#@strangergraphics

You plop down on a bench with a grunt, tempted to take up the entire bench by sprawling out on it. A quick nap won't hurt anyone, except you if you decide not to wake up in time. There's always the alarms and there's always the risk of not hearing said alarm meant to wake you up for class.

What to do…

𓃦٠࣪⭑ Jack Howl

"Uh, Prefect?"

You tear away from your thoughts—and open your eyes, wincing from the light—and look up at Jack, giving him a tired wave.

"Yeah?"

"Shouldn't you be in the lunchroom?" Despite the implication of the question, he takes a seat next to you, getting rid of the option to sprawl out on the bench for you. Thanks Jack. "I don't see a lunch on you."

"Shouldn't you be in the lunchroom?" You throw back, accidentally slurring the words while rubbing your face in order to not let the sleepiness settle.

"I was heading towards the lunchroom." He counters, crossing his arms over his chest. "Yet, you were coming from it. Aren't you going to eat?"

You give him an exasperated look, gesturing to yourself and then the prominent eye-bags below your eyes. "Do I look like eating is the first thing on my mind?"

His eyes dart over you finally—because you know he's been resisting to do ever since he stopped to speak with you out of politeness—and his frown deepens. His tail thumps against the bench and his ears twitch backwards. You barely resists calling them air plane ears.

"You look bad, Prefect."

"I am fully aware."

"You need to eat, Prefect." You raise an tired eyebrow at the growl lining his voice and resign yourself to not pointing out the slight flush to his cheeks for the prominent display of care. Desperate times call for desperate measures, is what you think applies to him right now.

"I will eat," You wave him off, your eyes slipping shut again as your head leans back against the back of the bench. "…after school."

He audibly growls at that, and angrily opens his bag to fish something out of it, placing in your lap. Your head pops up to glance at what it is, and your eyebrows furrow at the protein bar in your lap. Your eyes slowly move to him without turning your head, because you know he wants you to bring no attention to it.

Still, you mutter an audible: "Thanks", to which he replies with a grunt and a wag of his tail when you open the wrapper around it.

You place it between your teeth and break a piece, absently staring forward as you chewed. Then—

"I think I'm failing this year."

Jack jumps, head whipping in your direction. You turn your head to glance at him, before going back to absently nibbling at your bar.

"W-what?! What makes you say that?"

You swallow, watching a leaf getting dragged around the courtyard by the wind. "Well. My magical grades without Grim would be the lowest in Night Raven history probably. Stuff like history is hard and potionology is difficult because I'm essentially re-learning everything I know to fit the standards and subjects in this world. And I'm shit at P.E. On top of all that, I have to keep re-doing and catching up on assignments because shit keeps happening."

"I'm glad that an overblot hasn't happened in forever," You admit. "Anyone would be. But errands from Crowley never stop, and people always have a problem that I inevitably get dragged into. All of that combined, I think I might fail. I was thinking of just…dropping out. Going to Crowley and insisting he send me to a general college to take a course that didn't require to excel in. But…then…Grim wouldn't be apart of the roster anymore. So…I can't really leave—"

"You have worked too hard to be where you are to leave, Prefect."

Your head swivels to meet Jack and his insistent tone.

While you're still reeling, he continues. "I can't even remember how many nights I've told you to get some rest while you were the one to insist on studying. I know there's been many, but that's just my point. You've put too much effort into keeping up with us all to just—just give up!"

"Why are you so passionate about this?" You whisper, reeling even more because what the fuck is going on.

"Because! You put in the effort! I'm not going to let you throw that effort away!"

He finishes in a near yell—forcing you to appreciate the lack of people to witness this—and breathes heavily. He's not…glaring at you, but he's certainly mad in that way of hi that scrunches up his nose and makes the bridge of his nose all the more prominent. Jack's ears are standing tall, swiveled in your direction. Even his tail is thumping angrily against the bench.

Meanwhile, you bite off another piece of your bar to keep yourself from having to attempt to answer.

"And you know I'm right." He huffs. He reluctantly relaxes against the backrest of the bench. "Now get up, we're getting you to the lunchroom. I'll be picking your food."

"You will?" You watch as he gets up, taking your arm and bringing you up with him. "Why."

"Food will make you feel better."

"…my tummy hurts though."

"Food, prefect. You will understand what I mean by you will feel better." He slaps a hand on your shoulder, pushing you in front of himself.

(And moments later, sitting at a lunch table beside Jack with a tray that was obviously picked up by him, you were gobbling that shit up.)

