guys i went to a slam poetry night and i met some amazing people and heard their amazing stories and now i'm on the woke war path. I've been thinking about this for a long time and i think now that i have my own x reader fanfic and my own platform, it's the perfect time to speak up about it!!
Fellow (white) xreader fanfic writers LISTEN UP because I think this is important.
Your fanfiction is not automatically for readers of all races just because you don't mention skin tone.
Let me repeat that:
Your fanfiction is not automatically for readers of all races just because you don't mention skin tone.
This is something I haven't seen discussed enough across the x reader sphere, it's mostly in discussions between People of Colour bonding over and sharing their frustrations over how majority of x readers - a genre that is intentionally supposed to keep the MC vague so that it's easy for the reader to insert themselves - have been so obviously written to be a white person BY a white person that it's impossible to relate to.
Reading those discussions was so valuable to me because they pointed out all the little things that are so unbelieably common that they're literally x reader troupes, and yet they are almost exclusively a white experience.
If you're an ignorant white person like myself*, you might at first assume the clearly white experiences I'm talking about are the surface level things you know about racism, like how it's easier to get a job with a white name, you don't deal with racial profiling on a daily basis, you never worry that the reason your partner broke up with you because it "wasn't gonna work out long term" wasn't actually because their bigot family members convinced them not to date you.
And yeah, it's good to be aware of all those things too. But what I saw people complaining about most was hair.
We've all seen that cringe satire post about "you put your hair up into a messy bun and run down the stairs and your mum told you she sold you to one direction!"
To most white people that might look like a normal (albiet dumb) sentence, but it contains a potentially world-breaking assumption.
It assumes the reader can wear their hair in a bun.
In your first sentence, you as the hypothetical white writer of this x reader fanfic have just told everyone in your audience who doesn't have the texture or length or even EXISTENCE of hair that can be pulled up into a messy bun that this story is not for them.
If you're muslim, sorry, no time to put a hijab on before these five strange men kidnap you! And sure, you were only expecting to see your mother so maybe it makes sense you didn't have your hijab on yet, but what, you can't go and put one on before your mum lets them into the house?? What the fuck mum???
Ok, sure, you just won't specify hair styles, right? The reader can picture their hair however they want! Problem solved!
What about later in the fanfic, when the reader is laying next to Harry Styles (idk why im still going with this 1D thing), they read about how "you curl up in his arms and relax into his embrace as his fingers slide through your hair to lull you to sleep."
Aww, that's lovely!
If you have hair. And it's not in braids or locs or waves or cornrose. And if it's no curlier than 3A - 3B if he's particularly good at not getting tangled in your curls. And if it's not in a bonnet. Or a hijab. Or a burqa. Or literally anything worn for hair care, cultural or religious reasons.
Ok fine, you just won't include hair at all! Not a mention of it. When you're writing, you're just gonna assume at all times your MC is bald. If you really wanna include something similar to hairplaying, you'll just say that he's massaging the base of their scalp or temples or something.
And you didn't mention anything about skintone so there's no issues there! Racially ambiguous!
Well, you also said they get sunburnt easily, which is impacted by both skin colour and the country they live in. You also said their cheeks grew red and Harry pointed out their blushing, but not everyone has skin light enough for blushing to be seen. Not everyone allows their face to be visible. Not everyone has their ears pierced or tattoos or 20-20 vision or a tiny waist or complete mobility in both their arms.
Ok then, fuck! What are you supposed to write?? Every person on this earth is unique and your x reader fic can't possibly cater towards everyone!
Exactly. And I want you to be honest with yourself when I ask this: have you ever thought about that before?
When you're born straight, white, able and cis, it's really easy to be completely oblivious to the lack of x readers that do accomodate for those differences because you've never had to think about it. It doesn't apply to you. Every x reader about every blorbo you could ever want has already been written for you (depending on fandom size). You've never had to scroll to the very last page on ao3 to find a single oneshot where Peter Parker watches a youtube tutorial on how to properly braid your 4B hair. Or gotten halfway into a fanfiction about your favourite male character that you thought was gender neutral but it turned out the reader was VERY MUCH A WOMAN and the afab sex scene that snuck up on you sends you into a dysphoric spiral.
As a dumb white person myself, I was ignorant to this for years too until I read something on (I think) Tumblr that really stuck with me.
