waterlily love interests except for tiffany and luna stop treating the mc like a four year old with no personal agency or autonomy and is not a grown ass woman herself challenge.
What is the memory? The one that tastes like ash in her mouth. The one that beats in the roots of her sinew, her tendons, her ligaments, her muscle and flesh. Something her body knows that her brain won't tell her.
When Illayona Ikeda returns from months of oblivion, screaming and kicking and covered in blood, like her second birth, violence turns to rot in her body. With blood that hisses and spits, bones that thrum with unused venom, muscles that ache for the thrill of a punch, her reformed self likes to think of herself as somewhat of a pacifist.
There's a line. Some blurry, intangible thing, that carves out two selves. Before and after.
She's retired her old life (a dark, damp whirlpool of hate and misery so consuming it could send the unwise to the brink of insanity) and, as Gojo has put it to her, turned over a new leaf.
She doesn't fight, doesn't spar, doesn't exorcise, she hasn't raised a fist in months, she hasn't even cussed out Gojo for weeks. And perhaps resisting insubordination and violent tendencies doesn't quite call for the level of celebration she's affording herself, and maybe Principal Yaga has a point when he says that she hasn't really proved anything, given her technique has relied on avoidance and no introspection or self-work, but that's not the point.
She's renewed.
Illayona doesn't have to address the haunting nightmares that's plagued her mind, chipped away at her shaky resolve, brought her to crushing lows. Her past is a murky, slithering thing that refuses to be caught, it's nothing but a flash of teeth and hair and wounds. She cannot work her mouth around the words that sing to her, she cannot confess to a crime she doesn't recall.
So Illayona's healing on her own terms - and she's doing that by healing others. Tokyo Jujustu High's very own... medical assistant? She doesn't really have a specific role, with her newly discovered Reverse Cursed Technique, she mills around and leaves the hard work to Shoko. It's better than trying to touch something innate that she cannot recall. Her technique, like a taunt, like an omen, unreachable, indecipherable. No longer accessible.
But no one needs to know that.
Illayona doesn't need to talk about her months in some alternate dimension she refuses to describe, name or even mention. She doesn't need to tell anyone about the strange link she has to a cursed tool the Jujustu society believes has been lost in time. No. She doesn't. Because that would entail picking at sticky, unsettling threads, like will reveal a rat king's worth of tangles so sickening she'd rather just wait for death to come to her.
But that was before a murder, eerily reminiscent to the mission she was on before disappearing emerges. And it was before her dreams began to bleed into reality, her two selves shrouding each other in darkness in an attempt to converge. And it was before some odd, unsettling feeling of being observed began to overrun her days.
And now she's saddled with Yuta Okkotsu, trailing after a goose chase that may just be enough to rip apart the fragile peace she's created for herself. And what she definitely doesn't need is another, traumatised, pretty-eyes-with-a-dark-backstory sauntering into her life.
It's for the best to shove him as harsh and hard out of her life. If there's any constants in her life, it's two things: hunger and death.
a/n: midway through this i started laughing because the only fiction here is a singular link this has to canon besides a man sharing the name of xander van hayes. happy late valentine's day + happy spring march + i will now go to bed before i begin hearing light ☝️
[ not the full fic due to tumblr's word limit, see ao3 or docs ]
For what is and what wasn’t expected, this he gets out the way first.
The high chime of her doorbell leavens into the white noise of a Saturday night, down the gauzy gold avenue of her apartment hallway. One hand perfectly slack in the pocket of his loose, dark jeans, its sibling bent and blooming behind his back, sweetness ducks and kisses under the still sweet-spice of his scent. On a night like this, even the quiet kicks up his chest; he’s glancing under his brow and he’s listening for her footsteps behind the door.
A bargain, the lock, a whinge, then the door is a slash of shadow maiming the light, and she is a vision hurried in the aftermath. She’s telling him give me two minutes, he’s agreed without listening. The dip of her eyelids as they render shimmering peach; his eyes drift lower to the coral gloss of her mouth, muted through the moving and pause, fix entirely. ‘I can wait.’
I’m not going to sleep with you. Arms crossed in front of the grey of the streetlight, the grey of the sky, the grey of the trees too, around the corner of their street, the beginning of their first second. His lips couldn’t repress their quirking up. Okay, he’d returned, knowing—his patience lives to surprise.
Then it’s in the pier strolls in the longing, laconic dusk, and the disappointment of her scent transient, left to no trace on his sleeves, only with him when she is. It’s in the odd diners that come after, steam curling between their conversations, and the refugee receipts in his pockets, safe to a box at the back of his closet. It’s in the midnight Come out, night breeze through her hair to his face, and the startled bark of a laugh at his phone the subsequent morning amended to a cool, cocked brow, enough to justify his reputation to a coworker who’d been given reason to look over. It’s Reina pretty in his passenger seat for months now, and Reina lit up by his bedroom, investigating to resist lingering.
It’s in the crepuscular hideout from the streetlight outside her apartment entrance, cedar bowing over them, bothering her goodnight when she’d leaned up and pressed her mouth true against his. He’s not proud to admit how he’d fumbled his hand to her hip, dreaming a dream so yours the rightness doubts you, but his head caught the tailend of desire and angled to her mouth, needing her closer and close, when her hand had fisted into his collar. Holding him there, keeping him there, for her. His grip iced, the tendons of his hand tensing, as her lips caught his top between them. Lingering, close-mouthed, a fragment of softened time, before releasing and capturing the bottom, no, almost, brushing the corner of his mouth and murmuring goodnight into it, striding up the stairs only a touch too rapid than usual. He’d had to wait for the lightheadedness to die down before driving back.
It’s official, no, almost, tonight.
The dusk-rose mole on her shoulder blade flashes for his sight as she turns back inside, an invitation stoppered by the bloom slackened in his arms, vying for her attention.
‘Oh. That’s…’
Her eyes seek his out, and so they go, dragged back to them lit, curious, tilting.
‘You can guess,’ he replies airily, dipping them further under his back.
He knew they weren't it even as his fingers brushed them or his card, twined together and dozing in brown. She isn’t a rose or a thorn or if both, then like nobody he’s ever met. But they are new and this is classic, romance standard (See? He can play it by the book). The limits to this snap at red, lurid not luring; these are coral, white, and the peach of their melting. If nothing else, he got the mouth and the hair and the eyes, justified.
Her deep inhale bristles the air, shoulders dropping with the exhale.
‘Roses…’ Her trailing off, punctuated by both their heads turning to catch the movement at their periphery.
i. freesia
Late enough in summer for the sun to halo your head, the sidewalk is a game of Jenga. To fit or to fall, or worse, fall behind, courtesy of summer swinging everyone out by their hands into her easy pleasures. Immune to it for all his years here, he’s not spared this time around, the two of them caught up most days in ice cream over golden dusk. Her earnest about objectionable flavors and dragging his wet hands under and up her bare waist at the sink and squabbling about sleeping with sweat-licked skin only to end up worse. Summer is generous in its ways of giving; the more he wants, all he gets, so sweet he could (and does) taste it on his tongue.
Would that it would dissolve on his alone.
A sun that could only show such exuberance post-lunch flicks the back of their heads: white-luculent, tilted and hearing down to another blinding back metallic-grey. Her arm through hers, the loop of it, Reina’s cane in the other hand; the tread of nude wedges and those legwarmers that hoof the crown of sneakers.
Grousing on the state of the sidewalk is sheer coping from the karmic aspect at play, how every undertaking to parallel the song of the two of them is met by the divination of crashing into a stranger. Left to trailing behind, poise as insouciant as the aggravation fizzing in him isn’t, his Hail Mary is reserved for the gauzy cardigan sliding off her shoulders and into his arms. Dress like riverwater down her ankles, sheer off sheer with slow diffused orange and azure and pink, fish under jade waters. If he’s not watching her shoulder blades retract, he’s watching the curve of her ass, both equally intently. And if neither is vetted enough for the flare of ire: with the last half-dozen attempts to cut in cut off, or much more insulting, not met at all, his resort is to direct the beam of his glare squarely and diligently at the back of their heads. Which, if caught, is reflected by his girlfriend neat onto his sister.
Mouth slightly parted, and to his knowledge entirely unconsciously, blinking at an unnatural pace, her gaze swept between them. From the muted shirt graciously one Pantone shade off the next, foot tapping restlessly with the jut of his elbow out, arms crossed loosely as he devoured her reaction, to a whole foot below with a palette of silver-metal-pink, glinting off twin snakebites, cascading in waves down dainty, inked shoulders, keychains loot on her bag, translucent tights in considered tatters, maximalist pop. Bounding in place, teeth peeking front and center of her smile that hadn’t gone down for anything but phonetics requiring such lowering, chattering to a Reina who had gone mute in her stead. Unable to metabolize the sheer quantity and quality of incredulity, eyes swinging back and forth, to and fro, by which time losing patience, they’d reached for her wrists in unison, impatient and eager, eager and impatient. Some six hours later, still half-dizzy in his passenger seat, she’s breathing, concussed and wondrous, I won't be mad. Be honest, that's a coworker?
He fucking wishes. From the intervals he tunes his ear into the frequency of Yana’s words tripping into each other, the topic has jumped from her accidental Sanrio tattoos (plural) to Reina’s favorite kind of tree to Sana from Twice. The prospect of even her saint-self being this invested in Yana’s friend’s guppy cannibalizing its siblings is dubious at best, eye-shutting rage-inducing at present.
His decade-practiced ears perk at a very specific tone, and he’s yanked back in from his deserved glowering break.
‘-don’t really want to know what this one calls you, but your friends… Reina, Reina…’ Her face contorts in contemplation, a look of what would be five different expressions on anyone else, all at once. ‘Rei? Rei…na, oh! We’re both na, na’s. Ayana and Reina.’
His disgust deepens a shade.
‘That,’ she confirms lightly.
A second to process and output disappointment: her shoulders slump dramatically. ‘What, no, really?’ Silent to curious in under three seconds, she perks up at a new lead. ‘You probably have a stupid cute childhood nickname, I can sense it. Spill!’
Caught, Reina’s gaze flits away for a quick buzz, a touch of indignity he knows precisely for how rare it is, before landing. ‘I’ll tell you later.’
‘Wait.’ Her fingers press against her mouth, thinking, when the slow curl of a laughing laugh, delighted emerges from under them, proclaiming in excitement. ‘Na, na’s, Nana’s, Nana. You could be the Nana to my Yana.’
He simply and briefly contemplates shoving her into traffic.
Reina shrugs lightly. ‘Sure.’
Squeezing her arm with a strength that jostles her, Yana ducks her head to let her charm-owned nails fly over her phone, tapping out music to her head dump. ‘I’ve never had an anyone to my anything, except that one time in second grade with Nanaimo bars and Kenny Gruber. God, wow, that’s depressing. Thank you! Let me just…’
Too occupied with switching out her contact name and icon, the fall of pale-grey waves renders her periphery vulnerable to Reina’s thoughtful gaze. Despite knowing Yana from her first cry and for her first lie, even he’s snarled by the realness of her vivacity, or only a tolerance.
She misses it, through a new thread picked, an old hurt kicked, the unconcealed, total softening of her eyes, which of course only serves to rake more ire into his backyard. Reina isn’t charmed by anyone, least of all him, which he’d learned early enough, diluting when he lured, searing when he slipped. He’s lucky if the corner of her mouth lifts within his vision twice a month.
Shoved by spite, he leans closer, voice lowering to the space between their shoulders, more to the silver shell of her ear. ‘I know a place nearby. There’s that fucked-up flavor you can add to your collection.’