🍩ˎˊ˗ Ruggie Bucchi

"You're skipping out on lunch of all people?" Ruggie's head appears above yours, albeit upside down from the position you're in. "Never thought I'd see the day."

"Why are you in the grass—"

"Reasons." He answers smugly. Ruggie plants his hand on the backrest and jumps over the bench to plop himself next to you. You're not below swinging your legs onto his lap and knocking yourself out right then and there. "I am also sure that you have reasons to be skipping out on lunch even though you don't really have the luxury to do so."

"Neither do you and you're still sitting next to me."

"Right, but Leona-san has me covered. You don't really have anything like that, do you Prefect?" He rests his head on his arm, balancing it on the backrest. "So why ya out here?'

"Tummy hurts." You admit.

"That's not any reason not to eat."

"Yeah, but tummy hurting equals vomiting later and I don't feel up for the emotional backlash that comes after vomiting." You frown, tilting your head back to let the wind and light hit your face.

"Fair enough." He shrugs. Then, his eyes narrow—and you regret getting to a point with this man that he feels comfortable popping questions on you out of the blue—and leans in to sniff you.

"Don't do that." You can't help how your nose scrunches up in distaste.

"Too late!" He straightens up, picking his head up and swinging his legs onto the bench to sit crossed legged beside you, facing you. "Something's wrong."

"Yeah, my stomach."

"No, something's wrong." He pauses. "And it's probably why your stomach hurts so much."

Ruggie waits a few moments, making a cringing face you see from the edge of your eye—making them widen because oh my god is he going to do what you think he's going to do—

"How…" He starts tentatively. "…are you?"

"…are you asking me about my feelings?"

"…yes."

"…much better now that I know you can do that, actually." You find it in you to sit correctly, also bringing your legs up onto the bench to mirror how Ruggie is sitting. "Um. How much do you wanna know?"

"How much will get you to eat?"

You shrug, because honestly, you don't know how much you need to get off your chest.

"Just…just start." He seemingly resigns to what he asked for, watching you intently as you begin to speak.

"Well…I guess the biggest thing bothering me is that it's blatantly obvious that I don't belong here. Honestly, I was thinking of asking Crowley to transfer me out of Night Raven into a community college. I'd get into a course that didn't require magic and everything would be peachy. Y'know…except that…I'm the one in Grim's corner."

You smile sadly. "We are technically one student. If I left, wouldn't that mean that he would have to, too? I can't do that to him. Night Raven is the first step to achieving those huge little delusions of his. I can't take that away. So, I guess I'm stuck—"

"STUCK?!"

You jolt and immediately put a hand over your racing heart, reminding yourself it's just Ruggie and his…oddly offended expression.

Offended?

"…Hey, Ruggie, how about we talk about your feelings instead of mine—"

"My feelings?!" He barks out a bitter laugh before punching your shoulder, harshly. "I feel like you're a moron."

"…ow."

"Oh, and, I feel like you don't understand the words prestigious—look at me—prestigious—" He holds the eye contact with near crazed eyes as he sounds out the word for you. "—college. Prestigious. Did you get that?"

"…yes."

"Alright, then you understand what it means to be sitting on this fucking bench, inside this fucking school, and you still want to go some generic community college?"

You choose your words carefully, slowly leaning away to the point it seems you might tip of the bench completely. "…It would better…suit me and my talents—"

"PREFECT, YOU'RE ALREADY HERE. YOU'RE PASSING. SHUT THE FUCK UP."

"…ok-ay." You lip trembles playfully—and he knows you're not actually going to cry—and you pout. "…didn't have to be so mean."

He slaps the back of your head, making you cry out and shove him off the bench.

(You guys had lunch together afterward.)

𓃬٠࣪⭑ Leona Kingscholar

Your eyes catch sight of something that makes your eyebrows shoot up and your body finally have the energy to shoot up from the bench and follow what you think is—

Leona Kingscholar is out and about.

You rub your eyes, checking just to make sure what you're seeing isn't a creation of your tired imagination, but no. He's not in the greenhouse, taking up sun like a plant. He's walking around. Instead of being at lunch.

What a surprise. If Leona's actually putting in the effort to attend classes today, then the day might not be as horrible as you thought it was going to be!

Though, you're curious…

Before you knew it, you were tapping his shoulder and tearing his attention away from his phone(you genuinely did not think he had one. And if he did, you thought it was practically brand new from the amount of disuse it most likely saw in his hands)

And, expectedly, he sighs, barely turning in your direction if only to glance at you.

"Whatcha want, herbivore?"

"To know why you've put in the effort of standing around instead of eating."

