#queerbrujas

They ask the question today when you struggle to pull out a scroll from its intricate, cylindrical container. A map of something or other that the Sage thinks will help.

Aged paper clings to the small space, digging its heels in as you try to wiggle it free to no avail. You sigh and slump your shoulders in the light of the sunset streaming through their office window, pulling your fingers back before resting them on the tube’s edge. It’d be easier to just rip the map out and piece it back together, “the importance of preservation” and “historical artifacts” be damned.

Quiet laughter bounces off the bookshelf near you, and you look to find the Sage distracted from their own task of note-taking.

The pout quickly forms on your lips.

“How badly do we need this map?”

“It’s absolutely crucial, actually,” they respond while they place their pen down and stand, every movement graceful and gentle.

“You’re sure?” you say with a quirked eyebrow. “Or are you just enjoying watching me struggle?”

A mischievous, demure smile brightens their face as they drag their fingertips around the papers and books on their desk and step toward you. Heat builds behind your ears as the smile turns softer and they kneel at your side, shadows draping across their arms.

But that fluttering feeling cools as you notice the too-wide space they leave between your bodies, golden robes and embroidery spilling over to bridge the gap. Knowing they’ll ask for the scroll from a detached distance, you hold it out to them with your fingers curled around the top and face turned away. 

There’s a too-long pause and a hesitant hand floating at their chest. You don’t have to meet their eyes to know the question coiling around the flecks of forest green and topaz.

Will you betray us?

You pretend not to hear the words thundering in your skull, focusing on keeping your arm still and your expression neutral. The too-long silence becomes unbearable until their whisper pushes it aside.

“Here,” they breathe out, reaching for the scroll and its offending container. “It…it comes out a bit easier if you-”

It turns out they’re not reaching for just the scroll at all.

Warmth ignites in the space between your fingers as they interlace theirs with yours, covering your hand and providing some support with their thumb pressed into the edge of your palm. You can’t help your head swiveling to the side to watch them, to ask a question of your own. But they keep their concentration on your hands and avoid your gaze.

A breeze draws your attention next, tentative and careful as it whispers across your cheek and dances in the minuscule gap between your hands. Shivers race over the soft skin at your wrist and up your forearm, a streak of summer wind that kisses your shoulder before it dives into the tube.

Finally, the scroll is set free, though you’d like to think it’s in no small part to your earlier efforts. Paper that seemed ready to crumble if you so much as looked at it too harshly now slides out toward the ceiling, unfurling in effortless waves as it escapes the confines of its container.

“I thought these were too fragile to use magic with?” you ask the Sage outloud, though any sort of concern for the map is the farthest thing from your mind. It drifts forward on the echo of your question and comes to rest on the long, wooden table at the side of the room.

The hushed wind ebbs away as their other hand pushes some of their braids back. “Don’t tell the other Sages? Or my Acolyte, he’d have a heart attack.”

They press an index finger to their lips over a subtle grin, and you try to memorize the way their eyes and their cheeks and their dimples and their laughter all come together to create such a perfect symphony.

You eventually chuckle in response, until both of you realize the heat is still resonating between your skin. 

Expecting them to snap their hand back, you brace yourself for the motion while you watch the tilt of their lips fade and their eyes widen. But instead, they hold for just a few moments more.

A second question falls into the empty space between you, and breathes into the hesitant brush of their fingers on your knuckles when they finally pull away.

Will you betray me?

No is the answer you hope another day will hold.

i’m including the narration here for context bc i didn’t publish this:

Just as she is about to go down on them, she hears Alex quietly ask, “Did you ever think of me?”

Mack doesn’t need to ask for clarification. She knows exactly what they’re asking about (who they’re asking about). A familiar face—one made more familiar by the similarities it shares with the face in front of her now—comes to mind. Frankie. A two-month-long experiment that was destined to fail when Alex showed up in her (their) new city.

Mack pauses, then pushes herself up further to look at Alex. “Not during. I tried hard not to think about you when I was fucking her.” She kisses the inside of their thigh softly and feels them shiver. “But afterwards… when I’d fuck myself… I only ever thought about you.”

lorcan x mc demons by imagine dragons / writing’s on the wall by sam smith

robin x mc honey by magic man / time in a bottle by jim croce

gray x mc to be alone by hozier / found love by sofya wang

lorelei x mc dandelions by ruth b. / as long as you love me (sleeping at last version)

grace x mc holy by zolita / heart like yours by willamette stone

anthony x mc talk by hozier / midas by skott

the other x mc persephone by tamino / you and i by pvris

bonus:

“Easy, easy…” He doesn’t recognize the voice, but when the roaring in his ears dies down somewhat, it seems to take most of the fog with it, and he can smell enough to tell him all he needs to know - through the smoke and the char and the blood, he can smell that too-clean, too-sharp antiseptic smell of-

“How’d you get here so fast?” His voice sounds muddled - muffled and scratched, and he’s not sure if it’s the fire in his throat or the ocean in his ears causing it. He does manage to open his eyes though, taking in the young, confused face above him.

The agency medic fussing at him blinks at him as he finally opens his eyes, then just shakes his head. “We were on call - like normal? Soon as the building blew, everyone was on site.”

The building?

The building…

He remembers two things in that moment. The explosion that knocked them off their feet - and apparently tossed him into a wall, if the headache is anything to go by - and-

“Dex?”