Yana doesn’t look up from her phone. ‘I know a fucked-up flavor she likes.’ Head shooting up briefly to call a no offense! to a wry Reina, she goes back to frowning intensely now at Maps. ‘Test it out then, go, shoo.’ Her hand works the motion, and then dives to grip Reina’s, clatter of color down her wrist. ‘It could be this? My middle-school friend who moved here from…’
Her eyes flit back to him, an elegant hand fanning out above her forehead, catching his gaze. She doesn't look mad, or too mad anymore, as last night when he called with So our little date tomorrow… there’s a mild problem. [ ]. A minor inconvenience. A tiny- I can see the text. Bye- Ayana’s in the city and she wants to meet, get lunch. Well, she wants to meet you. What? Your sister? Oh, I know a no when I hear it, sweetheart, I’d love to let her know. We really are perfect for each other, huh? No. What? A second of shadowed green-blue-grey, unreal, unearthly, before she’s being led as fodder for when Yana inevitably loses the way. Following up to the corner, he’s breaking away by the turn.
Nowhere is Reina hard to find. There’s the startling wave of white, the susurration of her cane to the ground, the five-eight she wears thoughtlessly graceful. There’s the deep conviction in herself that people only reserve for fear, the way she moves through the world, whatever is in her skin that called for him to call out that first-second time. The trouble is never that he can’t find her, he did, and now he doesn't know how to stop looking.
Leaning against the tinted windows of a storefront, the awning trading her shades, she’s alone (he understands her disbelief then, later, when he wouldn’t have thought to worry or even question his sister’s whereabouts until she wandered in); her phone lay forgotten in hand, swept up in the hue of the crowd rippling through her.
When within orbit, he lets his voice carry before she could misstep or tense. ‘What hope do the rest of us have if you’re getting ditched?’
Her shoulders jump a twitch, so her head turns slowly, languidly. ‘My condolences.’
‘Or did you get tired and run off instead?’ A saccharine-sharp little noise, and equally, the shake of his head, reaching her before he does. ‘You know, I don’t blame you at all. You’d think with how every year brought the same complaint she would’ve learned to shut up.’
Her head tilts slightly, eyes squinting.
‘Of course, Ma never had much trouble with me. I don’t talk nearly as much.’ She can’t voice a sound in response to this. ‘No one can,’ he adds shamelessly.
Silence. Mouth parting once, before considered and dismissed as a heat mirage, she spins curiosity. ‘Where’d you leave to?’
‘Oh, I’m glad you asked.’ Unfurling a smile that would wick wicked, catching her hand, they release into it the roughness of twine, the scratch of brown paper. When they leave, lingering, yellow blooms between them.
Any knack to shiver would be for her, hers, for her fingers circling slowly, reverent over the carpel, asking downy as her touch. ‘What’s this for?’
Because it’s summer. Because it feels like summer. Because it feels like the first summer of my life. Why not? You’re all pretty and you’re all mine.
‘Goes with the dress.’ Slipping hands down the shoulders they’ve been begging for since sun-peak, he would’ve spun her to the window but for the glare of light. Mimicking her stance, he leans against it instead. ‘You’ll just have to trust me. Can’t be too hard, hmm? You know my taste.’
She’s watching him though.
Holding off dusk, the sunlight is syrupy, nostalgic. Above, the leaves split, and for a second it glides over her eyes, soft because of their seriousness, her nose, the scar, her mouth, the kiss, and then it’s dispelled, gone. He lifts his hand before she could, guarding her eyes; in this now she's of the past, a moment to ache at, these eyes. He’s thinking, but he’s thinking stupid.
‘Can you guys look into each other’s eyes somewhere with AC? I’m being boiled alive.’
Their gazes break.
At his point-blank scowl, she waves her phone higher. ‘I found it! Let’s go.’ Without waiting for a response, she swivels to skip off, full faith that they’ll follow.
For the innumerable instances of regret at tanking his chance to leave her for good at the airport at ten, each one never fails to one-up the previous.
ii. peony
The twelve hours from Incheon to Vancouver lazes longer than the week before that; that cinereal morning longest of all. Leaning against the side of his car, the hassle of arrivals clones the grey of the sky, the flowers too, teeming like dizzy ants out the doors, until a sleepy bunch mills out, leaning on each other like tangled weeds.
Stumbling about with the luggage in exhaustion, the two of them are tall shoots bringing up the rear, vivid against the rest in a grey hoodie bowing low over her forehead and oversized joggers he assumes is his (Half of what she fishes out of his wardrobe are only known to him as his when they can’t withstand the intensity of his staring at her ass and naturally, recollection of possession comes back to him), leaning in to hear her friend for regret, her extent of a scowl rippling over her features.
He lilts her name, sure, her sweeping cane scratches mid-arc, maybe, she’s slowing, yes, and then she’s pulled herself to him. Pink whirls out with the fingers looped around it as the other arm shifts and settles and caresses body to his, forehead to his chest like a kiss, and then she’s drawing away, pricked by publicity.
His fingers lock at her hip, allowing no more than an inch, as his cheek wakes from the worn softness of the hood. His fingers untangle off her waist, hand sliding up and into the scalene of dark left by the hoodie worn so low, to superimpose over last week’s pixels on his screen with her warm, cold, all anything, real; jerking out of his grip, she falls into the excuse of the bloom—a quiet sigh blows for her voice only as secluded, It’s been ten days, and yet, her eyes close.
‘Of course it was for you.’
‘Could y’all wait for the two minutes our taxi is taking?’
As his head lifts up lazily, Reina takes the chance to escape to his periphery, reaching for her offered suitcase as his fingers bury between hers around the handle. He tilts a smile that can't be entirely too exaggerated when his arm fits back snugly, smugly around her waist, at her ill-impressed friend, sun-glint off the gold stud by her sepia hijab. They’d graduated from knowing of each other to knowing each other, a grade which apparently only encompasses acknowledgment, dealings confined to liking each other’s comments under her posts or passing comments by the pool table at a sangria-lit party, perihelion protective, orbiting one sun.
A smile brewed a touch too cloying, preening under her breathing tangible to him again, he croons. ‘No point in being jealous when it’s obvious, hmm? Isn’t that right, Reina?’
‘Oh, that’s adorable.’
And this, called over the bruising of wheels as it clangs down the pavement: ‘And delusional.’
‘If I was attracted to-’
‘Your taxi,’ Reina interrupts, shepherding them down a course of loading, piling, stacking their luggage like Jenga blocks, concluded by Text me when you—a prolonged yawn muffled by the back of her hand—reach.
Novice to her sainthood, Xander can tolerate up to this, before his hand curls around her wrist, routing her to his car, ignoring the acetic Bye to your boyfriend too, Reina. He could feel the exasperation rolling from her and her side; what did he care?
Sinking into the passenger seat, shaded folded on her lap, her head lulls against the window for a moment. Eyelids fluttering for sleep, sunflare of pale-pink under her chin, before the expectancy of his gaze, like a cat scratching your brand-new furniture with maintained eye contact, hands nowhere near the steering wheel, peels them open.
A stare through narrowed eyes, it’s returned with a quirked brow.
‘I’m sure being bald is chic somewhere-’
A sound exhale rips out of her as she tugs the hood down, hand hesitating, and then shaking her hair out. Her… very curly hair.
‘Woah.’
Xander leans forward, finger trailing the winding of white, down the hairpin bends, before finding way somewhere below her ribs. His hands elude their reverie and retreat for her face, when she shoves it off, poking his bicep.
‘Go.’
When blinking sweetly pours none of it into her glare (he gets a kick to the foot this time), he obeys.
The smooth purr of the engine underscores the silence Reina dealt, which is all perfectly useless when he can’t stop staring. He’s not stealing glances really, it’s a lockup and a life sentence. Her arms sliding around his back as he’s scowling at his laptop, he knows her hair falling over his shoulders straight, the barest waves in them. It’s doll-like, this: helices of white, frizz cutting sunlight on fire, usually half-drawn eyes alight and expressive through the jetlag, flitting around in caged indignation, mildly downturned lips. The realization that she’s sulking comes with paltry sympathy, and disproportionately smug giddiness.
‘I’m not upset enough for you to send us up early.’
‘Up? You have high hopes for me, don't you?’
When what would garner a look if not a sound earns neither, he covers for her, an ambiguous little noise of no attempt to cloud his amusement with commiseration. Obeying, yes, he trains his eyes on the road as his hand feels for her head, petting the side like a cat. Naturally, she jerks away, surpassing her scowl.
‘Oh, don’t sulk, Reina. You can’t be too scary when you look like a drenched cat.’
‘I’m not sulking,’ she replies, as dignified as one could hope while sinking lower into the seat, arms cross with the other. ‘I’m rightfully worried.’
‘About what, exactly?’
‘My sleep.’
It’s not often their roles are reversed, more than ten words from Reina at once, much less a rant, telling him how they’d been buoyed to an idol salon on one of her friends’ excitement, where one glance at her hair and a dozen reassurances of it natural and unbleached very quickly descended into begging to play in it. Cajoling perfect, conviction vague, results a hmm, but then the longer and more enthusiastic the stylist’s product recommendations went on, the more hands had joined in patting her back sympathetically, with the final straw being the next morning, when passing by her friend on the way to the restroom, just awake, only to hear Alhamdulillah with emphasis. She’d thrown the toothbrush at them.
He’s laughing, he’s agreeing, disagreeing, telling her it’s hot if she wants it, cute if not. There’s this lull then, like in the songs, love, not-unlove, quiet, scratchy: her head coming to rest against the window, vision blurring the landscape. Sensing movement, her head swivels just as the shutter goes off, entering eternity with her edges blurred, chin resting on a bed of pink, the startled eyes. Despite her grimacing and very reasonable point out to how surely he has better loot than her wearing half a day of jetlag, it serves as his lockscreen until the curls wither.
iii. hydrangea
She’s unreal in the night, when all the light is hers.
It’s her lamp puppeteering shadows on his ceiling, and her Kindle whining for the rule of her eyes, tipped and tilted to the pinprinks of life offered by the wheal in his dark curtains, metal glinting glasses. They don’t sway to movement when he emerges out of the shower, but climbing into bed, thigh to thigh, heat to heat, her fingers grant to his mouth, lower, rasping his chin.
She’s still unreal in his bed, legs a Z under the comforter, reading with her fist curled under her cheek, glowing blue against the sheets. Months had putrefied for him to be caught real, pages stiffening in his hands as he played casual on her couch, to which Reina, without glancing up from stacking her cupboards, told him A gun couldn’t do more than that paperback. Thankful to indulge her, it slips shut silent between his fingers. Who knows? Maybe in another life you have one to my head. An unerring brow raised. I don’t roll that way.
He’s playing these days, dust blown off for memory-possessed notes in the air, an old and sure melody, a new and tremulous start. He'll play for her if she wants. She could pilfer that throw off his couch, she could read, she could lean against his knee.
His arm relaxes around her waist, squeezing tight before releasing, glancing at the screen. The words ice and tea and burning leap for his canis-quick eyes as his chin nuzzles into her hair, inhaling. When her eyes lapse to the screen, they refuse her even after repose, blinking painfully, tears piking on white-lined lashes.
His hands stalk hers, raising goosebumps on her arms, and coup, signing off possession altogether. ‘You haven’t heard what they say about my voice yet, have you, Reina?’
Forgoing feuding to slip off her glasses, she responds with her eyes shut. ‘I don’t think anyone has.’
‘Oh, you will.’ There’s a shift in axis as Xander falls back to his side, trailed like water. ‘And you’re welcome, by the way.’