His nose scrunches in distate and he swats the air in front of them. "Go run off with your idiots or something. Doesn't matter what I'm doing."

"Oh, but it does!" You insist, moving to appear behind Leona's phone so that he could see your curious expression. "This is an occurance one doesn't see every day. Ruggie getting you food again? Like he does every day."

"Why are you asking if you already know the answer? Better to use your time for something useful. Like a nap." He squints at them, pocketing his phone with a sigh. "Because this is the shittiest I've seen you yet."

"You've paid enough attention to make that comparison?"

"I don't appriacte the extra sass that comes with speaking to a sleepdeprived you."

"And a have-not-eaten me." You add.

His eyebrows furrow and his frown twitches, threatening to deepen. "Then go eat?"

"No, my tummy is mad at me."

"Then why are you complaining?" He crosses his arms, the annoyance growing on his face. "To me, of all people. You have people who'd actually do something about that."

"yeah, but seeing you out and about gave me the energy to actually complain about it instead of wallowing in my thoughts." You pause, suddenly curious. "Say, Leona, what say you of community college?"

"Do I look like I've seen a comminuty college?" The notion itself—and the audacity you must have(please not the sarcasm) to ask such a thing—has him rolling his eyes and his tail lashing.

"…No," You should've prepared for that answer, and instead, switch to a different approach. "Okay, better question. What say you about me attending community?"

Leona…stares for a long while. Stuck between wanting to laugh, but fully aware that you're completely serious in your question. You can't read expressions, but you've seen that specific one on his face too many times before to not know what it means right—and it's contorting into unimpressed impassiveness. Typical.

"That's sounds like the decision of a moron." He flicks your forehead. "Everyone knows you're not one. So who put that in your head?"

"No one 'put it in my head'." You rub the spot he flicked, searching for the words to support your statement. "It's just…a logical take on my situation."

"We both know my grades in the magic department…are lacking. And everything else is hindered by the fact that…I don't know shit. It takes me too long to learn what I need to know, too long for me to effieciantly keep up with you all."

"But…" You sober, shrinking in on yourself slightly. Your hand falls back down to your side and your fist clenches. "I can't leave. All of this means too much to Grim for me to give up our spot here at Night Raven."

It's silent for a moment, before his hand connects with the back of your hand.

"Ow—what the fuck!?"

"Tryna get the 'idiot' out of you." He explains innocently—oh, but you see that smirk of his right before he speaks again. "Did it work?"

"No, that's not how that works!" You pause, then punch his shoulder. "And I'm not an idiot!"

"I know," He swats your hand away, and doesn't even bother acting as if you truly hurt him. "That's why I'm tryna get it out of you. You're one of the only one's here that isn't ann idiot. So stop having idiotic thoughts."

"Stop acting like you didn't work to get where you are. I barely out in minimal effort, but you're out here slaving away for a passing grade." He leans slightly to smirk in your face. "You really wanna trade that in to start from scratch at some community college? That sound smart to you?"

And now that he brings it up….it doesn't. Not really.

"…you have the worst way of being nice." You grumble, watching as he returns to full height.

He glares at you from the corner of his eye as he turns to Ruggie—who's just coming over with food in hand—and you feel his tail smack your shin. "Who the hell you calling nice?"

(Says the man who had had Ruggie get an extra lunch and made sure you eat it.)

credit to: @leilakittya for the sun dividers! credit to: @honeyluvsw for the minimalist sun divider!

When you first married, you imagined the home your husband brought you to, to be as such. There in your marital abode, the ink on your certificate from city hall hardly dried, you could fold each day away neatly like laundry, and lose yourself in a mundanity that was uninspired but, and this is to be said with grace, predictable.

In your husband’s home, with your wedding linens still ivory white and the silver still sparkling, life could be numbed down to an unchanging list of household tasks and dinners to make. When the baby came, all the better. There was no time to think, no need for it really. Motherhood suited you, most of it was instinct, and it was constant. When the baby cried, it could be soothed with one of three things; milk, a nappy change, or attention. Not even the draining kind that involved talking or pretending to care about trivial events. Just presence. Touch. Like your husband, the baby was uncomplicated.

You, vexingly, were exceedingly complicated. You did not match your cage. You did not match your husband. You did not match your baby. This life, the one you tried so desperately to strip of choice, was a poorly formed camouflage.

So poor in fact, His absence felt like mocking.

No, not your husband’s. Your husband was doting and simple and did not ask any hard questions. We are in fact referring to Tom Riddle.

