently, not rushing or annoyed. It's you instead who is getting frustrated, because saying it the same exact way isn't helping you.

"Clark," you say, voice a bit thin. "I don't understand what you're saying. Please don't just repeat yourself."

He matches your position, sitting up to face you, sheets pooling at his waist. He reaches out, a caring touch on your knee. "Superman, the superhero that flies around, saves the city, blue suit, red cape?"

You nod, following so far.

"It's me. I'm him." He says with an exhaled breath. "I'm not from Earth. I have abilities that humans don't. I spend my spare time trying to help people as best I can — which is why Superman said 'I love you' to you."

The touch on your knee rises, fingertips brushing your cheek delicately. "Because he's me. And I love you."

He chuckles a little bashfully, his eyes dancing away for a moment, his hand dropping. "And sometimes, saying it is too much of a habit to realise you still don't know this about me."

You blink, and this time, the explanation strings together in a way that makes sense.

The revelation sinks its teeth in. Clark, your beautiful, doting boyfriend, is also Superman.

Superman is Clark. Superman is your boyfriend. You're… dating Superman.

Another owlish blink. You can't help but think of all his articles.

"You interviewed him. You interviewed... yourself?"

Clark's expression turns sheepish. "Yes, I have. I- I do."

He knows to let it sit. Let you turn the new information over in your mind, shaping it into new questions and discoveries. He's Superman.

You think back to all the encounters over the last month — the almost mugging, the unexpected closeness, the way he seemed to know that you'd had a bad day. Because he did know.

"It's why you're late." You say, not a question.

For some reason, that makes Clark blush, as though he's embarrassed by his rudeness. "Most of the time, yes."

"How come you don't look like him?"

Clark reaches back to your bedside table, where he's deposited his glasses in the rush of getting undressed.

"These. They have some hypno technology, so my face looks quite different to people when I'm wearing them. Since I don't always wear them when I'm with you, you know what I actually look like but,"

He peers at you through his lashes, a kind smile on his face. "I just don't think you were looking for it."

You're not the suspicious kind, he means. You take things as they are.

Side by side, with the explanation before you, it makes sense. Superman has always looked a little like Clark. Or Clark has always looked a bit like Superman.

"You don't lie to me," you say in explanation.

Somehow, this doesn't feel like a lie either — or like you've been deceived.

You're well acquainted with putting on a new persona when you're at work, a more polished, smiley version of yourself that makes your jaw sore from holding it stiffly all day. It's a mask. This… This feels like the same thing.

Some things can't be done as Clark.

Some things have to be Superman.

And now he wants you to know — to have — both.

You twist your fingers into the sheets of your bed tightly, hoping it'll help you think.

"And I'm sorry that I had to, honey," Clark apologises sincerely, placing the glasses on the blankets between you.

He does appear to be troubled by the thought of keeping this from you. "I didn't like keeping secrets from you. You're so good at keeping out of danger, it was easy to keep this part of my life hidden from you."

You mull over his words, trying hard to analyse the emotions stirring up within your chest.

There's no rulebook or blog-post you can convene with to know how to feel about it. You're not sure you feel much of anything, other than a dim surprise. It just… makes sense.

Truthfully, if you had found out when you met Clark, it might have been too much.

Clark was already such a surprise — that he came around to see you, that he kept coming around. Someone that kind, that handsome, wanting to make the effort for you.

He'd been just Clark then.

If he'd been Superman too, beloved hero of Metropolis, coming around to deliver you freshly-baked goods and kisses, maybe you'd have been scared off. Maybe not. Somehow, you're only glad you don't have to know how to feel about that.

You just have to know what you feel now.

A different question jumps off your tongue.

"What does flying feel like?"

Clark's expression gives away his astonishment, a wide-eyed blink that melts into a genuine smile.

"It's, uh, it's very fun. It's like," His mouth twists as he considers it, before he shakes his head. "It's like nothing else. My parents had to give me strict rules about flying around the house growing up, I love it that much."

His parents. For some reason, you hadn't expected them to know.

Then you feel a bit silly — Superman has always been open about how he came to be here, on Earth. Someone had to have raised him.

You think of the photo Clark keeps on his work desk — or the one in his wallet, next to the photo of you — of Ma and Pa Kent.