His fingers make quick work of switching out the high contrast, massive font to his preference, white and small, smaller. Reina winces at the sudden flash-flare of light, forehead bowing to his skin, which allies with his hand weaving into the back of her head to burrow her closer, nose tucked into his sternum.
Clearing his throat, he dons on airs, or more so than usual. ‘-finally, the tea towel meets her skin, she lets out a little gasp, a jolt of cold goes through her. Right here in bed with me? You’re hard to satisfy…’
Deemed unworthy of a response besides the whisper of the sheets as her shoulders shift, he continues, affectation of intonation. ‘I want so badly to take a raw ice cube to her back and watch it melt against the heat of her. Oh, we have that in common.’ Hating his own shirt, a hammock down the dip of her back as he trails the back of his fingers over it. Her hand smacks lightly against his bare stomach, before curling into it after completion, buoyed by his breathing.
‘How terrible it must be, to feel my dreadful eyes crawling across her skin.’ His own—Reina’s—close, her lashes tickling his ribs as they flutter shut. ‘The light of the freezer brings soft yellow to her face, and she half turns over her shoulder, suddenly seeming very shy, and says the slow and warm words, ‘Thanks, Lucy.’ Oh, there’s two of them. I should do the voices, huh? Live up to your undoubtedly high expectations.’
He swipes a slow, syrupy tone. ‘Some parts of her I keep in my memory, others in my heart.’ Halting for effort, he continues, higher. ‘This, I keep in my blood. I could-’
Reina lifts herself off his chest and wrenches the Kindle out of his hand. Laughing as she leans over him, sliding it onto the nightstand and dismissing the lamp for these antelucan hours, his empty hands slide over her elbows as she twists away to her side. Teeth enamelled sweet, he tries, ‘Come on, angel, once more. You know how good I can be when you want it like that.’
He wants her regaled, doesn't clock her tone until her face cuts a crescent in the dark comforter, and the prize for a poke is a curt go to sleep. They play this different, his arm over her stomach, her thigh over his, until the eventual card-sharp is always the sweat sneaking between their sleep, turning them against each other, unsticking. Her elbow pulled back his rail, he vaults it simply by leaning over her, trailing her hair, earning nothing but a sharper I’m tired, silencing him for sleep.
He’s decidedly not laughing when she rushes off in the morning, gaze too hurried (or what?) to rest against his, her coworker to his for her. Morning sweeps the routine victims of his mood, evening chimes a bell in his ear, fanning green cool over sour, sore cinders. From there, it’s the habitual bend around her corner, a break when she narrowly avoids plowing into him, her cane traipsing between his feet.
Instinct from his hands curl around her shoulders, steadying her and crushing the blue, pale voyeurs, darker than her citrus moods, against her opal hair, head-to-head with the fading dusk.
His brow quirks as if finding someone outside their own house is worth the question. ‘What are you doing?’
Answering through touch, her hands graze his own, floating The Cathedral down between them, a warmer amphora for the spray bursting blue. Held with the delicacy and tenderness the flowers would demand, stroking the veins with a hesitant and hesitating and thinking touch, her head is bowed to this altar and her quiet words for the worship carving it.
‘It was a long day at work yesterday. And then I saw something before I could come home.’
If surprise is an indication for the ease of his response, or the nature of it, he misses, shrugging unconcerned. ‘Nah, I’ve seen it enough. Lesson learned: don't poke the bear with her nose in her precious books.’
Caught between blinking and frowning in confusion, she scoops up both, tilting a face at him, before shaking her head in distracted dismissal. ‘You're unbearable on a good day.’
He tilts his head left, eyes narrowing in wonder. ‘You know, I don't think you've ever apologised to anyone.’
‘If I knew my mood, I should’ve said no. But…’
Cradling his hands in hers, her hands of jade, water-faded cord clinging against reclaiming by time and resting low down her wrist, peek from under his, rougher, calloused. He wonders if she knows she’s tracing her fingers over his knuckles, unconsciously soothing the flaking skin.
Irritated more by her absence than anything she could infuse with her presence, formic sting or the nectar he'd have to suckle out, now she’s corroding his lacquer, messing the way and rhythm to his words, melting him for wild honey. Nothing had been roiling in the first place, but now. Now.
‘Enough,’ he drawls, grimacing in earnest theatrics. ‘What were you getting away with, apologising with a face like that?’ Leaning in close enough to catch the flit of her lashes as her eyes lift to his, his fingers reach out, petting her hair sweetly, saccharine. ‘So much left to learn, my naive, sweet Reina.’
Glancing off is zero-to-one for her striking resemblance to a miserable cat, bearing and bearing resisting the urge to smack him, on account of their usual play on forgiveness inversed. Shedding off the scale of his satisfaction, she reroutes, tilting her head and asking only as slowly. ‘As opposed to?’
Brow cocked, he looks at her expectantly.
‘...Ayana did most of the heavy-lifting, didn’t she?’
He scoffs, loud. In the literal sense of the word better, there are about zero situations where his presence did just that, his own mother hasn't believed him out of the womb, entirely true, but besides all that.
Seeming to have shortcut to the same conclusion, she veers off path entirely. ‘Remember last month when I had the stomach flu and couldn’t go to Abena‘s exhibit? They found a bar nearby.’
Having seen her coiled into the sheets in weakness, he’s more than pleased to squander his evening to a missed moment. ‘I’m listening.’
Name delivered, his eyes narrow at the scroll, intoning slowly. ‘A karaoke bar.’
‘No videos.’
‘You can’t lie for shit, sweetheart, so don’t try it.’
‘One video,’ she amends. ‘And one person.’ At his flat glance, it morphs. ‘Or two.’ And scoffing, silent still: ‘Maybe five. E-’
His arm shoots out too quick for registration, inciting a startled breath of a gasp as he draws her shoulders into him, boots in disarray to keep up, dusk burning out old stars behind them.
iv. orchid
The text in itself isn’t concerning, ominous that it always sounds.
Now that you're sat— we can finally have the pleasure of welcoming you to this February's Creator of the Month! And this month, it's someone whose work has definitely not gone by unnoticed, a sister in rambling and wonderful creator...
Give a big congratulations to @amilfdala ! Congratulations to you for being selected as creator of the month 🥳
Below the cut you will find an interview with our winner. 🖤
Ⅰ. INTRODUCE YOURSELF
— hello! im hope, 23, a barely functioning adult. i’m currently studying law after completing my english literature degree and i question my decisions everyday. also, i’m a south asian lesbian, very into (the concept of, at this point ) writing and reading books but barely does both. scraping by on hopes and dreams but hey, we’re making it somehow!
ⅠⅠ. WHEN AND HOW DID YOU FIRST DISCOVER ROMANCE CLUB?
— found out about rc through a tumblr post actually. after choices and storyscape (rip) i wanted to enjoy more of this type of visual novel games, and hence commenced a hunt that ended at the shores of rc. it was a theodora tumblr post that i saw, so of course, it was the book that i started with. and sometimes, when i think back on it, i’m suddenly matthew mcconaughey’s character from interstellar — desperately banging on the bookshelf to prevent his own departure. because lord tell me why, out of all the books, i decided to start on the one so melancholic and mournful, the tremors of it still leaves a fresh aftertaste? but don’t be fooled, cause despite my theatrics, i loved it dearly, and theodora ended up becoming a huge reason why i stuck with this app.
Ⅲ. HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN CREATING?
— to put a number on it, i’d say since i was 13, so almost a decade now phew! although my creative output has been on the slower side these days, the passion burns bright nonetheless. my main hobby is writing fics, but i also edit and create gifs (the latter for which i run a different blog), and i have done enough tinkering with photoshop to know my way around. so every fandom i’ve been in has seen fics and gifs from me at the very least, and so has rc, especially on tumblr. as to what first sparked my passion, it was an impulse to create and contribute. especially when you were nurtured by artistic creations in fandom spaces that you were part of in your early teen years. and that art, so lovingly made, given to us unrestricted, fully accessible, inspired me to create my own pieces and give it out to the world, so it could resonate with the many that seek it.
Ⅳ. DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR FIRST EVER CREATION?
— i feel like i should dig a hole in the ground before i answer this. yes, i do remember my first ever creation. it was a fanfic for a boyband proudly posted on wattpad. no longer published, but i still have it with me—a souvenir tucked away. it was brought to life by daydreaming in class, which is a habit that unfortunately still sticks to me, and all the scenarios born at the expense of my lack of attention in class bore fruit in the name of my fics. i remember concocting it, still so new to the idea of fanfiction, and being so giddy to type up scenes. i was essentially a rookie back then, dangling at the precipice of a gaping hole, not knowing she’s about to tumble down into a creative hellhole for a lifetime.
— speaking about rc, my first ever creation for the fandom was the cainlane fic titled perdition. it came to life through an art i saw on twitter, which inspired me and a whole new fic was born from it. it was supposed to be a one shot, but as i started writing, i realised i couldn’t stop, and my treacherous self, as always, expanded it to a series. i dove head first into catholic themes and imagery to build the foundation for this fic. and to write cain as a young angel training to be a priest, was so out of my usual range that my head constantly buzzed. but it was a heady rush i was grateful to experience regardless.
Ⅴ. DO YOU HAVE ANY RITUALS OR HABITS WHEN YOU CREATE?
— when it comes to a specific software? absolutely, and it is a non-negotiable to me, and has been for the past 6 years. and, do not laugh—and yes im serious about this—it is the wattpad writing interface. all my writings have been done on it—not word, not google doc, but wp.
— other than me and my never heard of before attachment to wp’s writing interface, there are no other specifications that i strictly abide by. honestly i don’t even know what headspace i need to be in to write. i just, do it. its an innate calling at this point, unaffected by outside influences for the most part.
— for making gifs, on the other hand, free time is the main specification (and a functioning photoshop, of course) that i require. gif making is so mechanical to me now i can do it in my sleep—be able to map out what scenes i need, the frame rate, the sharpening, everything. here, no inspiration is not an obstacle, but no free time and a laggy laptop? now that’s a hurdle.
Ⅵ. IS THERE A PIECE OF ADVICE YOU WOULD GIVE TO YOUR YOUNGER CREATIVE SELF? OR THE READERS?
— that no creation is a waste of time and space, and i cannot emphasize this enough. back then, i used to be so insecure about my writing and editing, that if something did not satisfy my impossible standards, instead of giving it a chance to stand and flourish on its own, i tore it apart and stole its existence from the world. which i believe was so unfair, because every art piece has a place in this world. so give yourself, and your creations, a chance.
Ⅶ. CHOOSE 3-5 OF YOUR FAVOURITE WORKS AND RAMBLE AWAY!
— i haven’t done much, but for the few works that have seen the light of the day, i can only say, well done on existing! and not just as a jumbled mess of thoughts in my head! so yes, let’s get into it.
⭐ perdition, a cainlane fic. as i’ve mentioned before, this fic’s origin is thanks to an art i saw on twitter. to give a quick rundown, the art was of an angel in front of an atm machine trying to withdraw cash from a credit card that was stolen from a dead body that lay next to it; which, very presumably (and contextually understood), was killed by that very being. it stood out to me, and immediately an idea formed in my head, and so perdition exists. i took what made me love s1 lane, that reclusive alertness, her almost impervious nature, that marred feeling of being lost, and decided to go on a spin with it here, dumping it all on an inexperienced teenager grappling with life. and young cain, who as we know by now, was brought up by a priest on earth, which is a concept i knew i had to explore at one point. he was an angel, cut out from heaven and crudely cast away, who found refuge in a human priest at a church who brought him up and taught him the passions that helped him hold on. but he was also tied to baal, never truly free, when the very thing he craves is freedom. so when an opportunity arises to cut these ties forever, would he take it? so yup, this is the premise of the fic; of a teenage cainlane, finding love and support in each other when the whole world shuns them. but are they truly who they seem to be with each other?