Tom who was complicated and selfish and let every word out of his mouth stab into you with brutality of teeth on flesh. Violent and unforgiving. You hated seeing him. You hated not to. You hated how he looked, how he sounded, how he assumed you like a possession he could return to when he found fit. You hated, perhaps the most, how it only made you hungry for more.

You see that is the issue with free will. Had you been an animal, instinct would have warned you away from the likes of Tom Riddle. Instinct would have told you to maintain the security your husband provided, to ensure the continued safety of your child, as Tom Riddle through existence alone, threatened both.

Yet, like a vengeful spirit, Tom Riddle will not be forgotten. He is not merely a picture you can tuck into a shoe box to be forgotten in the attic. Nor is he a girlhood memory contained to the privacy of your dreams. He is flesh and bone and blood and magic, and completely human.

It is unclear between the two of you who hates the fact more.

When you awake sweaty and bedraggled from a summer night run too hot, it is instinct that gets you out of bed. Instinct that urges you to slide your feet into your slippers, pull the silk of your dressing gown over your shoulders, and pad down to the hall to the nursery. You don’t need the lights on to find your way, you could find your baby in pitch black room and a thousand locked boxes if you needed to.

But what instinct does not prepare you for is the sight you are greeted by. Beside your baby’s crib, dripping ink black shadow and crowned in a hallow of moonlight stands Tom Riddle. The sight does more than catch your breath, it turns the blood in your veins to ice, it rounds your eyes in panic, it sets your heart alive with fear. Adrenaline pushes motherly instinct to the fore front and you take a step towards danger without thinking on it. The air in the room runs as thin and taught as cling film. It feels hard to breath, hard to hear, hard to think through the thick, oily fear dripping into you.

All there is is instinct.

My baby, my baby, my baby.

“It looks nothing like you.” He says of your child.

Tom’s voice is a metronome to your free will, to every bad decision, dark thought, and personal failure. He does not look up from your baby though, who’s chest you can still see rising and falling peacefully through the crib slats, oblivious to the monster that oversees him. To your horror, Tom reaches out a hand to your infant, as if to touch them.

“No.” the sound is guttural growl, a demand, not a question. You’ve never spoken to Tom like that, not in all the sporadic, unplottable reunions he seeks to conduct in the dead of night like this. You want to take his pale outstretched finger and snap it. You take another mindless step nearer and he withdraws his hand. Finally, he turns his attention to you, his expression shadowed with his back to the moon.

“No?” He repeats, earning a twitch from his humorless lips. “I didn’t know you were aware of such a word. You are usually so willing for me.”

“Not around my baby.” You tell him with more courage than you can ever recall speaking to him with. Tom does not miss the tone, and his crimson eyes catch on a stray moon beam, glinting with menace.

“The kitchen.” You tell him, defiant enough to make him bristle but not enough to make him think of harming a sleeping baby in front of it’s mother. He grimaces in a flash of teeth before he gives you a curt nod and follows you out of the nursery, down the dark staircase, and into the kitchen. You are aware of every breath, every fiber, every cell that composes the wizard behind you until you gather the courage to turn and look him in the eyes.

Under the warm yellow light of your kitchen, you can see how far Tom Riddle has been running from his own humanity. His eyes had already turned crimson the last time he had appeared like this, shortly after your wedding, but now there are new grotesqueries to uncover. Dark veins spider web along his jaw under skin as pale and thin as parchment, the pupils of his eyes are narrowed to something slitted and amphibian, his cheek bones are sharper, The space beneath nearly gaunt. His beauty was now perverted by dark magic, but instead of diminishing Tom, the twist of his features made him more mesmerizing. Gone was a child of the gentry, an aristocrat’s wasted seed, and instead was something fearsome and new; a being closer to magic than flesh.

Instinct faded, and the dreaded free will returned, warming your cheeks and twisting your belly with a sinful, inexcusable need. It was not natural what you two did in the dark, yet you chose depravity every time.

Against instinct.

Against logic.

Against morality.

“Get on your knees.” He ordered, his voice a low rumble in the quiet kitchen. It stood at odds with the glass bottles soaking in the sink and the dinner plates stacked neatly on the shelf. But it was like watching a scary movie you’d seen a hundred times. The promise of familiar evil excited you. You let him crowd you back against the counter, and worse yet, you gave him your obedience. The linoleum was hard and unforgiving beneath your bare knees, but it would not be as cruel to you as the wizard in front of you.

“Tom,” You say his name like a prayer as you stare up at him with a catastrophic mixture of lust and loathing. Your hands come together, as if you just might worship the creature before you, but Tom is no angel of mercy, and there will be no deliverance for you tonight.

Crack!