It pointed out that, when reading text, most of us were conditioned to assume everyone was straight, white and cis unless otherwise specified. If a character was Brown or Black or Asian or Islander, that would be intentionally pointed out with adjectives describing their skin tone or physical features - why?
Because so many of us have been conditioned to imagine straight, white, able and cis as the "default".
How could the reader pOssibly think that new character is a person of colour if it's not explicitly stated? Especially when so much visual media in the past has featured straight, white, cis people at the forefront.
I saw a video of someone posting their childhood sona, your classic light-brown haired, green eyed whiter than paper skinned anime girl, with the caption "Me, 2013: I can't wait to see how I draw myself in the future!" followed by a really fantastic drawing (the art nerd in me can't help it, it's so expressive and the pose is so dynamic and the colouring is MWAH) of a black woman with the caption "why are you white"
And I was fucking floored by the amount of Black, Brown, Light-skinned, Latinx, and Indigenous people in the comments, who could relate to that exact experience. Until I saw that video, I had no idea how common it was for non-white people to draw their sonas - THEIR IDEALISED SELVES - as white. Some commenters attributed this phenomenon to the lack of Black/Latinx/Indigenous representation in visual media during their childhoods, especially in anime which is a common style for kids/teens to draw in. Another reason is that some kids just never had their ACTUAL skin colour in the crayon or pen or pencil sets they had, everyone who wasn't this specific fucking pale peachy white was an afterthought.
Anime tutorials didn't teach kids how to draw curly hair or hijabs or almond eyes or non-button noses or how to correctly shade skin darker than Pantone 27.
And x readers aren't exempt from this phenomenon. In fact, they can be a prolific perpetuator of this "default", to the point where there are tags like x black!reader or x asian!reader because the general x reader stories are so obviously written from a white perspective that they can end up being completely unrelatable. And as much as it makes me happy to see non-white fanfic writers carving out those niches and making sure there are diverse spaces in the community, every time I see Black or Latinx preceeding the word reader I'm reminded of that post about white being the "default". Like the reader can't be Black or Brown or Indian or Asian or Indigenous or Islander unless it's actively specified.
And it's not just People of Colour who have to deal with this bullshit - the colonial "default" is straight, white, able and cis, remember?
If a straight, white, able, cis woman wanted to read an x reader fanfic for an older man with a relatable mc, she'd just type x reader.
If I want an x reader fanfic for an older man where the main character is someone I can relate to, I have to type x gn!reader.
If a cis, white, able man wanted an older man fanfic with a relatable mc, he'd have to type x male!reader.
If a white, able, trans man wanted an older man fanfic with a relatable mc, he'd have to type trans!male!reader.
If a black, able, trans man wanted an older man fanfic with a relatable mc, he'd have to type black!trans!male!reader.
If a black, disabled, trans man wanted an older man fanfic with a relatable mc, he'd have to type black!disabled!trans!male!reader.
Each "default" setting you don't fit into is another tag you have to add on. To read about someone who will love you for who you are, you have to list out every part of your identity that does not fit into the 'norm'.
And while yes, I'm glad that people who don't fit into the "default" are able to both create and find fanfics that specify exactly what we're looking for, doesn't it fuckin suck that they know a basic "x reader" just isn't going to include them?
Doesn't it fuckin suck to know that every one of us who don't fit even one of the "default" characteristics often has to take on the responsibility of carving out that niche within the fandom because if we don't make space for ourselves and our community, who will?
I wish I could tell you I have a solution, but hundreds of years of colonial brainwashing doesn't disappear over night.
But, in my opinion as a dumb white person (so take this with a grain of salt the size of the Great Australian Bite and feel free to drag me in the comments), I think we've made a little progress into erasing the colonial "default" for recent media like The Magnus Archives or The Amazing Digital Circus. Where the fandom, in lieu of canonical human appearence, have drawn and written and headcannoned characters to be Black or autistic or gay or transmasc based on their own interpretations and/or personal experiences they've seen mirrored. Or even just because they wanna add some goddamn spice to their designs. And to all of that I say Hell fuckin Yeah.