⭐ rotkov gifset, a birthday gift to a dear friend. to make this, i already had a film in mind that i could use to cut relevant aesthetic clips from. i tend to jot down films i see on my feed that i know would aid in the making of gifsets like this. so every clip from this is taken from the same film, except for the church one. i got that from a random drone shot video on youtube with barely any views. i knew this set would not feel complete without the shot of a church embalmed in snow. and although i got what i needed in the end, the quality of that video was terrible, especially compared to the 1080p clips from the film i was working with. so i was fighting for my life trying to make that clip fit into the rest of the set’s aesthetics, making sure it did not stick out like a sore thumb. and i think i did a fine job haha.
⭐ petrichor, a deanluna fic. once again, a birthday gift for the same dear friend. my creative outputs exist because she encourages it, so thank you to her, as none of these works would exist without her patience and support <33
am i obsessed with high school aus? yes. my ass was carried by this trope back when i extensively read fics, as the ones i dearly loved happened to be the high school/college aus. i knew i developed a taste to it, and every ship of mine ever since has been hit by the hs/college au virus. so of course, i had to honour deanluna with the same, and petrichor was born. thinking about this fic makes me feel all cheesy and fuzzy inside. the main idea for this was the classic ‘accidentally falling asleep on a stranger’s shoulder’ [on the bus!!] trope (who just so happens to be your future partner, of course). with dean’s undeniable charm and luna’s reclusive but bratty nature, a trope like this fit as naturally as the sun shining on a new day’s dawn. honestly, after everything deanluna had to endure in goe, a fic that’s fluffy and radiates comfort, explores the feelings of first love, and thrives on the backdrop of spring hues and summer winds, is exactly what they deserve.
Ⅷ. WHAT ARE YOUR FAVOURITE RC BOOKS? MCS? LIS?
— i’ll try to limit these to 2-3 candidates so i don’t yap and ramble on for more than the permissible amount haha (ik y’all gave me free reign but hey, let me at least try to control myself)
books:
— 1. soulless: this is the book i run to for comfort and relief. i must thank wincy and her pen for allowing me a corner in this app where i can blindly find refuge in, especially after a constant barrage of letdowns inevitable in updates these days. the humour here is peak, the relationships are wonderful, and the mc is on a league of her own—an addictive combination of plus points that trumps other negatives to me.
— 2. the missing: incredibly immersive. love how much of an active participant we are in the shaping of the story and its investigation. the choices and our relationships with the characters do matter! a rare occurrence these days. faye you are doing a fantastic job.
special shoutout to: lse (me being the only person on this planet who unapologetically loves it), arcanum, lotw, and s1 of hsr & an3.
mcs:
— my top two are vyxaria from soulless and selena from arcanum. i have so much love for mcs who remain true to themselves, where their naturally headstrong and forthcoming personality is not shunned to fit a character development arc, because the authors allow them to exist alongside it.
— also special shoutout to luna from goe (comfort mc who hasn’t had a day of comfort in her life), s1 lane and raina, ghita from tm, theodora my og, and mei from lotw.
lis:
— hooooo boy. if i start talking about dean from goe you might have to put me in a psych ward. if you know me, you know i don’t play about him, and i stick him to my heart just as gently as a drop of beam on a blooming bud would. his charm and intelligence, his ability to get things done without ever resorting to violence, his deep understanding and love for mc, how can i stop when his qualities are boundless?
— and then comes ava from soulless who, just like an avalanche, swept me away at the first instance of contact. her journey of self acceptance and love resonated with me so deeply, and not once was her trauma taken lightly. a beautifully done route so far.
— again, special shoutout to, but ones who are no less important to me: kazu from lotw, claire from sbtr, s1 cain & xander from hsr & an3, alba from tm, cat vampire from lse, and the theodora lis—the ones who started it all.
Once again, a big congratulations to our second Creator of the Month of the year!
pairing: dean x luna. — returning home from school, luna is hopelessly lost as she accidentally misses her stop, but help in the form of a charming dean was not in her roster. — tw: nil. — rated: t. — tag: @rc-catalog. — event prompt. 14: wild card. — playlist. — chapter: 1/?. — words: 2.2k. —
jiyoon was restless, face ashfallen and mood pensile like a raindrop dangling perilously on a petal’s rosy edge. she sunk into the seat of the bus with a mournful sigh, counting down minutes to the conclusion of yet another strenuous day. but the journey home was a tumultuous one, ironically mocking her current stature.
her body was chucked back and forth, as if she was a boulder rushing down a steep mountain slope, hitting every nook, never denying itself the pleasure to be petered out.
for hong jiyoon, these were pitiable thoughts, a retreat to places vitiated by her recklessness. and so she excused herself, from its glower and its cobweb of spit poison, and rallied her attention elsewhere. facing the window, her hair battered by the howling wind, its whistles whispering superficial gossips, and the sky, with its tender flakes of puffy clouds and a splatter of orange with shy tones of pink and red, coalesced. she was caressed in its grasp.
of how she had fallen asleep, so fast and so surely, that too in a vehicle flinging half of its passengers around in bouts of hysteric fits, she couldn’t make sense of.
but clearly, she had not resisted its serpentine lull, and a tired mind will always be an easy prey. so, coiling around her guts, pinning her consciousness down, jiyoon slept, breathed even, fingers slackening around her hefty schoolbag. perhaps, if she had even the slightest bit of awareness left in her body, before capitulating, it would have sensed a presence; domineering, captivating. the undeniable dip of the seat beside her, the rustle, the shift, and then, the eventual settle in, would any of it had escaped her notice?
the moment cho yujun had found an open seat, he had merrily plopped down on it; ignoring the sturdiness of the cushion, as well as the metallic backrest that had no business digging into his spine as if it had a personal vendetta against the flawless alignment of his vertebral column.
to evoke a sense of comfort, he had shuffled himself in neatly, and when the seating felt less like a spiked area used to mount heads on, he knew he could resume his previously interrupted activity: reading, and texting his grandmother that he was perfectly intact, and how she would not be needing to file a missing persons case anytime soon.
of course, it didn’t mean he wasn’t keenly aware, or perhaps much too aware, of the person sitting beside him. aware, of how her body jerked quietly with the movement of the bus, back and forth, like a pendulum punctuating every wave of its swing.
aware, of how her hair, long and smooth, tousled by the impish winds, rushed to seek refuge in the curve of her neck. aware, of their matching uniforms, white and dark blue, the contrasting colours of the sky, now concentrated between an unassuming pair. aware, now with a dawning realisation, between the obvious clues and the ones more obscure, that the person beside him was not a complete stranger at all.
and then at a turn, as if to mete out the final symphony of an elaborate orchestra, her head, instead of tapping a gentle rhythm against the half opened window, swivelled, and found in the juncture of his shoulders the abode for the rest of her slumber.
cho yujun had never been more amused in his life. and he wasn’t someone who was short of entertainments.
his shoulders hadn’t budged, not when he had to deftly catch her schoolbag from crashing to the welcoming floor, which weighed like lead stashed atop each other at monumental quantities; if it was even possible to do so in a carrier so small, or when he had resumed reading, fingers thumping through the pages to rest on the correct paragraph, which took more time than he would have liked.
yujun, against his better judgement, had been inadvertently distracted.
an hour passed, a final crescendo. jiyoon was bleary, groggy. she stirred. her eyes slipped open in a daze, and the world swam, disoriented, as if she had been submerged under icy waters, letting its rushing currents rip her away and drown her in a nebulous state.
but like a sweet dream, like honeysuckle drop on her tongue, warmth spread from her cheeks where it laid, and her body relaxed, inhaling an unfamiliar, yet congenial scent.
‘good afternoon, sleeping beauty.’ a silken voice, deeply saturated. ‘your carriage has arrived at its destination.’ a slow chuckle, mocking notes persistent.
‘oh, and by the way, this is the last stop, just in case you had any plans to continue holding me hostage any further.’ he carried on as if the ground beneath her feet wasn’t treacherously collapsing with each uttered word.
within seconds, hong jiyoon had many fragmented realities to digest. she shamelessly slept — and judging by the way he was rolling his arm — a little too arduously, on a random stranger’s shoulder. she involuntarily touched the edges of her lips, checking for, god forbid, at the hint of a drool escaping her mouth, and upon finding it completely dry — and of course, ignoring the lingering warmth of him — she felt a stinging relief.
jiyoon leaned away from him. ‘are you always this eloquent at taking a jab, or does this itch only come spontaneously?’
‘and she bites back!’ yujun hopped up, grinning mischievously, then heads straight for the door, but not before letting all the elderly people out.
and while they left, slowly hobbling away at the steps, he slipped in another remark, a reply to her question, ‘only when the opportunity arises.’ he cheekily shrugged, and with a leap he was out, leaving only jiyoon behind in the now empty bus, a skeletal vessel deprived of its flesh and organs.
one step down, a realisation hits. why would this bus empty out at this stop? did its route abruptly end here? and why would there be a sudden change in the schedule? she could not fathom being so out of it, that even the public transport system, its working as simple as it can get, is leaving her perplexed.
‘jiyoon, your pace could shame a snail, you know?’
there was no second step. her name, moving past his lips so casually as if it’s used to his knowing, unearthed a repressed shock, fraying her nerves and cutting contact with all necessary motions.
jiyoon flinched, her firm footing falling out, a gasp and a curse caught in her throat as she stumbled forward, and the railing she had intended to grasp on flew past her vision in grim mockery.
‘hey, hey, hey!’ she was caught, suspended between the step and the two firm arms holding her in place, at an awkward angle that brought her face to face with her saviour.
he had that sly grin on, a trademark expression, probably patented solely for this freckled, undeniably beautiful face. it suited him, and it irritated her, because whenever it was directed at jiyoon, she always seemed to find herself in unforeseen circumstances, which included balancing on her heels as her entire body leaned out of the bus’ door, propelled up by her shoulders by the cheeky, cunning, fox-like stranger.
‘you almost crushed us both in your haste! not to mention how dramatic of an end this could’ve been,’ he deliberately chuckled.
‘although, i must not jump to conclusions so fast about your tastes, is that not so? don’t worry, i don’t judge’ he continued with a wink, and jiyoon exaggeratedly rolled her eyes, for a moment forgetting what all this ferrying around and thespian spectacles were for.
‘too slow, too fast, why don’t you make up your mind first?’ jiyoon’s flimsy fingers, still shaking from the sudden adrenaline spike, closed around his collar for support. and when she had done so, the trembling question and suspicions in her mind settled, only leaving behind a still water calmness.
the fabric of his shirt was all too familiar; the pattern, the stitching, the unmistakable colours. of course, he knows her name. and of course, in reclusive jiyoon fashion, she didn’t know his. and just so it happens, he had his name plate pinned nowhere near his well maintained shirt, only the tiny pin holes left behind an impression that something crucial was missing.