The sound of skin slapping against skin snaps through the kitchen, your head whipping to the side with the force of Tom’s back hand. Your cheek stings in the balmy still air, then pulses before a trickle of warmth slithers down. You touch your fingertips to your wet cheek and when you draw back, you find drops of red smeared across your digits. He cut you with his ring.

The sight of your blood on your fingers flares hot inside you, the first wave of queasiness giving way to a rush of excitement that would have your husband committing you if he knew about it. But it is a part of you that Tom alone has taken the time to tend to, to cultivate within you like a dark flower for him alone to enjoy.

And enjoy he does. The line of his lips had already softened into a look of amusement as he regards you with cruel, eager eyes. He reaches out again, lightning quick, but you don’t look away or brace as he grabs you hard by the jaw, thumb nail digging in painfully to the cut he’d just made.

“Are you willing?” He asks. This is a question he has asked since the beginning, since it was just you and him and a forgotten chamber beneath Hogwarts. The ‘T.M.’ still carved into your hip burns beneath your nightgown as your mouth dries with a want so great it makes your bones ache. He put it there a decade ago, and it has been on fire ever since.

“Yes.”

You have never denied him. Not when he killed Warren, not when he started a war, not when you agreed to marry another less ambitious man, and not now kneeling on your kitchen floor. That was the issue with free will. In the end, it meant there was no one to blame for your bad decisions other than yourself.

“Good” But the praise is hollow and condescending and it makes the heat between your legs awake with a throbbing tingle. “Now beg for it, slut.”

Tom lets go of your face and takes three paces back until he is seated comfortably in your husband’s dining chair. He spreads his legs, one hand working lazily at his belt as you wait where he left you for his signal. His head tilts after a moment and a smug smirk appears as he regards you; obedient, subservient, hungry. Just the way he likes it.

You hate him, yourself, but more than anything else, how badly you want him and how deeply unsatisfied Tom has set you up to be with any other man. He raises a single finger and curls it towards himself in a ‘come-hither’ motion. A silent command that makes your blood sing.

You hold his eyes contact, the world silent as that darkness he seeded in you long ago rises up to answer. You brace your hands against the floor you spent all morning scrubbing and crawl towards your creator on all fours. You can see the outline of his cock lengthening behind where it’s trapped by the dark material of his trousers. You can see it strain when he leans forward onto his elbows, unable to help himself. Because even if Tom likes to be the one in control, he wants this just as bad as you do. Resents it with equal ferver, and the delicious, illogical, selfish nature of this cruel game the two of you keep choosing to play together only drags you deeper into the flames of your own desire.

Maddening, consuming, wholly voluntary.

You take your time when you find yourself between Tom’s spread legs, eyes moving over the shape of his half-hard erection, lips already tingling to taste. You look up to Tom for permission, your own pupils blown out and dilated, as Tom watches on with increasingly glazed over eyes.

He tisks, a sharp sound of tongue against teeth.

“I said beg, slut” He reminds you, voice firm but quiet as he leans close enough his lips nearly brush yours. Your breath tangles together and you can practically taste him on your tongue. The name calling, disrespectful, degrading, a clear signal this is wrong, sinks hooks into your mind that have the opposite effect. He hasn’t even touched you, yet you are nearly keening for him like the desperate little whore you are.

“Tom,” Your voice is gentle, reverent, and it does something uncomfortable to him as his body tenses at the sound. But he does not pull away or push you off. There is pleasure in the discomfort here, just as foreboding as it is characteristic of… whatever this is between the two of you.

“Please,” You insist, still on all fours as you crane upwards to press a kiss to the inside of his clothed thigh. You nuzzle into his leg with a soft mewl, self-disgust and desire burning you up in their twin flames.

“Please what?” His tone is mocking as you kiss along the outline of his still hardening cock, even with the shutter in his breath. He is bent over you, but his hands are now pulling through your hair, lifting it off your shoulders, gathering it securely into his fists. He does not tug on it. No yet. He needs you where he wants you first.

“Please… c-can I…” It’s been so long since you’ve spoken like this, your tongue nearly forgets how to form the words. His hands tighten against your scalp in warning.

“Speak up or I promise what I will do to you will hurt worse than anything you can think to ask me for.” The threat hits heavy, slicking hot arousal between your legs as you imagine all the horrible things he could do to you. His words are tempting on their own, but you know Tom is never a safe bet. If you call his bluff, there will be a monkey’s paw consequence waiting for you on the other side.

“I want to choke on it.” You dare to breath, the words like glass and chocolate and pain and love and all those broken contradicting parts of yourself that never fit until Tom made them fit.