I also like that i've personally seen an uptick in people using fem!reader or afab!reader for fics about fictional male characters because:
a) cis amab or trans masc/masc leaning people don't have to get halfway through the first chapter before they realise "oh goddamnit the MC is obviously a girl and it's gonna come up in this fic so i can't just ignore it" and
b) combined with the uptick of gn!readers i've been seeing, it's helping us break down the "default" straight, fem reader archetype because everyone of every and any gender should be able to get love and attention from their blorbos and
c) i especially love the afab and amab tags because they aknowledge that gender is diverse and what's written is purely about what you physically have and not what gender you are. Girls can have dicks, boys can have vaginas, it's twenty-twenty-fuckin-five, people.
With all this being said, I'm absolutely NOT saying we should get rid of specifying tags for race and gender and disabilities, they're an incredibly important tool for people who don't fit the "default" to find community and connection. It's totally ok if you want to write about a straight, white, able, cis reader because that's your experience.
At the end of this rant, what I really want you to take away from this if you're an x reader fanfic writer who does fit into the "default", is that your experience is not a universal one. Everyone deserves to be able to find and write fanfics that make them happy and are relatable to their experiences and struggles.
Even if you don't personally relate to the stories they're telling,
Support Black Creators. Support East-Asian Creators. Support South-Asian Creators. Support Latinx Creators. Support Muslim Creators. Support Indigenous Creators. Support Islander Creators. Support Disabled Creators. Support Neurodiverse Creators. Support Queer Creators. Support Trans Creators. Support Non-Binary Creators.
Support Creators.
Because everyone deserves to feel loved and respected and understood in a community they love and respect.
*honey, if you're white, you are ignorant, intentionally or otherwise. You could have just grown up in a majority white area and not considered these things before because no one ever pointed it out to you. I had to have this stuff pointed out to me because yes, ignorance is a part of white privilege.
I’ve always seen it as a song which is basically like turner’s time capsule in musical form, like an actor riffling through stolen props and costumes from various shows and productions, reminiscing on each of them to the audience, how each of them have had a lasting impact on his life. along with this I also see it as him reflecting on who he’s turned into and also his insecurities maybe that have formed from being perceived by so many at such a young age, he matured in the public eye, not quite grow up. yeah he and the band debuted officially at 20 however they were playing locally even before then around 16/17. yeah that’s not as young as most musicians like billie eilish but now we have the expanses of social media, they didn’t really, getting that much fame at an age where people are still very much figuring out their identity and who they are, freshly out of teen hood, must’ve been really overwhelming. I feel like body paint is an ode to that almost and how he’s had to put on so many acts and facades and what scars they’ve almost left him with. I was also looking at the spotify graphic and that helps my point, it’s just him walking around in the spotlight aimlessly. It’s almost like he’s accepted that no matter what, he’ll be watched now always, like a bug in a jar. It also I feel like could symbolise how he felt like the only one perceived so thoroughly, yeah sure the rest of the members weren’t fully ignored but turner, as the frontman, definitely had a lot more focus on him to say the least. yeah. hope that makes sense. late night ramble. in conclusion, I hate interpreting songs just as they are with their “intended” meaning (music is art, hoes), especially love songs. be more fun, stop taking music as literally sometimes. peace out
People really need to start writing more male reader/ gender neutral reader fanfiction because tell me why I’m scouring the DEPTHS of every single fanfic site—and I mean EVERY fanfic site—yet I can’t find anything more than the same stuff I’ve read 100 times already.
The Only Time That We Stop Laughing is to Breathe or Steal a Kiss - Alex Turner x Reader (part one//prologue)
In which you lose your job, go to the pub, and find a new one on the moon; your boss is a sad washed-up rockstar. Alternative universe based on TBHC where space travel is easily accessible for narrative purposes.
warnings: none, they just met, i’m just setting up the rest of it bear w me </3 idk TW cigarettes this is alex turner ofc theres cigarettes. Warning for i havent written fanfiction in years and cant do dialogue either
word count: 2458
There are situations that fester within one’s heart a sense of despondency so vast and all-encompassing that to be faced with the notion that somewhere, submerged between the periphery of the celestial realms and another plane of matter utterly inarticulate to the barriers of even the most astute psyches is a star even lonelier – its distance from its nearest brethren so interminable that perhaps, were it sentient, it would spend each eon dwindling, reigniting and dying aflame without ever considering the possibility of another of its kind – serves as both a consolation and a source of disquietude. The prospect of burning out in solitude, of existing as a microcosm to the greater impersonal cycle of life and death that carries along on autopilot; is it easier to succumb to the elements alone if one is bereft of a heart to think about it?