‘and i’m smart enough to realise that this is where my playful commentaries end.’
jiyoon huffed. she wasn’t really angry, no, only a bit disoriented, and mildly lost, because when her feet found firm ground — thanks to his effortless haul and deposit — she expected a road careening toward a quiet town, buildings splattered around in compact blocks, and fields bursting with bountiful harvest.
but what gathered before her were steep grounds, sprinkles of half-opened shops, a desolate bus station, and the verdant mirage of grass and weeds bedecked in the golden rays of the evening sun, the blaze almost searing her crinkled eyes. she prodded incessantly, she prayed. and yet.
she was utterly and disastrously stranded, in the middle of nowhere, armed only with her stalwart sense, burly bag, and a barely charged smartphone.
somehow, the theatrics didn’t end here, as when you think an avalanche has passed, another is invariably triggered, and all it takes is a stomp, or a discordant howl. a
nd right now, as hong jiyoon’s mind whirred and churned at prolific speeds, steam almost literal in its form as it left her burgeoning thoughts, once again here he comes, the prodigal saviour.
he had disappeared just moments ago, and she had bid farewell too, reluctantly but necessarily, for what was he but a flower in bloom she got to witness in the hour of its beautiful and bountiful wake? but he was here, again, with a cycle in tow now, conjured from thin air, as it had seemed to her in the moment.
yujun laughed at her startled countenance, peach-blossom cheeks sucked in, darting blue-brown eyes betraying a keen interest at his appearance, again.
she was a spectral vision with a brine-flavoured tongue, poised to strike with an ample amount of snark thrown in, a difference so striking it left him wondering whether he had confused her with anyone else from his grade.
but her undeniable resemblance to hong seoyoon from his class, and her knee-jerk reaction to the name jiyoon, was indisputable evidence, despite it being tainted by his initial belief about the girl, gathered from all kinds of wandering sources, and eager whispers.
oftentimes, the same phrases repeated, a cassette on replay: mild-mannered, meek, reclusive.
so she was no less of a surprise to him than he was to her today.
he flicked the bike bell, caught her attention, and asked grandiosely, slyly, ‘is the princess of the fairytales lost in the woods?’
‘and if she is? will you whisk her away?’ jiyoon offered back, half serious, like setting tar, a solidified response, but also half fleeting, like stars that waned in the early morning sky.
‘jiyoon,’ he let go of the farce, and brandished his hand along the newly furbished saddles, and patted it gently, almost proudly. ‘you’ll be comfortable, that i can assure, and wherever it is that you want to be dropped off, i can be of service.’
then his playful tone returned, impossible to repress, as if his personality hinged on his appearance of approachability — even though, she thought to herself, he didn’t spare a second thought to tease her relentlessly.
‘you’re generous. but why? i don’t even know your name.’ it was a reluctant admittance, yet she didn’t falter when it came down to it. it was only fair to stand on levelled grounds, and she did want to know his name, to understand his presence, acknowledge him correctly, maybe seek him in the corners of the school, to solidify his realness.
he smiled, so sincerely that jiyoon was caught off guard for a moment. a hot pulse pumped in her temple as he came closer, brushed a hand to her palm, and shook it, ‘call me what you like, hong jiyoon, but yujun is what i prefer.’
‘you only got to know my name, and you’re already preening to change it? i’m hurt!’ he clutched at his chest, ‘and here’ and then it was his unsuspecting arms, ‘and here too’ but this time, he hovered their clasped fingers, which jiyoon hadn’t realised they never released from the grip of their handshake this whole time, and leisurely hovered it before his face.
he peeked his head out from behind her palm, right when the droopy clouds shed its veil to allow a ray of light to illuminate the girls face, slanting at an angle that highlighted perfectly her every exquisite feature. but the most ardently beautiful, comparable only to the bewitching glow of the sun, was her smile.
she was laughing, at his jokes, at his theatrics, the fledgling of worries that had started to beseech her face loosening and disappearing. the most apt outcome. of course, it couldn’t be otherwise, but what about that slight tremor in his fingers? in the way he took a breathy sigh? was this empathy at her situation, his body a mirror to her reactions, or were these all independent realisations, exclusive to his feelings?
cho yujun let go of her hand, and between bursts of her sweet laughter, he heard a yes.
XANDERAINA + mirror sex for rc-catalog horny autumn
pairing: xander van hayes x reina aune
rating: e
tags: @rc-catalog
song: pearly drops - smokescreen↻
a/n: this came to me in a vision enjoy <3 did not plan to post this today but speaking of crack(ers)ing... happy diwali from your desi diva! (also it's my first time writing smut so feedback is appreciated!) | ao3
The cool glass of the mirror receives her overwarm cheek when her body is caught and cornered. The light is only a dim haze blurring in front of her eyes. He is only the heat behind her, over her, inside her, stroking embers upon infernos.
His mouth, open and insisting at the secret sweat-fanned cove of her neck, skipping delicate kisses over the notches of her spine. His hands, leaving scorch-trails down her hips, his hands, leaving.
Reina arches her back even before her eyes could flit open in a woozy stupor, blindly seeking out that heat, that hardness, his viciousness. She falls back a step, with no intention but to match his body hard for soft, when a hand curves hot around her stomach and reins her back, pulling her up against him and… oh. Her eyes give away again.
Heavy, hot. Stiff where it nudges against her thigh. Her mind, empty as her cunt pulsing helplessly around air, obeys only one impulse—release. She shifts, squirming hard against his thickness, rising to maneuver it against her ass, lower. Xander's laugh is more breath than sound, as he trails a hand down her hip, prying her legs apart.
They're even for a moment; the hiss that punctures the air as his cock slides between her thighs sounding from them both, a low groan hot on her neck, a clutched whimper as it slowly smears her folds open. It's a relief and an ache, then an ache and a relief, intertwining over and over again, total obliteration of any space between their bodies, pressed so close she couldn't even pulse around him, and still not enough.
As though in response, the hand splayed over her thigh uncurls to rise higher, tracing her stomach, gliding over her breast, and smoothly clamps her nipple hard between the web of two fingers as he drops his mouth to her ear, whispering ‘Do something for me, Reina, hmm?’
For someone as volatile as fire tracing smoke in the air, Xander has always kept a firm leash cutting into his control, teeth snapping at your face before being hauled back abruptly. It's another one of his -isms she starves for, despising it as it fascinated her, which serves him perfectly well now, speaking somehow, scheming somehow, making proper fucking sense, when every muscle in her stomach is tense and trembling from hauling back her own quiet whimpers behind her teeth. He's still slowly dragging his length between her folds, back and forth, back and forth, so slick now and yet just shy of her clit. Each movement unhurried, languid, but his fingers are tightening and tightening around her hip.
‘I want you to keep your eyes open.’ His fingers release her nipple, arcing to smoothen down the wild wisps of her hair, curving over the base of her skull, gently gathering loose scattered locks to slip over one shoulder, with the barest graze over the other. Reina almost falls forward when the head of his cock finally, finally bumps against her aching clit like an electric shot. ‘See what I see.’ It closes over the now bare, exposed nape of her neck, gooseflesh exploding beneath his warm palm. ‘My view, all flushed and mindless and des-pe-rate…’
His grip hardens, and Reina watches, just to his wish, as she’s pushed forward, down, slowly, with exactly the pressure she knows, he knows makes her eyes roll back. Until her body is bent to his will, bent in half, face bare inches from the mirror. Blown, dazed eyes meet hers from the mirror, and she quickly looks away, up, searching for his hazy features. The fingers on her neck tighten minutely, before easing, stroking the damp skin just under her ear softly. She can't see well enough to read the meaning in his gaze, not with this low, lazy glow of a light, but the quiet says more, makes her tense. She thinks she catches his mouth curl.
The first nudge of his cock against her slow-oozing entrance doesn't allow seconds for more than a weak, mangled twitch of her thighs, as he presses his advantage almost immediately, sliding in just a little more than the tip. The flesh of her ass is groped roughly, knuckles kneading hard into the pale, untouched skin as her mind is allowed to float back in. The mild burn barely circles the edges of her consciousness before fading into what possessed her every time when they were tugging into each other: the gnawing hunger of greed. Having him like a flame cupped around her hands, anticipating the burn from the first time she'd felt up just how thick he was, his hips jerking into her hand as she trailed a loose fist around his length, very aware of the shape of her mouth, how her tongue sat heavy and useless, locked in its cage.
Closest to keeping him, her cunt still flutters and pulses around where the slide of veins against her walls is absent, half-full meaning half-empty, full not full enough. It pulls at her like a rabid dog, and she arches restlessly, squeezing her eyes shut. Her teeth tear into her bottom lip, clenching down on him in dual frustration. Get closer, I need to chew you up-
She barely catches herself on the wall, palm narrowly missing the gleaming cut-edge of the mirror as he drives deep, splitting her open so thoroughly and fully in one stroke, her eyes and mouth fall open in unison. His forearm pulls taut just under her tits, holding her up hard against him, as his hips don't let up their wanton rhythm.
Xander sounds insufferably pleased when he drawls, ‘Good girl… just like that.’ His other hand untangles from her neck, trails down and gently drags over her folds, the slick mess he had her make, before finding home in the ruthless grip over the curve of her hip for leverage. Almost laughing when he whispers, a sweet, sweet mocking, ‘You wouldn't want me to stop now, would you?’
There's nothing else she can do. She watches, just as he demanded.
Sweat-plastered hair, fine strands glued to her forehead and flushed cheeks. Eyes glazed, mouth drooping open a little lower with every drive of his hips. Her neck glistening with sweat, tits swaying with every motion, just above how torturously close his fingers are to rolling over her hard, aching nipples.
His forearm cutting into her chest, the delicious firmness of his grip embedding into her skin, hypnotized by the contrast between his tan skin split by veins and the paleness of her soft stomach. She could feel the strength of that grip, that careful control slipping, losing, tightening, lower, watching him slam into her.
She doesn't recognize, barely realizes the piteous whining she's doing as her arm trembles on the wall, body protesting to be put to use like this. Knowing one wrong movement would send them crashing with the momentum, and yet giving her such a role to test and torment and play, holding her like he wants to break her, responding to her each of her incoherent keening with unfiltered, sprawling praise.
Reina has never once thought of herself, what she looked or sounded like, deaf to her noise, blinded of all but him, the sounds he let and the sounds that didn't let him up, the odd twitches, the slip of his eyelids, the muttered swearing, the salt of his sweat. Not when she had to pull him apart so painstakingly for all that he hid and played off, taking every chance to peer into his sinews, what made him up to be a splinter under her skin.
Even while being at his mercy, or the deliriously obliterating lack of it, glazed over into a game as it always is with his sly words and rapt eyes, she had him. She had him, even when he had her crying under his mouth, until the only thing that could break through a choked gasp was another. She had him, always, her hands curling around his shoulders, forcing him down, away, into her, moaning low into her mouth when she wanted. It's her first time being this out of control, held upright by a single arm, the mind she usually cut loose shoved back inside, at the center of a riot with a hand locked around her jaw. Like asphyxiation, the snatch of losing your breath, panic hushed until it was only psychedelia, lights glowing in the corners of your vision.
It's a stomach-dropping reminder quite literally staring her in the face that this is how debauched she looks, has looked every single time. Her hair and her eyes and her mouth… Jesus. Something hot curdles in her stomach, horrible awareness of her entire body on fire, prickling, her rapid, shallow heaving, uncomfortable, in a way currently drenching her thighs.
Even now, habitually, she’s tuning out the sound of skin slapping together to only hear his quiet groaning, amplified until it resounds in her head, her stomach clenching hard. Clinging to the ruthless muscle of his forearm refusing any give, shakily tracing out the veins to ground herself to some semblance of reality that isn't the slow drag of his length against her clinging walls, as he slams into her, frustrated and helpless at being unable to touch him as she wants, maul him as she likes.
Reina's head drops flat into the cradle of her bent elbow as he bottoms out, holding a second, emptying her, and then filling her again. Her teeth scrape at her own skin, desperate for some anchor, before a breathy command sounds in the air. ‘Eyes up, Reina.’