“Oh?” He fixes his face into one of amusement, as if this is not what he came for. But you see the way his nostrils flare, how his own slitted pupils swell as he looks down at you worshipping him through his pants. You press closer, hands coming off the floor to grip at his thighs, your stomach muscles tightening into an irrevocable knot of anxiety and need. He swallows and wets his lips, like a snake scenting the air and inches his hips closer. You rake the tip of your teeth along the edge of him, gentle enough through his trousers, but not without danger.

“You needy thing.” He tisks again, egging you on as his cool fingers press against the back of your skull.

“Please, Tom.” The sound that comes out of you is too desperate to be a whine. Whining implies request, this is a sound of pain, of starvation, of chemical level addiction. Your eyes burn in desperation and embarrassment. “Shove it down my throat. Show me who I belong to.”

“I don’t know if I want to.” Tom teased, releasing my hair and leaning back in his chair. Panic swells, and you look up to him in alarm. You lurch forward, clutching at the waist of his pants with trembling fingers.

“Tom please!” You plead in a quiet, aching hiss, “Please, just a taste.”

“Cock-hungry whore.” Tom grins and bows his hips off the chair. “You may. No hands, just your mouth.”

You scramble to tug his trousers down just enough to free Tom from the confines. He springs out, nearly hard to the tip at just your pathetic begging. Your mouth waters at the sight of his thick member bobbing, the site familiar but no less tantalizing. You barely have enough time to inspect the plush red tip and it’s veiny pink body beneath before you have to take action.

You lean forward, tongue already laved out as you sweep it slowly up Tom, base to head, then back down. You swirl the tip of your tongue against the thickest vein running the length of his cock on your descent, only to lay tender kisses into the dark curls circling the base of his manhood. You move closer, taking your time, savoring the experience because it is uncertain when you will see Tom again, only that you will. But that could mean weeks, months, years even. You hear his breathing quicken, you feel his hands tighten painfully in your hair. Tom, you find, likes to watch you come undone while exercising restraint himself, at least in the beginning. ‘Like’ is perhaps too ambivalent of a word. ‘Gets off on’ seems more fitting.

You do not change your pace however, and instead continue your slow, excruciating exploration of his cock with your tongue. You relearn each vein, each sensitive spot, taking your time to ease the weeping salty slit at the very top and suck gently at the fragile flesh along the edge of his flushed head. When you finally decide to take him into your mouth, he has grown sloppy. His fingers have gone slack in your hair in favor of cupping the back of your head encouragingly, and his cruel words have disintegrated into low groans and sharp exhales.

You roll your tongue over the oversensitive tip of his cock before you take more, cheeks hollowing against the sides of him as you tease that first quarter of his length, bobbing slowly up and down, the pressure behind your suction intensifying, every time your head sweeps back to the top. You start to take more with each pass, until you have a little over half of him in your mouth, tongue still stroking along that nice thick vein underneath lovingly, spit dripping down, soaking onto his balls.

You pull up once more, sucking hard enough Tom’s hips lift with you, then drop back down. This time, when the soft bulbous head of his cock presses behind your tonsils, you swallow, the motion natural enough you can pull the rest of him deep into your throat.

Your name drops from his mouth like a curse, and suddenly he has regained his wits. His fingers knot into your hair once more and he forces your head down even harder onto him, causing you to sputter and choke and gag, just like you had wanted. Your eyes water from the force as he begins to take over, using your hair to pull your mouth up and down his length, hips shifting needily below your face, fucking deep into your throat just like you dream of, just like you begged him to.

The kitchen is full of filthy noises; the wet squelch of your choking, the velvet of his moans, and the ticking of a clock. You don’t think of your husband, or your child, or even getting caught. All there is in the world is you and Tom and this moment between you two so precarious it feels like balancing on the end of a needle.

Your own need is mounting, your own carnal desires demanding release. You can feel yourself wet, sticky, and leaking down your thighs beneath your nightgown, your own pussy squeezing around nothing with each press of him into your mouth. Your clit twitches helplessly between your legs, but no amount of squeezing of rocking seems to help, it only spreads the wetness, making your desperation all the more infuriatingly obvious. Tom said no hands. That doesn’t apply to you, does it? Subtly, you shift a hand off his thigh, letting it drop down to your own. You wait to see if he’ll notice, but as you glance up between each drag of his cock through your throat, you see only his head tipped back, lips parted.

You shift your own hand between your legs, spreading open sopping lips to ease soothing circles around the neglected bud. You shiver and your own eyes close as your interest in Tom’s length intensifies, the minor distraction of your own weeping pussy delt with temporarily.