“What?” The medic isn’t a vampire, that much is clear, and Nate has no issue shoving out of his reach and to his feet. He can feel the last cuts and bruises slowly knitting themselves back together, but nothing feels broken or worse, and, frankly, he really doesn’t care about that.

“Agent? Agent!” He can hear the voice just fine. Finds the roar in his ears is of a different sort this time.

What’s left of the building is little more than a few walls and smoking rubble, swarming with agents. Something still actually, actively there in the back of his mind clocks Adam and Felix, and a few feet later, Mason, all getting checked out and looking varying degrees of annoyed.

He sees Adam tilt his head to the pair of ambulances at the far side of the ruins and he’s gone.

“Dex? Declan!” He calls, and now he knows the scratch in his voice is from some tear - can feel it warp in the back of his throat - but he can’t find it in himself to care, about the scratch, about the pain. There’s so much smoke, and char, and blood that he can’t smell or see anything clear and the last thing he’d seen-god, he’d seen Dex-

And then he’s seeing him again. And he’s upright, sitting on the back of the ambulance. He’s breathing, hell, he’s arguing with the medic it looks like, and he’s there and...and…

Dex is on his feet just in time to catch Nate, who only just manages to reign it in enough to collide but not knock them both off their feet. Nate can taste blood in the press of his lips to Dex’s but he doesn’t care - doesn’t care that it’s sending all his senses haywire, doesn’t care that he’s holding Dex tight, because he can feel the bruises purpling up under Dex’s hands on his own skin, doesn’t care that it’s less a kiss and more just needing to feel the man breathe, feel him alive, against him.

Some part of his brain - the part that’s not focused on the breath and the blood and feel of warm skin against his - manages to notice the tense press of fangs against lips and teeth, the harsh clack as Dex presses in closer, seemingly uncaring.

Minutes, hours, seconds later, he feels hands on him, on his face, gently coaxing him away from the kiss and then gently pulling him back in to breath into Dex’s skin at his neck - and he goes with absolutely no resistance, the fight and the adrenaline all but draining out of him at the barest gentle touch and the trust, the absolution, that movement takes, after...after.

There’s an ugly purpling bruise maring his skin there - cutting that beautiful inked rose in half, and Nate shuts his eyes to just enjoy the warmth, and the beat of a pulse still going strong.

He vaguely hears Dex talking - feels it more in the rumble of his voice, pressed this close to his throat. Hears a squeak of an affirmative from somewhere off to his right, then footsteps leading away.

“Mm...you’re worrying the baby medics you know…” And it’s low, and rough, and there’s this rasp that makes Nate wrap his arms tighter around him. He knows it’s too tight. Can’t seem to make himself let go.

And Dex just curls his fingers in his hair and presses him closer.

It’s that acceptance, that insistence, that helps Nate relax - just a bit. Not enough to pull away. Not enough to let go. But enough to breathe and not taste ash. Enough to breathe, period.

“Where’d you go?” It’s no more than a whisper. He’s almost worried it’s too quiet for Dex to hear - wonders if he can make his jaw work long enough to ask again without something vital breaking in half.

“They pulled me outside. Think they saw shit about to go sideways and decided to run off with the consolation prize.” Before Nate can even react to that, he’s speaking again, fingers tightening ever so slightly in his hair, “And before you even try, they’re already dead. Turns out, explosions are fantastic distractions.” And he...he tries for levity. Misses by a mile, but Nate appreciates the attempt.

“Don’t…” He can’t ask. It’s not possible. It’s not fair. “Don’t do that again.” and it’s said around a broken laugh - or, at least, Nate thinks it’s a laugh.

“I’ll come back.”

It’s not the truth, because they can’t know.

But it’s not a lie, either. A promise doesn’t have to ring true to be honest. And that will have to be enough.

Eventually Lucas’ hands found their way underneath the back of her shirt, a pleased rumble that vibrated against her legs telling her that he’d discovered she’d neglected to wear a bra underneath.  He’d moved so he was sitting beside her, both of them laughing when they suggested that endorphins could act as painkillers at the same time.  They’d moved from the couch to his bedroom and fuck, Morgan knew he was strong, but it always made the breath she didn’t need hitch in her throat when he picked her up like she weighed nothing at all, moaning into her mouth when she wrapped her legs around his waist and raked her nails down his back.

They did manage to finally make it to his bed, Morgan languidly moving over him as they both eased down from their respective orgasms.  She hummed appreciatively at the way his hands moved across her body before settling over her hips to guide her through a few more lazy yet purposeful thrusts that had her shivering and even as overstimulated as she was, effortlessly tumbling over another ledge.

His hands were in her hair, brushing it out of her face, his thumb ghosting over her bottom lip.  “Stay,” he said, chest still heaving as he tried to catch his breath, heart pounding beneath her palms.  Lucas brought his mouth back to hers while one hand cradled the side of her face and the other, big and warm, slid up her back.  “Stay the night.”

Morgan shifted so they parted, his hiss of pleasure muffled by her mouth.  She looked down at him, hair messy from her hands spread out on the pillow, a flush to his cheeks going all the way down his throat and across his chest, the crooked smile he had that made her heart do strange flips knowing that it was directed at her.  Without saying a word, she settled down in the space beside him, her fingers idly tracing over the geometric tattoo at his shoulder as she tangled her legs with his.

“Okay,” she told him, pressing her mouth to the side of his neck, her teeth barely grazing his skin in a way that made him shudder and hold her closer to his body.