She barely lifts her head off her elbow, just tilts her head, cheek still plastered against her forearm, to blindly seek out his gaze.
His cock throbs heavily inside her, and a woozy shiver skates down her spine at the sudden realization that he's not watching the mirror, he's watching her.
Xander laughs as he slows, echoing that infuriating, agonizing pace, and though it's not cruel, it's almost mean. ‘Thought you were so neat and perfect and composed like this, huh?’ His fingers twitch on her breast, and she can tell if it had the freedom it'd already be winding around her hair like rope, tugging her head back until his lips could latch onto her throat.
Sounding too pleased, a breathy laugh as he shifts, cock pressing deeper, slower, holding her there by her hip, with no escape, no space between them. ‘Oh, you're a mess, Reina,’ he practically purrs. ‘And you make a mess on me every time, my perfect, cold doll. But keep fooling yourself, it's cute.’ She could feel his smile like he'd pressed it against her spine, and jolts when he actually does, lips brushing her shoulder blade. ‘Harder, Reina?’ The back of his fingers trail the line of her back almost reverently, her hands flexing with the need to touch him (she wants to, she knows, knows what he looks like, sweat slicking his stomach, her tongue on the hard ridges of his abdomen, lower, the furrow to his brow when he thrusts, she knows, knows) as he leans over her, stomach barely grazing her arched back, to drop a whisper into her ear. ‘You whine so much anyway.’
Her shoulders rise unconsciously. She has the urge to pull away, press closer. But most of all, surprising even herself, the desire to be his limp doll. She wants him to keep talking, have him be filthy and mean and kiss it sweet-venomous later. The hard clench around his length gives her no escape either way.
Feeling his teeth gentle on her skin as he smiles, his response is breathed onto damp skin. ‘Now what did I say? You liked that.’ A laugh both tender and mocking, he whispers faux-sympathetically, ‘Oh, Reina..’
Clearly holding no intention of moving until she hissed out a response, with some newfound patience that only reared its head when it came to pissing her off, Xander lazily scrapes his teeth over her shoulder, waiting. Being honest is obviously never an option, but it's incredibly difficult to think beyond reaching back for leverage and fucking herself stupid on his cock. With no idea of what would come out, she begins unsteadily. ‘Xander.’ His name is more a breathy pant than the bite she intended. ‘I’d-’
Her mouth falls open in a loud, ragged moan as he casually thrusts up hard midway through her words. Everything falls away, his hand at her back, his mouth on her shoulder, as they rekindle her arch, his angle. His forearm tightens around her, and God, she hopes it kisses marks, carves his veins into her skin, bruises her, leaves her whole chest red. His hand curls higher to her breast, and squeezes the flesh between his fingers, with a laughing, mock-surprised ‘What was that, sweetheart?’
The brutal pace set by his hips allows her no answer, not that she could scramble one together if she tried, and especially not with him angling his hips, hitting a spot that makes her keen.
A low, rough noise scratches at her hazy attention, and she might've even noticed how his voice sounded as though it'd been dragged through gravel if she had the capacity for it, when he rasps, ‘Drooling all over me…’
For a second, she assumes he's prodding at how embarrassingly wet she is, and a low laugh resounds as though he heard her. ‘Yeah, that too- ah… nnh, always loud enough to hear over even your pretty noises.’ The arm coiled like a snake around her loosens with every word. ‘But here, since you- seem to be having trouble thinking…’ Rises, comes up to brush just below her mouth, her chin, gathering saliva she hadn't realized was there.
If she played half as obnoxious as him, she might've said something to the likes of ‘You're right, you know.’ Because she isn't thinking, when she licks up his palm wildly and sucks his fingers into her mouth, suckling hard at the digits, her own aftertaste in her mouth, needing his knuckles to give into the soft, hot cage of her mouth, teeth petulant and flashing. Like being smothered to death.
Dimly, she thinks she hears him groan.
Lost in memorizing the ridges of his fingers with her tongue, cheeks hollowing as they tried to draw out (what?), they don't give an inch when Xander attempts tugging them free. He knocks his knuckles hard against the inside of her teeth, granting them reluctant release with a disgruntled huff. A reward cashed in right away, as his wet, spit-gagged fingers reach down to stroke her clit.
Her hips jerk sharply, his reward being a long, drawn moan, her neck arching back, desperate to see him. His fingers glide too easily over the hard, swollen bud, as her fingers grasp for the wall with every rough swipe. It's good, it's delicious, it's even almost painful after such a long deprivation, but not what she needs right now.
Her free hand, once trailing the veins of his arm as it held her captive, now squeezes her breast roughly, skims down her stomach, and crawls back to him, sliding over the bones of his wrist to cover his hand over her mound, flicking off his erratic circles and replacing them with the rhythm loyal to her for years now.
His hand drifts back to her hip obediently, fingertips digging in for a harder slam, rambling praise over her hitched moans, ‘Get yourself off, baby, yeah, just like that, my pretty girl, doll, you feel so good around me, you're divine’ as her trembling fingers met out an exacting rhythm.
Xander, awful and infuriating and silky and sly as ever, needling out such an out of body, expansive response out of her. Maybe it's from being forced into watching what he has out of her every time. Maybe it’s the sheer intensity of his presence, filling her up, dragging her under. Maybe it's simple physics and angles. Or maybe it's something about being picked apart so thoroughly, spat on, chewed up and swallowed so carefully, so exquisitely. Knowing where to hit while having her under his hands. Knows her. Has her. A reminder of both.
The pleasure is a much more intense swimming out than usual, cresting higher than her core. She can't think besides you’re so good, you feel so good, I hate you. From his rushed, incessant prattling, she could tell he's close too. And she wants her name in his mouth when he comes. Twice as much, all the time, his tongue curling around the two syllables. She wants her name with a litany of ‘my, my, my’ preceding them. She wants her name moaned out, with his hips stuttering behind her, punctuating those viperous caresses with low, spilling groans.
Her stomach tenses, her eyes give her reflection up, and before he could smack her ass harshly, she wrenches her hand from the wall to muffle a loud cry, a strangled sob escaping through the teeth clenched around the back of her hand, little hitched whimpers racking her frame. So much more high and pitched than usual, a string cut in the low-lit room.
Her point of existence narrows to nothing but her still-pulsing entrance, walls fluttering weakly as a warm body shudders behind her, the nape of her neck bit and moaned into. Awareness dissolves into her body like a drop of juice spreading slow over white. The animal panting snatching at her ribs, the trembling limbs. Still stretched out around him. Beyond that, she decides, it could fucking work itself out.
Distantly, Reina feels herself being pulled up almost weightlessly. A sharp pitched, almost pained cry leaves her throat as his cock grazes that spot again when he slides out carefully, warmth leaking slow down her inner thigh, only dimly aware of being hushed and murmured to.
She allows her eyelids to slip when an arm comes up around her lower back, made to lean against, feeling the damp strands of hair stuck to her sweat-slicked chest brushed back behind her shoulders, freeing them up for long, soothing strokes of his palm. A kiss brushed to the cleft between her breasts as the violent shaking of her legs quiet, the aftershocks tame.
When her eyes find the strength to flutter open woozily, it's to dark eyes watching her come to. His hand, warm where it holds her steady on her knee, and then warm, warmer, hotter still as it trails up her inner thigh, gathering their slick, smearing it over the junction between her thigh, up her hipbone.
His next words are less spoken, more breathed onto her lips: ‘Tired already?’
✧
The misty grey morning blurs through the open window, a cool breeze tittering through her hair, lifting the locks over her shoulder to send them flying across her cheek. Reina tucks the errant strands behind her ear absently, watching the world gone muted even as a soaring wind smacks the ends of it across her face, gone as quickly as it visited, leaving behind a prickling chill. The only warmth in the whole car lures from its berth on her knee, a hand radiating heat to her whole thigh, but she ignores its call.
Paying no mind to the presence beside her, she refuses to betray the bleak landscape of her view, eyes blurring desolate, only to jolt when the hand on her knee glides inward, squeezing, as his fingers press unerringly upon a bruise. She looks over reflexively, to be met with a tilted smirk.
‘So quiet…’ He trails off, the now very fucking implied.
The nape of her neck heating rapidly, she mutters, ‘Why aren't you?’
It's an absolutely pathetic jab from her side, and his laugh floats through the air as he turns back to the road, fingers easing up with satisfaction.
Reina risks another throw, and watches him a moment. The loose hand on the steering wheel, elbow resting on the window frame, fingers absentmindedly stroking bare skin under her skirt. From the unforgiving cut of his jaw, to his ruthlessly damning soft lips, always her favorite worst choice.
istg still pmo that Lane is supposed to be like Lain from SEL anime. Lane feels soooo juvenile lmao. And the plot twist??? Girlllllll.......def not worth waiting for 3 seasons.
juvenile doesn’t cut it.
sel lain’s complicated and convoluted journey is hard to replicate. her struggle to retain and ascertain the nature of her existence is done beautifully but ambiguously, most of it is left to us watchers to understand and discern so it may not be everyone’s cup of tea, and also why i think basing a character off of her is a risky move if you yourself is not sure of your character’s direction in the plot; because for sel, lain IS the plot and the intricacies of her identity the main driving factor of the story.
hsr lane just exists. the plot drives itself and she just tags along like she is not the central and important part of the story. replace her with a cardboard piece and what difference does it make?
the fact that both lane and lain’s story begins at a place called siberia is so funny cause the dissonance in the development of their story is so glaringly stark its like comparing austen to hoover.
and also the fact that we already knew hsr’s entire plot by mid s1 is so funny i still do not, in capacity, understand why rc thought that this plot could be extended to 3 seasons.
but it still did hit no. 1 in the app so i guess i can’t blame them. everyone loves their little slops.
XANDERAINA + oversleeping for work with your partner
pairing: xander van hayes x reina aune (oc)
rating: m
a/n: reina, like one of the canon raina sprites, has albinism. but aside from her appearance, no other aspect of oculocutaneous (skin + eyes) albinism is acknowledged in raina. i myself only found out about the poor visual acuity that can't be corrected, photophobia, nystagmus and other eye-related conditions after accidentally falling down a rabbit hole from my yt rec'd. features barely acknowledged in other rc characters with albinism like amen, or misinformed as in somnus (haven't played hot so i can't speak for vanora). can't expect shit from remy, but pwa having red eyes is a myth (it's caused due to lighting conditions; they usually range from grey to bluish to even violet-hued). both lack of research & picking and choosing which aspects of a disability to 'use' for its perceived aesthetics and discarding all else to not consider and portray is a disappointing side to take. i've researched, talked to pwa, and considered to the best of my ability what differences daily life would involve for them. there's not much to see in this fic as it's from his pov but with reference to all future fics, if anything is still inaccurate or insensitive or could be done better, lmk <3
tags: @rc-catalog
🎧 ethel cain - tongue | ao3
The whole room is held in the sway of the sun when he wakes.
Every cornered tile of the floor lured, walls glazed in guileless light, a hand smoothening the dark, crumpled comforter to coffee-brown. Melting honey under his eyelids.
A low, unintelligible sound escapes his mouth as his eyelids fight the urge to fall back into what was possibly the best sleep of his life, before he wrenches them open with sullen reluctance. His mind is blissfully, bafflingly vacant for a few empty seconds, dust motes raining slow under his sleep-heavy gaze, before memory slams headfirst into him, collapsing all misplaced peace. He's scoffing slightly, even before his mouth curls into an entirely too pleased grin, even as his bare arm rises off his stomach to snuff it out.