The thought of baby Clark whizzing about the farmhouse he described growing up in is a delightful thought.

Untwisting your fingers from the sheets, you glance down and ask, "Why now?"

This is the first question to make him sigh.

You lift your gaze, watching as he rubs a hand across his face wearily, "Because I messed up. I didn't mean to give you such a strange encounter with Superman, but I also don't want to lie to you any more than I already have."

He shifts in the bed, shuffling closer till his knees press against yours.

He reaches for your hands, no longer toying with the sheets but still amongst the covers. He holds them tenderly, cradled in his.

"And I didn't tell you earlier for lots of reasons. It's not safe, for one." His thumbs trace over the backs of your hands, his face open, eyes a shade of blue you feel you haven't seen before. Maybe it's because you're seeing him, seeing all of him, for the first time.

"But the main reason is that I like… I love who I get to be with you.

"I'm just Clark," he says, the words softer than sweetness. "I'm just your boyfriend. I have to make a lot of hard decisions, every day, as Superman. With you, it's… it's just what makes you happy. And that's an easy decision, every time."

At some point, you've clutched his hands back. There's that same stupid sharpness back in your chest, stinging your eyes with the promise of tears.

He just wants to make you happy. Like it's a relief to come home to you, at the end of a hard day saving the world.

Like, you just might be his respite.

You try press the sharp feeling back, but you can tell he knows. He always seems to just know.

He doesn't interfere, just strokes his thumbs along the back of your hands again — and is ready for it when you burst forward into him.

His arms are around you, holding you tight, and your face tucks away into his neck.

"Okay," you say, sniffling through the word - because how else can you respond to something that magnanimous? You're the relief of a man who has the weight of the world on his shoulders. "Okay."

"Okay?" Clark echoes, the word threaded with a slight amusement. "You'll allow it?" He jests.

But you nod in response all the same. He sits back, leaning into your mountain of pillows, and takes you with him, all bundled up in his arms.

You're leaning into his chest, skin to skin, and the contentedness within you hasn't shifted. Hasn't balked at the face of his secret.

"I love you." You whisper - and feel Clark's arms tighten in response. "Thank you for telling me."

"I love you." He mirrors, pressing a long, firm kiss into your hair. He murmurs into it, unwilling to give up any distance between you. "Do you have any questions?"

"Plenty." You say automatically, dead serious — and you jostle on his chest as Clark laughs at that, because, really, he should expect this from you. "So many. I can't believe I'm dating an alien."

"I'm not sure if I should apologise…?" He says, amused.

"No," You press a kiss to his chest, above where his heart is, mumbling against his skin. "That came out bad. I don't mean it in a bad way. Sorry."

"Don't be." He kisses your head again, and sleepiness hangs above you, drawing nearer.

He's so warm. He's like a space heater. You laugh tiredly to yourself because - yeah, he literally is.

He tells you, "I'll answer any question you have."

You're melting into him, cocooned in his arms, tucked away from the world.

Still, you can hear it — another drone of a car engine, the chatter of people on the street, the honk of a faraway driver. Close, but unable to touch this bubble you and Clark exist in.

"Anything?" You ask.

It comes out as a sleepy whisper.

You feel, more than hear, the hum Clark gives in return. He draws a long, soothing stroke over your back, his hand warm.

You think of the question you want answered most.

"Will you stay the night, please?"

You don't really need to ask—he stays most nights now—but it's a habit.

There's a concerning moment where you hear the wobbly inhale Clark takes—but then you can feel his smile pressed into your hairline. You picture his dimples.

You feel him shift, one arm leave you, and the click of your lamp.

The amber saps away, and darkness blankets the both of you, wrapping you up.

"Of course, honey," he murmurs, like there's only one answer he could give. In his arms, you realise you're the safest person on the whole planet.

Huh, you think tiredly, as sleep drapes over you, gentle and warm. Guess you aren't so different from all those other citizens of Metropolis, after all.

They follow Superman into danger.

You suppose, in some ways, so would you.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

if you made it this damn far, kudos!! thank u for reading mammoth of a fic <3 i hope you enjoyed it and if you so felt inspired, i hope you wouldn't mind letting me know what you think! :)

special thanks to my beloved citrine @citrinesparkles for being an open ear, grease for writers block, many ideas contributor and cheerleader extraordinaire