But Tom is not so easily fooled and honestly, you should have known better.

The hands in your hair wrenches you up violently, his cock slipping form your mouth with a pop. The speed of which he’s pulled out of your throat leaves you sputtering and coughing, spit and tears clinging damp to your cheeks.

“Deceitful little slut.” Tom seethes. He bolts to his feet and drags you up with him by the hair, tugging you close enough to let his breath burn against your trembling lips.

“What did I say?” He growled, not sparing you an ounce of his venom. Your pussy spasms and your clit flutters, pleasure dripping from your center molten hot at his sickening temperament.

“N-no hands,” You murmur, cock drunk and aching, eyes glazed and unfocused as they seek Tom’s. Crimson eyes find yours with equal disorientation. That heavy, burdensome attraction that exists between the two of you, the one that found you in the chamber and has not released you since, the kind that has reduced you to this driveling mess who gets off on her own mistreatment, is a confounding, accursed thing. It has rendered you both useless and dumb, a culmination of bad decision after bad decision. It’s inescapable now, a wound long festered.

“Yet, you use your hand.” He scoffs and shakes his head. He releases your hair, scalp tingling with relief from the tension only to tear apart your nightgown. You gasp at the violence of it, at how the silk was little more than tissue beneath Tom’s strong hands and quickly cover your mouth to stifle the sound. His eyes sink down your body, cock hard and wet with your drying spit bobbing between you as you feel his gaze settle on the T.M. over your hip. A monument to a by gone era and the only tender thing left between you.

It is a decision to not remove it or cover it up.

It is a decision Tom confirms you are still making every time he sees you.

He reaches out, dragging a finger along the pale scar, a crude carving of his initials. His touch is almost gentle. His mouth almost bends into a smile. The only thing real is the shiver that dances up your spine at his touch, something electric and insidious living behind it.

Just as suddenly as the tenderness arrives, it disappears, and Tom’s hands closes over your now bare breasts, squeezing hard enough to hurt as he backs you into the counter. His mouth drops to yours demanding and vengeful as he nips and sucks and laps at you like he is trying to erode you. Your own hands scramble up his back, into his curls, anchoring yourself to your own demise as he lifts you onto the edge of the counter. The tension inside is double knotted and pulled tight, nowhere near release and painfully aroused. He twists your nipples mercilessly, bites at your jaw your neck, even your ear as his kisses grow in vicious possessiveness. He wants to mark you. He wants to know if you have the heart cover up a mark he leaves you, even if for your husband. He doesn’t think you do.

“T-Tom please, don’t-“

“Shut up.” He growls into your ear.

Those crafty hands of his move again, one rises to cover your mouth while he bites your shoulder hard enough to bruise, the other drops to pinch your clit hard enough to punish. Your cry of pain (or pleasure?) is muffled behind his hand and fresh tears work down your cheeks at the pain. Tom laughs at you, chucking at your misery before placing a kiss on the top of your head as you curl forward, weeping into his shoulder.

“You cry, yet you’re dripping onto the counter,” Tom jeered quietly into your ear. The fingers at your clit begin to sooth it, fluttering in circles around the sensitive bud before easing over the swollen flesh surrounding your throbbing entrance. Your pussy squelches, arousal rushing down his fingers as he eases two long digits into your center. Your walls press back at him, eager and greedy for any sort of pressure as he finds that lovely little patch of rough flesh as if on muscle memory. His fingers begin to thrust and you cannot keep your eyes open even when you feel him watching as he works you impossibly close to orgasm, impossibly fast. The sound is obscene, what you two are doing even worse, but Tom is selfish and demanding, he will not share your attention with thoughts of shame.

Instead, he kisses you again, still rough, still mean, and you groan into it, hips shifting needily against his fingers. You want more, you want all of him. You reach down to his cock resting against your thigh and begin wrap your hands around the silky hardness. You half expect him to push you away, to punish you again for using your hands, but instead he begins to thrust into your grip, groaning softly in your ear. You know that sound, what it means. He’s waiting for you to ask.

“Tom,” You pant against his neck, “Please fuck me already.”

“What a greedy little thing you are.” He breathes into your ear, goosebumps rising under the sweep of his breath. “How bad do you want it?”

A hand tightens at your throat, muffling the strangled sound of outrage that tries to push through your lips as you continue to stroke him.

“Please,” You weep, pressing into his hold, “Please, please, please. I need you.”

Tom sighs, as if disappointed, but you can feel the satisfaction leaking into your palm and that is all the truth you need.