They'd stayed up late enough to only huddle under the covers—her scoffing with full pretension as he pulled her into him, tangling their legs, trapping their bodies—when the first blots of muted blue threatened the inky dark. He'd fallen asleep watching dawn-blue climb over the pale light of her hair, listening until she was humming in response to his words that were more breath than meaning. Roused only once, out of all the usual restless chops in his sleep, when she was still close enough to count every murmur of her eyelashes, cheek smushed against his bicep. Pink blushing on her cheeks, gold fanning over his arm. She must've shuffled away in sleep to curl up at the very edge of the bed, nose burrowed into the comforter she'd pilfered overnight, all but for one measly calf of his it stayed loyal to.
Propping himself up on his forearm, Xander twists his torso, leaning over the sleeping figure. His fingers trail the curving strands of dove-white splitting up the face of one Reina Aune, following it down the shadowy hollow of her neck.
He watches the bare hints of her face the puffy comforter gives up, five years falling away in this proximity. Long, thin, snowy lashes curling up, a straight nose offset by a bump, the origin of which he'd have to needle out of her, a tiny scar almost perfectly cradled by her Cupid's bow. He toys with the idea of poking her until that serious, sea-eyed gaze would settle to scowl at him, but opts on getting his own head back into his body before attempting anything else. Rolling off the bed in one smooth motion, steps soundless as he picked off his side of evidence of last night from the floor, he heads for the shower.
It's a testament to how thoroughly last night (or she. Mostly she) had knocked every last thought and responsibility out of his head, had damn near literally knocked both of them out against the doorframe in her rush to get him into his bedroom, totalled everything really, besides that moment and the ravine to her next heady gasp, that it takes the odd sight of sun-drenched tiles under his feet, so wholly different from the harsh overhead lighting that greeted him for his everyday early morning training, to quietly hint at the fact that morning might be a little bit of a stretch now, and naturally what follows is that he's inexcusably late for work.
Well.
Whatever. Probably for the best, considering what greeted him in the mirror.
The hair that he'd never had any particular trouble with, demanding nothing more than a casual rake through to be deemed presentable enough, now pointed in ten different directions, pulled apart by her willful hands, shoving him down to exactly where she needed him, wrenching so hard the sting radiated for a few mindless seconds. His eyes are shining, mouth swollen, a slash of deep red over his bottom lip, from where she'd bite down, again and again for every time he refused to move through the night. His body is kissed by red and violet, violent, teeth marks next to his navel shooting a dizzy aftershock.
He could still smell her on his fingers as he raised the toothbrush to his mouth.
She'd backed him against the door the second the deadbolt slid home, mouth seeking his, metal digging into his hip. Prepared, maybe, for retaliation, but not for the sheer force of it, the insistence of his body coming down on her, sending her staggering back into a distortion of a dance they'd once shared, his feet between hers, orchestra of siphoned breaths, his shadowed walls the mutely sighing audience. Waiting, wanting for her to trip up and lose, so that he could pull her up and into him. She never did. He'd expected as much.
Paying no mind to the frenzied frustration with which she'd been trying to yank his shirt off, and equally unbothered by the buttons of her top dancing off his hand as he snapped it open, the haze blew over softly when his shin hit the edge of his bed. He pulled away abruptly, a dull ache resounding.
Reina blinked, dazed, rising above water, eyes shaking rapidly when they catch onto his. Standing there in a faded black bra and washed jeans low on her hips, standing close enough to get drunk off his body heat alone, without his hands touching and teasing and taking… Her eyes narrowed sharply. Xander's smirk widened.
Palm flat against his bare chest, she shoved him back experimentally, brow creasing when he fell back onto the bed readily, catching himself on his hands. A frown that didn't cease when his ankles bent behind hers, nudging her forward between the cage of his legs. His hands banded around her hips, greedy and helpless, transfixed by the sight of his fingers too hot even to himself, stark against her bare stomach. He heard himself whisper in a low, luring tone. ‘So? What now?’
Eyes drawn to the faint mole beside her navel his fingertips were just barely grazing, he continued talking. ‘Mm, Reina, don't tell me you were too overcome to plan ahead…’
He tilted his head up, forcing her burning, warring gaze down on him, catching the forceful swallow of her throat, as his fingers dipped under the waistband of her jeans, pulling back and snapping the thin material of her underwear against her skin, savouring her minute jolt.
He couldn't help the ease of his smile. To know him well enough to sense any illusion of acquiescence was only burying her deeper, but still helpless to how. And isn't that why she was still here?
‘-never not taking it, or else you wouldn't have ended up here in the first pla- ah!’
His low laugh was cut short by his own hiss as she climbed onto his lap, neither aiding nor easing the mounting pressure tugging low at his abdomen. Only for his body to go limp in relief, leash knotted around those cool fingers roving over his shoulders. He liked her solidness, the feral tenacity with which she sought her weight against him, the heedless spill of her breasts out of that low bra, to grope and to bruise. He liked how she touched him like she already owned him, sliding her palms down his chest with that same immovable will he’s been chafing at for years now, with no hesitation, as if she'd mapped out the contours of his body in her mind so many times all that was left was for her hands to follow.
But oh, then she'd pause. Look up through her lashes, meet his eyes, watch his reaction. Only for him to level a slow, half-lidded smirk at her, through the blood rush thundering in his ear, making a languid, magnanimous gesture. ‘Don't hold back on my account. Go on, sweetheart. I know you can touch me harder than that.’
Her hips had rolled harshly, punishingly against him for that, whether in response or reward, his groan that shot up couldn't say. As her hand slid up his neck, palm clamping so tight over his mouth, it tugged his head back with the sheer pressure of her hold, she muffled her own whimper by sucking a mean mark into the base of his throat. He'd bit the fingers held over his mouth because he could.
Tongue hot as it trailed higher up his neck, Reina shook free of the hard grip he'd been clenching into her hair, and leaned forward her entire body weight over him, forcing him back down, flat.
Xander had taken the chance to shift his knee between her legs, watching for the flush lining her cheeks, sweat blooming at her temples as her hips rocked slowly against him, biting harshly at her lip to keep quiet. When her panting broke words, she fell forward, her hands curving around his jaw only almost tenderly, pale hair veiling them and blurring the edges of light so all that he saw and knew was Reina, Reina, Reina. Her nail caught the edge of his scar, winding over his eye and cheek, tracing, trailing, decidedly possessive. Marking the last moment either of them had their senses about them.
Hovering above him with half-lidded eyes and kiss-bruised lips, Reina gazed at him a moment with a curiously inscrutable expression. And then leaned down, tilting his head, forcing his jaw open, to spit clean onto his tongue. He'd lost the last of his coherent thoughts after that.
It was impulse after impulse then, Xander muses, as he fiddles with the shower knobs. All the images he'd hoarded over five years, strung together to light a hazy appetite. The strip of bare skin peeking from under her blouse, from how low she (and he, while the honesty lasts) liked her jeans on her hips, rising to hint at how soft her stomach would be, how easy to put his teeth to. Sunlight rousing through his office window to clasp her thighs, long legs crossed loosely, ankles tapping restlessly. She'd had to hold back her gaze at the gala, when the chandeliers were glaring at each other like a prism nightmare, which served a double purpose from watching the line of her neck, the silver-lit trail down her cleavage, to feeling her skin heat helplessly as he'd pushed for closer, more.
The real thing which unfurled on his tongue so much sweeter, with so much more savour: the skin of her inner thigh so sensitive, his fingers trailing up had made her jerk so sharply, he'd had to hold them open with a bruising grip to angle his mouth, thigh trembling and jerking violently in his grasp. The muscles of her stomach tensing, contracting, breathing for his barest touch. The vivid, wet flush over her chest, rising up her neck, ear, higher, higher. Taking him so well, eyes glazed and eyelids slipping, lips swollen and mouth slack, neck arching back into the pillow. Such a welcome change from her usual tense features.
His hand around her jaw, thumb cutting into her incisor, his fingers slick with spit as the other dug into her hip, chasing a clutched gasp for every hard drive of his hips. Feeling her leg kick out. Savoring every time he got her so good a loud, startled moan loosed free. Discovering what made Reina tick went to his head in a way nothing else but she did. He could barely remember what he'd been babbling into her ear, stoppered by a groan or a grunt he couldn't rein in, only that he couldn't stop, control abandoning him so terrifyingly, dizzyingly, deliciously.
Xander hisses when the hot stream of water unfurls from the showerhead and rushes down to meet his back. The deep scratches she'd raked in last night radiate a pleasurable sting, as he closes his eyes and leans forward to rest his forehead against the wall.
She'd been clawing at his back, features folded into an expression he'd never seen before but now served as a great incentive—teeth clutching at her lower lip to hold back a frustrated growl, eyes so sweetly sulky and threatening every time they met his, as if still holding out hope they could sway him to her will.
Ignoring his own gnawing need to just fucking move, Xander had paced himself agonizingly slow, leaning over her with his sweat-raked hair falling into his eyes, shallow thrusts that served no purpose beyond torment for either of them, only to follow it up with a bout of quick, sharp rutting that left her gasping, quiet ah-ah-ahs, nails piercing the back of his neck, eyes fluttering up and then rolling back entirely.
He'd grabbed her jaw then, tilting her head back down, forcing her dazed eyes to his, making a disapproving little noise from the back of his throat. ‘I thought I'd asked you to keep your eyes on me, doll.’
Reina smiled dimly, a glint in her eye through the damp strands pinned to her face by sweat. ‘Then do something.’
He matched it for a moment, a gentle smirk as his hand trailed up her knee, then smacking her thigh hard, giving no reprieve as he brought his hips down deeper, talking through her strangled noise. ‘That feel good?’
She hesitated for a second. Before curling her hands over the nape of his neck and pulling him closer. ‘You feel good,’ she mumbled drunkenly.
A current up his spine, and then he was leaning down, slotting his mouth so sloppily against hers it was more spit than real kissing.
Xander could hardly remember the last time he slept with somebody, odd scrappy flashes from an unmemorable gala, the gleaming smile the woman he'd shared a dance with had thrown him by the end of the night, to the unsurveilled corner they'd landed up in. Someone who'd been just as eager to wipe his existence along with the evidence, cold rushing in as the harsh buzz of her zipper cut through the night with finality.
That'd been a lifetime ago; the person who'd emerged out of the wildlands with an eye forfeited for a fate in the air, with a saviour sunken in unfathomably murky depths was someone who would scrape the edges of the mold he'd once built himself into raw.
Another body turned to far too much trouble for its worth. (Moreover, he'd been a little preoccupied with a different kind of bodies.) Not when he could deal with it himself, without the messy ordeal unpredictability brought like a lit match to his fuse. Neatly allocated to the shower, so that he could move onto other matters. With the occasional… help. It snuck up on him, when he'd never particularly balanced a certain image in his head before. Long, slender fingers, clenched tight in anxiety, curled around a glass, the firmness of their grip… He let himself go until the image of her hands were superimposed over his, squeezing with exactly the pressure he liked, and only that modestly far, not missing whatever pile of problems picturing her wet and naked and gazing up at him would unleash on his head. (He wouldn't say he was afraid.)
Deeming the steam fogging his eyes as more than enough to put off work anymore, he shuts off the water, tucking a towel around his hips as he sought out his usual ensemble of a black shirt and cargo pants.
Buckling the belt he'd found looped over the arm of his desk chair, he strides back to his living room to hopefully be greeted by the sight of the uniform jacket he'd overlooked the first time. It's quiet as ever, even the sunlight unobtrusive as it washes over the plain dark edges of the furniture with warmth. A sight natural enough to pass by without notice, but for the minute disruptions his eyes seek out like a compulsion. A glass out by the sink, joined by another. The bar stool off its mark by a few inches. The messenger bag nestled into a black trenchcoat strewn by the door.