This was one of those evenings, it seemed; you were never one for revelry, but your discomposure begged on all fours to be numbed and placated. You had been let go from your job the prior morning following a dispute with your boss; it was disheartening at best, the gig having been the primary victory of a series of tribulations that had culminated into you dropping out of university much to the dismay of your parents – so much so that you had been kicked out for violating the ultimatum decreeing that you were only to live there into adulthood until your graduation. Meaning, now, that you were responsible for yourself without an income. It felt like a transgression of your hard-earned hubris to crawl back home and, after thirty-six-too-many hours spent sobbing and bereaved, in the absence of resolution, the pub felt magnetic.
You had arrived a quarter to nine, perched atop a barstool nursing a cocktail. The establishment was no grandiose pandemonium, by any means, a choice based on proximity alone. Its noise felt almost chaste, loud but subdued, a diffident sort of chaos procured by its aged inhabitants, spectres of waning youth clung onto with vise grips in the modesty that is an acquired taste, one that you grow into, not unlike the burn of heady beverages. It was easy to remain invisible here. That was what you needed. To be inconsequential, for just a moment. For nothing to matter.
The alcohol swam about your gut, circulating its heady caress throughout your body; you watched the lights carouse in tandem with the swinging of hips peppering the floor of the parlor and indulged in your sphere of quietude before the reverberation of the beats around you came to a sharp halt, the scaffolding of bodies falling into stillness along with it. You snapped out of your oncoming haze and peered about the area; a small stage on the corner of the west end lit up, previously unbeknownst to you, and the crowd had turned towards it as if this was routine.
A middle–aged woman in an apron and slacks made her way to the podium, clearing her throat. “Ladies and gentlemen, tonight, Alex Turner is joining us for a performance. Normally, he’s got the full band, but we’re celebrating the new moon with our favourite lunar rockstar on a solo set.” The subsequent cheering grew to a point of reverence as soon as he stepped foot atop the stage. You’d never heard of this man before, but you felt the eagerness aurating from the public.
His grey pinstripe tuxedo contrasted with the scarlet tie that hung from his neck like a noose, gently grazing the brown tendrils that grew from the base of his skull. His eyes were guarded by a pair of copper sunglasses framed by arched brows and the wrinkle that creased between them. He grinned politely, the outlines of pearly canines poking through the gap between his lips. “Hello, everybody,” he greeted, his lyrical Northern lilt inflecting the anterior notes of his vowels downwards. “How’re we doin’? I’ve got a few songs for you, free of charge… but if anyone wants t’buy me a drink afterwards, be my guest.” His prelude was met with an ovation of laughter.
He perched upon a stool and pulled out a guitar. Scarfing down the spidery cirrus of the final remnants of your drink, you ordered another and committed to the watch.
He played his instrument like an extension of himself, his strums heavy-handed, yet simultaneously gentle, coinciding with the tender alto of his voice in a harmony that felt almost disingenuous; he sang like he knew the scripture of his words more intimately than their substance. It was beautiful, though, that much was undeniable.
Rarely did he avert his gaze from his feet – at least, that was inferred from the downwards tilt of his head – and the end of the set marked the first time he removed the glasses from the contour of his nose. After a series of gratuities, he had stepped away. All festivities resumed, not that they had really stopped at all. You spared him your reaction, and kept at your business.
Once again, your thoughts began to drift. It dawned on you, upon the declination of your card on your – what was it, fifth? – cocktail, that you wouldn’t be making rent this month. You pondered for a moment, as the sinking feeling settled into your stomach. There, in this middle ground between melancholy and abject despair, a sense of paralysis imposed itself upon you; you were alone here, feeble and meaningless, just like you wanted to be, and yet a sickening notion had presented itself that this had already been the case. The only purpose of this all, it seemed, was to chase a semblance of fulfillment that could not be acquiesced from disavowal. And its naivety had come to a bitter head.
So you waited, as the night went on, eating your own words and shoving them as they faltered on the way out. Maybe you'd have a fiver for a cab. The contrary proved true an assessment of your pockets, much to your dismay. A posse a few seats down was clamoring in conversation. They seemed delighted, proud, whole. Their martinis splashed around their glasses in circles, the ornamental olives like talismans. You had no interest in their discussion, but eavesdropped in an attempt to divert your attention elsewhere – to have any attention at all – and maybe, just maybe, you’d be able to sober up and walk yourself home unscathed.