“I cannot deny you, sweet creature.” He practically purrs, mocking and condescending and honest. Things would have never been gotten this far if either of you had the ability to self-govern, to execute any meaningful self-discipline. Your hand falls away as he pulls you closer on the counter. Your legs find his waist, your arms circle his neck, and the pain of him psliting you open in one go feels like home.

“Tom,” His name comes out in a shared groan from your lips, pressed soft and crooning to the shell of his ear. His hands anchor your waist, thumbs pressed over his initials as he drives into you hard and careless over and over and over and over.

You wish it would last forever. You wish it never happened in the first place. But wishes are wishes and real is real and the only real thing in the world right now is he slam of Tom’s hips into yours as he stretches you thin over his cock, demanding more from you than your body can give. You hold onto this, to him for as long as you can, as long as you are able, but you can feel your thighs shaking around him already, your fluids leaking down to the counter, soaking into Tom’s clothes. He will take a part of you with him tonight when he leaves, but he will not think of you again until the impulse overwhelms him and you find him again in the dark having returned despite his better judgment. Despite the instinct to sever ties.

He fills you again and again, hips pistoning, his sweat dripping onto you, mixing with your own over where you prepare your husband’s breakfast every morning. Tom pulls back just enough to glare at you with red eyes from between the damp clumps of dark curls sticking to his face and presses his forehead to yours. Your eyes nearly cross and the hand at your throat cuts off the rest of your air. He is holding too hard, too long, instinct has you clawing at him, opening your mouth for oxygen that he will not allow to pass.

He breathes you in before pulling back with a sneer and spitting directly into your mouth. You know its meant to degrade you, to try and make you seem less important to him that you are. But as his spit splatters violently against your tongue, slipping down your throat, all you can do is cum. The pleasure crashes, drawing you tight and spasming around his length, forcing him over the edge with you. He curses your name, damns you for undoing him like this as he crumbles in three pathetic thrusts, spilling deep inside you as you moan.

The battle ends, your bodies go slack against one another, but Tom does not withdraw. He lingers inside you, keeping his seed sealed tight in your womb. Against his better judgment. Against his instinct. Where your head rests against his shoulder, you can feel his pulse fluttering against your ear. His heart hammers against your ribs beneath the burn of skin to skin, reminding you ha at least for now, he is still human. Your trembling hands draw over his shoulders, bracing to push him away, but instead holding, clinging, wanting to linger in this moment longer. Possibly forever.

He leans into you harder, and you have to bite back the words this naked, vulnerable version of Tom threatens to pull out of you. You will not let Tom have that part of you, you will not put a name to the real reason he keeps returning and you keep letting him even if instinct presses you to blurt it out.

How grand it is that we have choice?

How grand it is we have autonomy?

Dragonstone did not believe in straight lines. Corridors curved like ribs around unseen hearts of rock. Archways rose in the shape of wings. Torches burned in iron claws that emerged from the walls as if the castle itself had seized the fire rather than merely hold it.

Alysanne walked beside the squire in silence while Daven filled the air behind them with the confident sounds of a man narrating his own arrival.

“Remarkable construction,” he was saying, examining a dragon’s head carved above a doorway as though it had been commissioned for his inspection. “The Valyrians did have a certain… flair. Though perhaps a little excessive. One might almost think they were trying to prove something.”

Symon nodded politely while Alysanne could not look at her brother. She kept her hands folded inside her sleeves because it was the safest position. Hands that did nothing could do no damage. Hands that did nothing could not betray the tremor running through them.

Jayne… Left at Castle Darry. Alone.

If anyone in the world would have fought to keep her daughter safe, it was Mira and Alysanne needed to speak to her as soon as possible.

Mira would know more than what Daven would say aloud. She always did. Perhaps she had caught some careless word, some hint of what Daven intended, some explanation for why Jayne had been left behind.

Alysanne needed every scrap of it - but she did not allow herself to follow the thought any further. Not here. Not with Daven’s voice echoing off the stone like a herald announcing his own importance to the walls.

Daven had never been skilled at noticing anything, but he had an excellent nose for weakness when it served him.

So Alysanne folded the thought away for now, like her septa had once taught her to fold altar cloths: smooth the linen, press the corners together, hide the creases where no one could see them. Careful hands made small, orderly shapes out of larger things.

Fear could be folded.

Grief could be folded.

The wild, rising image of her little daughter reaching for her and finding only empty air could be folded smallest of all.

She placed them one atop the other somewhere deep and silent, where no one walking beside her would hear them shifting.

Only when the last corner lay flat did she lift her eyes again - just as footsteps approached along the curved passage ahead.