The woman still dead asleep in his room.
Five years, he thinks, marveling at the time eaten up in a flash, as he bends to pick it off the floor. Disappearing so blamelessly, nothing but natural to let her sleep in on a weekday. To imagine a time where he didn't know the feel of her skin, the taste of her gasping, even if only yesterday, seemed like a walking into a world where something familiar was misplaced and misconstructed, buildings plucked out of streets and screwed into others, an off kilter city.
Reina… he'd been thinking of her for so long. Was it unconscious wanting all this time?
The more he submerges into thought, the more unreal it seems to grow, fleeing from his hands like the end of a dream. He wants to touch her again. Over and over, until he had her memorized, until he could get whatever he wanted out of her. His hands to know before his mind could catch up.
He's always been a quick study, but especially when what was doled out to him if he did good was the promise of her desperate keening. Not that she'd demurred either, shoving him down to where she needed him, guiding him when she was too pent up to tease, fingers hard on his head, yanking harshly with no regard when she was close, gasping and squirming.
He knows enough, sure, but he wants to learn more, do better. See what could make her twinge, longer, harder, faster. If she'd be louder. He's never once been content with mediocrity, and he's not about to start now, not when there's such a prize to it.
With all this whirling lazily in his head, the prospect of sitting at his desk and going through those damn reports while she was lazing around in his shirt, on his bed, when the alternative is sliding his shirt down lower on her shoulder and seeing how fast he could have her making that noise again—carelessly tossing the towel he'd been running through his hair over the back of a chair, he drops himself down on the side of the bed—is insanity.
His pretty, pretty Reina. Angelic, with the sun combing through her hair.
He traces the slant of sunlight through her hair with the barest touch, contemplating waking her. It would be so easy to slide his hand under the blanket, slide his hand up her thigh. His fingers twitch, already mapping the softness of her skin, how much pressure he'd have to dip into the bruises his teeth kissed for her to hiss out a noise, and higher still for her head thrown back.
Surprising himself (a little? surprising himself in how it doesn't surprise him), he does none of that. Only studies her for a slow minute.
Reina has slept under his eye so unthinkingly only once before. (The car ride with her head leaning against the window frame, wind tangling in her hair as she dozed, cap slung low over her face to block the sunlight doesn't count when she'd pushed herself as far from him as possible.) In the half-light of the bunker, curled up with her arm against her face, claiming the bed across the one she'd tossed him in. On the rare occasions the agony let up enough for him to attempt at consciousness, he'd blinked his good eye open and watched the light play over her hair. Thought of her, wild animal eyes. Warning… luring… He remembered thinking nonsensically he should be careful as the pain swiftly pulled him under.
She'd always slept facing him, as if she could still keep watch with her eyes closed, mind so far away he couldn't guess at it. Had it been weeks? Months? Farther than that, he didn't want to guess. He was either dozing or biting out nonsense through the undulating pain, but she still looked at him like a spectre. She didn't seem very impressed, but she watched him anyway.
Xander smoothens a thumb over the ghost of a tense furrow between her brows, and watches her back.
Reina has always been classified under unfinished business in his head, mind circling, striving for a way in or out. Pulling at him endlessly, obsessively. A spool from which the more he tugged at, the more aware he was of the lack, the gap. She refused to leave his mind, and even he himself couldn't tell what the hell he wanted out of her, only more, again. Closer.
A realization which is a little more difficult to toss to the back of his head when it is quite literally staring him in the face, that no matter where she goes or what shatters between their feet, he's not capable of letting her go.
Nothing seems enough. Even now, having had her in some tangible way, proof of possession painted stark over her body needing only one firm tug of his hand to unveil, something inside him keeps twitching, pacing. Watching her sleep so peacefully, he has the urge to knock his teeth into hers and pull her under all over again.
‘Reina, Reina…’ he calls softly, hand dipping to brush her cheekbone. ‘What do you think you're doing to me?’
His mouth curls at the lack of response. ‘Still so sleepy…’
He leans down, mindless, thoughtful, brushing his lips lightly over the soft skin at her ear where baby hairs curled. She doesn't stir an inch. Jerking aside the comforter none too lightly, he reimburses with a chaste kiss dropped to her collarbone. No response. His finger hooks into the neckline of his shirt, tugging low, lower, until the softly bruised swell of her chest comes to view. His lips ghost over the erratic red marks let slip, gently dragging the tip of his tongue along. A hand slides into his damp hair, and he muffles a smile against her skin.
Pulling back slightly, he reaches for a kiss smugly, murmuring, ‘Woke you right up, hmm?’ to a sleep-mussed Reina, whose first order of business was to stretch languorous as a cat, tipping her head back at the last moment, and leaving his face mushing against her neck. She's warmer than ever, freshly delivered from a cocoon of blankets, and his eyes slip shut as he nuzzles into the sweet curve lazily, hazy under her scent.
Before he could be tempted down a very different path for his afternoon to take (and by virtue tempt her down), he draws away to his original seat, narrowing his eyes at her playfully, mock-affronted. ‘What, no kiss? I'll have to work harder to impress an expert like you, huh?’
Reina doesn't bother replying, concerned with languidly pulling herself up instead. His shirt slides down her shoulder as she sits up, muffling an incoming yawn with the back of her hand, and accepting her glasses from his hand with the other. A dusky violet bruise stars the pale edge of her shoulder, from when she'd slammed her arm against the doorframe in the dark, too busy shoving him back in to remember warning. She slips on her glasses, and patting down errant strands on her head, a wispy white wildfire through the sun, squints at him through the thin silver frame. And her first words are: ‘Why are you dressed?’
Predictably, his first response is to burst out laughing.
She scowls, rolling her eyes, surely the only superpower he's seen manifest in her, looking like she was already regretting waking up. ‘You know what I meant-’
‘Yeah, yeah. Duty calls. Reports to go through. If you'd expected breakfast in bed, then sorry to disappoint, darling.’ A familiar smirk lightens his features. ‘Although I’m sure I can think of something you'd like…’
His tongue peeks out to wet the cut on his lower lip, watching her eyes track the movement, looking like she was contemplating splitting it open again. A beat, and then he waves a hand carelessly, kicking them both out of their reverie. ‘I’ll drop you off, and we can get whatever you like on the way. My treat.’
Whatever else he isn't sure of, this he knows: she's not going to just simply agree so easily. But he wasn't exactly expecting the mirthless, almost cruel smile that touches her mouth faintly, before dying to a grim line.
‘Eager to get me out of your house, aren't you? Finally worrying about that bullet in your head?’ Her voice lacks all the venom the question hoards, drawn out quiet and soft by the morning.
Her inexperienced taunt takes a second to land. His mouth twists sharply when it does, the untouched bliss of the morning shot through by the conflicting whirlwind of emotions the Lang incident always dredged up. An outcome he should've foreseen, a man he shouldn't have written off, or himself he shouldn't have overaccounted his genius for. He'd run every possible thread frayed, ripped into every scenario and possibility in the days that followed, trying to reconstruct it into something that made sense, to touch base again—what he always did. Running everything front to back, back to side, shaping a loop to slip through. Except this time…
Irritated at being reminded of his colossal fuckup, much less by the woman who lost him both his business and herself, he tamps it down slow, slowly. Levels his temper enough to scoff at her, rolling his eyes. ‘Oh, come on, Reina. You can't still be mad about that when I’m being so sweet. What about how I’m making it up to you, hmm?’
‘Waffles for half a decade of blackmailing might be a bit of a loss on my side.’ She rolls her eyes, then sighs quietly, shoulders slumping as the fight seeps out of her quick as rain. Lowering her eyes to the creased sheets, she thumbs an old cut on her hand absently. ‘I just want to go back to sleep.’
Xander pauses (shame. He would've loved to needle her at a worn diner booth), watching her a moment, before brushing a quick kiss over the wrist he lifts and drops in a single breath. ‘Sure. It's well deserved rest after yesterday.’ He continues, ‘There's leftovers in the fridge if you get hungry. Heat it up, though I believe it's my responsibility to mention if you try setting my kitchen on fire, there's a good chance of you meeting the same fate.’
‘I'll make sure to remember that,’ she replies drily.
He makes no move to get up. Maybe even leans in slightly. ‘Now aren't you honoured? Spending the night and morning with me, in my bed, personally fed by me… not many can brag about that, you know.’
‘I don't think that's what personally- many?’ Her nose wrinkles. Suddenly much more awake, she throws him a nasty once over. ‘Pick a better lie.’
‘You never know,’ he replies sweetly.
She falls quiet, eyes unfocusing behind those glasses. Oddly alluring, somehow…
Knee-deep into scheming how to get her into them while she's out of everything else (his office desk of some use finally?), he jerks imperceptibly when he feels her calf drag slowly against the side of his thigh. Higher… just enough pause for his mouth to ready into a slow smirk as her foot is shoved firmly into his chest.
Reina leans back against the headboard, fingers raking through the tangles in her hair, eyes fixed, as she presses down harder, dragging slowly, firmly over his abdomen, lower… before shifting to lay gently side by side against his hip.
Xander catches it in motion, hand curling deliberately loose around her ankle, thumb stroking the jut of bone. He drawls slowly, ‘You're winning, Reina.’
He looks up, hand gliding over her calf, the junction between her knee, that tendon… Her thigh tenses as his hand slides higher, pausing close and far, searing into her skin, meeting her eye. ‘Isn't that what you like hearing?’
He tilts his head. She matches it, brow quirking ever so slightly in challenge.
He could push her leg up so easily. So easily. One move. Push her leg up to her chest and bury his face between her legs, make her cry out, keen, yank on his hair, lose herself. He could hear that strangled little whimper again. His fingertips dig into giving flesh… and he rises abruptly to his feet.
Reina almost snaps her head from how sharply she cants it to his side, eyes following him like a whip. His palm is on her neck before she could speak, savouring the frantic pickup of her pulse as it curves slowly around her jaw, tilting her head up. She goes, not yielding, but willing, so smoothly and completely in tune with his body, his stomach drops slightly in sheer pleasure. Her lips part, he knows to bite into his thumb if not for the pressure he was holding her face so carefully with, so preciously... A beat. And then she yelps, pulling back from his hand sharply as he ruffles the hair she'd been painstakingly smoothening from the moment she'd woken up roughly.
With the cadence of her scathing swearing in an unfamiliar language a background hum to the lacing of his boots, he manages to actually make it out the door for work.
Swinging his keys around his finger, he calls out a ‘Don't miss me too much’ as goodbye as the door slams shut.
The sun lands an immediate, direct assault on his eyes as he traces the usual path to his car. But there's no consolation to sell himself in his head today, for the hours bleeding drop by drop in that dump of an office, no need for it. He wants to see her again already. Be with her. The day will drift by then.
thinking about audrey, who was betrayed and almost poisoned by her father, barely escaping death only to find herself dying exactly the same way in the future.
and finally finding salvation in her demise — only to be brought back & condemning her straight to a fate far crueler than what was initially intended for her, by a grief stricken love interest and friends.
what a sad, cruel hand fate has dealt her in life, in death, and in rebirth. the cycle never stops.
cain fumbling the girl who’s clearly interested in him vs xander i tortured and forced my girl into doing drug dealings but still managed to win her attention and attraction van hayes.
cain who had everything on his side (hot, so mysterious it was like catnip to lane, the only one who didn't treat lane like an anomaly, a sense of camaraderie that came with being different than the rest) and still managed to fumble like his life depended on it vs xander who is actively making her life worse everytime he shows up on screen and somehow still has her enraptured
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