You were cajoled away from your zoned-out haze when the next barstool over creaked with the weight of an occupant. Slower than the motion felt, you swung your head to look – it had remained vacant for the entirety of your stay. It was an old man.
With a sigh, and perhaps a crack in your voice as you muttered a curse, you sauntered to the bathroom.
It was clean, surprisingly, in spite of the gaudy tile and kitschy decor adorning it. A woman fixed her lipstick at the end of the counter, a frosty baby pink reminiscent of aged trends. You paused to see your own reflection: you had forgotten to take a proper look for a long time now. Your skin, puffy and sallow, bore the remnants of liquidated mascara, abruptly cut off in fragments by insufficient wipes – you felt almost spectral, ghastly, as if you were viewing an apparition in the rearview mirror. This wasn’t you. You hadn’t been you a while.
A voice pulled you from your trance. “Are you alright, hun?” Inquired the made-up woman.
You looked up to meet her gaze as she leant against the countertop. “Think so. Maybe. I hope.”
Her face contorted with worry. “Do you need anything? Do you smoke?” She snatched her purse up from the moist surface and rummaged through it, tossing her lipstick back in between the swift motions of her hands. “I’ve got a few. I won’t pry, but I think you need one.”
Her concern felt almost maternal – although she wasn’t old, by any means – and it warmed your heart with the glowing thermics of a final snub of coal, its meager perseverance accredited to a miniscule spark holding it aflame while its brethren dwindle into soot. “I don’t normally, but if you’re insisting… I suppose I might.”
She lit up at that, dispensing a red lighter and a cigarette into your palms with an outstretched arm. “Here. I’ve got to go, my husband is waiting for me. Keep the lighter. I’ve got plenty.”
You smiled. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
With a wave of acknowledgement, she departed, and you were alone again – you waited a few minutes before leaving.
The bar had, for the most part, calmed down, slower jazz music replacing the more upbeat melodies that had sounded throughout the building prior to the musician’s set. You were grateful for this on account of the nausea threatening to make itself at home in your gut; never much of a drinker, you seldom tolerated it well at all.
Slipping through the doorway after whittling through small clusters of people, you joined the smokers outside. The wind was cool and invigorating, a welcome contrast to the amalgamation of heat radiating throughout the poorly-conditioned interior.
You slid down the bricks and mortar to situate yourself on the concrete below, the chill seeping through the fabric of your pants. Pulling the cigarette from its temporary abode in your pocket, you positioned the filter between your lips, its rotund shape clumsy and unfamiliar in your mouth. Squinting, you flicked the ridges of the lighter, the initial attempt a failure, the softness of your thumb unaccustomed to the coarse component as it stagnates without the force required to turn it – the second moved it without a flame, the third eliciting only a spark, and by the sixth or seventh you had given up. With your eyes on the bustling street anterior to you, the cigarette had fallen into your lap. You shifted to pick it up again and watched your breath condense into translucent vapour as you rid out the comedown of unmet expectations for what felt like the thousandth time today.
“Need a light, there?”
You flinched, swinging your head back and forth until your gaze settled on the speaker – his feet, anyway, and then trailed upwards from the loafers, to grey slacks, to the pinstripe suit, to the red tie, until it registered in your mind that it was the singer from the lounge.
“Apparently.”
He chuckled. “Quite the dud you’ve got, by the looks of it.”
“It’s not mine,” you replied, your tone low.
Raising an eyebrow, he fished one from his breastpocket and tossed it your way. It landed with a subtle clamor onto the ground beside your feet. “That was on me. Don’t have very good aim nowadays, you see.”
You shot him a look, pursing your lips, although not unkindly, and grabbed the lighter. “It’s alright. I didn’t catch it.” You lit the cigarette, this time on your second try, and on the first draw allowed your head to fall back against the wall momentarily as you reveled in the tingly buzz washing over you. “Thank you, by the way.” You inched your head sideways and offered the lighter back, peering up at him.
He took a step forward, and as he grabbed it you felt the callouses on his fingers graze your palms. “No problem.”
You took in another drag and coughed. After the wincing subsided, you looked back at him. “You’re the guy who was singing, right?”
“That would be me.”
“I thought so, but I didn’t think you’d be here so long. It was a good show.”
He smiled. “Why, thank you, love. I’m not in the country much longer, I didn’t quite feel like leaving yet.”
“The country? If you’re on a tour, what are you playing at bars for?”
“I’m not one for stadiums these days. Band’s always busy. I’ve got a business to run.”
You squinted. He played stadiums and you still had no idea who he was before this. “Oh. Well, it was nice of you to come play. I’ve never been here – I don’t drink much. I wasn’t supposed to be here this late either.” You paused. “You know, I haven’t smoked since college either. It’s been a weird day.”
Bemused, he rested his back against the wall. “College? Smart girl, then. What were you in school for?”
“Nursing. I wanted to go into science, but I never had the grades. I ended up dropping out. I hated it.” You stared at your shoes.
“I never tried in the first place, it’s alright. I’m not sure I’d particularly care for all that finnaggling about, either,” he replied, lighting his own smoke. The flame illuminated his face briefly – he was pretty, all cheekbones and eyes. “What do you do now?”
A deep breath preluded your response, a preparatory measure for the upcoming embarassment. “Nothing, as of today. I was a journalist.”
He raised his brows – both, this time. “Quit? Or did you get sacked?”
“Sacked. No need to salt the wound.”
With a shake of his head, he sat down next to you, roughly an arms’ length away. “Well, I was just inquiring about it, my apologies. It happens, dunnit?”
You snuffed the butt of your cigarette on the ground, stamping it with your heel for good measure. “It does, yeah. You said you play stadiums, I don’t think you’ve ever worried about eating before.” You didn’t intend to come off spitefully. You hoped you didn’t.
He smiled again, small and meek. “Only when I was on a bender,” he quipped, a laugh nearly emerging before he stifled it. “Y’know, my receptionist just left last week. Been over me head with paperwork.”
“Glad you have something to do.”
“So that one went over your head, hm?”
You met his eyes, mouth slightly agape in confusion. “Oh. You want me there.”
He shrugged. “Hard to find anyone willing to relocate.”
“The fact that I’m considering any sort of offer from a stranger tells me my survival instincts are failing me.”
“It’s not great publicity for a rockstar to kidnap girls at the pub. You can look the place up. Hotel on the moon.”
You giggled, momentarily pondering the proposition. “What’s the number? I’ll call when I’m home.”
He fetched a matte black business card – it smelt of tobacco – from the previous breastpocket. “Sure. You have a way home?”
“...Not really.”
“I’ll get you a cab. What’s your name?”
You introduced yourself, and shook his hand properly. “Thank you… Turner? Alex Turner?”
“That would be me. Talk tomorrow.”
He called the cab, leaving them your name. As you entered the vehicle you caught a glimpse of him standing at the entryway with a watchful eye.
Vamp al would love the organ. Like that and his guitar are his everything
Oh my god you’re so right.
I love the idea that after being isolated for a really long time, he’s picked up a huge love for music. He’s totally got a giant collection of physical media.
He wouldn’t show it, but he would have an absolute aneurism when you ask him to play the organ or guitar for you. He would act nonchalant about it at first before playing for HOURS, trying to show you new pieces he’s learned.
I’ve had something in the works for a while, but I keep getting really bad writer’s block every time I touch it😞 I’ve always been a little obsessed with vampires and the stories surrounding them, but I’ve never actually been able to come up with a consistent plot.
HOWEVER. I do have a few headcanons about vampires that I’d like to incorporate within my fic(eventually)
Vampires are naturally cold due to the lack of blood in their bodies, so I’d like to think that they seek out warmth wherever they can get it. Cuddling, heaters, etc. Most of the time they just get it from feeding off of humans.
They try to avoid the sun; not because it makes them turn to ash, but because they’re eyes are extremely sensitive to it. While their eyesight is useful at night, it can make it very hard to see during the day.
To a vampire, sharing blood with another is as intimate as sex is for humans. It’s essentially sharing one’s life force, and it’s involved in many “courting” rituals for vampires.
Vampires can develop very specific tastes when it comes to blood. The taste of blood is usually determined by diet, blood type, lifestyle, and overall health. Due to this, they usually end up hunting for the blood they’re most attracted to.
They are alive, but just barely. Vampires have an extremely sluggish heartbeat that pumps blood throughout their body depending on how much they ingest.
That’s all I have written down in my notes app right now😅
But please please PLEASE, if you have any ideas for a one shot involving Vamp!Al, or just some headcanons, I am absolutely DYING to write something for him.
I’ll try and work on the first chapter of the Vamp!Al series I was initially talking about but I might just scrap the whole thing. We’ll see!
cried out to him with my mouth, his praise was on my tongue
warnings: male reader, fellatio & fornication
word count: 5k
His groping never feels right, not quite. His fingers hesitate, a stutter in touch — too tight, like he’s afraid you’ll slip through his grasp, or too loose, like he’s getting penalised by denying the full pressure of his own want. He is undecided. He is afraid. He is at war with himself, and yet his hands have already decided and betrayed him, and you don’t know what there even was to decide, not when he shoves your pants down, grips bare skin — the one on your thighs — hoists you up into his lap even as the two of you stand upright against a wall, like he doesn’t need to think, like he doesn’t need to consider what he’s about to do.
There is no space for deliberation in the way his knuckles press into your skin, in the way his breath hitches just once when your pelvis meets his. He’s been silent, undressing you without a word — no preamble, no coaxing, no soft nothings to ease the transition between thought and action. Just the frantic sound of a zipper, the tug of fabric, your back hitting the plaster with a soft thud and his eyes not daring to meet yours.
His quiet nature is not confidence, that you both know. It’s the theatre of barely being held together. He treats your body like a locked diary he shouldn’t be reading, but he keeps turning the pages anyway, faster with every second, pretending not to understand what he’s seeing. You wonder what he thinks he’s doing, gripping your thighs like that — holding you up and open, breath heavy and ragged as though you’re punishing him by existing. There’s tension in that jaw of his. And he still won’t meet your eyes.
The silence that lays over the room feels like a thin sheet over a body in mourning. Maybe he thinks there’s a way out of this if he just doesn’t speak.
Though hands tell a truth his mouth won’t dare give shape to. He is burning alive in his own coldness, peeling apart from the inside, wanting you and hating himself for it.
He knows he’ll keep touching. Keep pressing. Keep holding. Full of guilt, half-swallowed prayers, and regrets not yet named.
“I shouldn’t want you.” he admits as his lips are already brushing yours. A weak confession, too late, much too unconvincing.
But still, his hands work you loose. Still, he pulls — at you, now that there’s no clothes to pull — desperate to uncover some answer inside the folds of you. Your hands are buried in his hair, your back arching off the wall to meet him in a way that should answer every question he’s too afraid to ask.
You lick the words off his lips, steal them before they have a chance to make an impact. “Then stop.”
You know he won’t. His hands flex against you like he wants to crush the thought out of existence. He’ll soon want to bruise his own doubt into your skin. You both know the truth deep down — he will always fold, always give in, always be pulled under. You let him. You pull him in deeper, always.
He exhorts and you pray at his feet an akathist. You offer yourself up to him with an open mouth, with a worship that would have saints turning away in shame. He was your saint, but not a holy one — not the kind that lived in light, but the kind that stayed in shadow, the kind that took and took and took. You worship him anyway, he’s yours.
Two souls hiding from the light of day. Loving in the box of pity and wishing for mercy to be in your hands.
He opens his mouth to say something else, but you don’t let him. You swallow his words with a kiss.
He was precise, always had been, like those other men carving into marble, he carved his way through you. Into you. You were too — precision met precision, a dance where neither of you missed a step. He’s a rocker, you’re his punk, both of you sharp-edged and full of fire, both of you with rough hands and open mouths. The pair of you smelled of musk, of incense, of sweat, of sweet love spilling out like a slow, sticky nectar. Something ancient, and likely unclean, that made the air thick and impossible to breathe without taking each other in.
You were biting into each other like poetry, to the core, digging your teeth in and tasting the raw pulp of it, wordlessly saying goodbye to everything that was for this, for what will be, for what is. No past, no future — nothing but the hot press of now, the fever of it, the ache that makes a home in the marrow of your bones as they move around him.
He puts a hand in your hair, and his fingers tighten just enough this time, not in a way that hurts, not yet, but in a way that tells you exactly what you are about to become before him. His eyes are locked on yours as you drop to your knees.
Precise, precise.
You were but an extra in this story, and he was the artist, always the headliner, always the one people came to see, while you counted the change thrown at him, never at you. A supporting role in the great spectacle of him.
And you don’t mind. For now, you are the moment. You are the act. You are the thing he claims he shouldn’t want, yet takes anyway.
Isn’t that the most honest he’s ever been?
He doesn’t take off his belt — just unbuckles it, the metal clinking in the quiet, the weight of it heavy between you. He doesn’t bother with the zipper, doesn’t bother with pretense, and only shoves his hand inside, pulls you closer with the other, keeping you pressed against the heat of him. You can smell him through the fabric, salt and skin and something darker, and you can feel your throat loosen, already your body knows what to do, trained into obedience, into something mindless, instinctual.
That’s what he’s made of you.
“Do you want it?” The question comes. It’s soft, all soft underneath the disguise of sharp edges.
The light from the window casts him in a strange kind of gold, something celestial — this halo around his head — and you wonder, not for the first time, if he is doing this on purpose. If he chose this spot for the way it makes him look untouchable, like an altar you should be crawling toward instead of kneeling before.
“I want it.” The whisper barely comes out, breath and sound almost lost under the slow, hushed slide of his hand moving over himself, still hidden from view, still behind fabric, teasing you without teasing you. You should be looking down, but his hand forces you to look up, keeps your gaze locked with his. No escape, no chance to break away. Just him, just his mouth, just the way he breathes out through his nose like he already knows what you’re going to say next.
“I want you.”
“You want me?” He repeats it, tilts his head like he’s examining you, weighing something in his mind you can’t even begin to decipher. His thumb strokes over your cheek, deceptively tender. “How bad?”
It’s stitched into the fabric of your very being. You pull yourself into his lap, or more precisely, your face does, pressing against him as if that alone could keep him still, as if that alone could satisfy the ache crawling under your skin. It’s not quite veneration, not quite surrender either, but something in between, just as ruinous.
Your mouth presses to him, lips brushing against the heat trapped beneath the fabric, parting just slightly, enough to breathe him in, feel the shape of him through the layers still in your way, letting him settle against your cheek as if in supplication. You don’t move fast. No, you make a meal out of it, dragging your lips across the covered length of him, your tongue digging into the weave of his jeans, teasing yourself with what’s underneath.
Still, he says nothing. Still, he waits, watches, lets you take your time ruining him.
You rock against him, slow, teasing, pressing your mouth to the shapes, dragging your lips down, down, down, stretching the torment, letting the taste of lint bloom over your tongue where he should be instead. His cock twitches against his own palm, straining against the tightness, and you can hear the way chest expands with every inhale, fire in his hand where it hovers, just above your head, caught between pulling you closer and pushing you away.
Slow. Slow. You could drag this out forever if he let you.
His hands twitch, fingers flexing and unfurling, knuckles tight. Not from fear. Not fear. Never fear. Just the unbearable, teeth-gritting act of holding back.
Restraint.
You know restraint. You know how it trembles before it snaps. He’s always on the edge, always so…always so fucking composed. And oh, you want to break him, to unmake him.
You push him past it. That’s what you do.
So you lick at the fabric, mouthing at the outline like you could taste him through it. He’s already hard, there, and you relish in how it pulses against your cheek as his fingers tremble against your skull. You drag your tongue over the ridge of him, feel the fabric grow damp where you linger, watch as the darkened patches cling obscenely to the skin beneath.
Oh, how it clings.
It sticks, it molds, and you can see the shape of him in excruciating detail. You watch it all unfold. You can’t stop looking, can’t stop aching for the taste of skin instead of cloth, heat instead of barriers. Your teeth press lightly, a teasing little bite that has him sucking in a sharp breath through his nose, hands shaking now, pulling at the air because they have nothing else to hold onto that could be enough.
You mouth over him again, tasting everything but what you want, and you know it’s driving him mad. His fingers curl into themselves, nails biting into his palms where they want to be buried in your hair instead.
God, how you long to taste him properly.
But he’s waiting, waiting, waiting — letting you play your little game, letting you tease, like you don’t know exactly how much he’s suffering. And then…
“Enough.”
His voice cuts through the thick silence, frayed and quiet, but firm. One of those rare moments where he sounds truly desperate. Good. You want him desperate. You want him mad.
It is suffocating.
A fistful of your hair tangles between his fingers as he pulls you back. You follow with wide, hungry eyes as he — finally, finally — he shoves his pants and underwear down, pushes the fabric low enough to let himself spring free. He’s bare, he’s red, and aching, impossibly hard, and…perfect. A pearl of wetness glistens at the tip, throbbing in front of you. Ready. And you? You are already gone — your lips part, your breath catches, your fingers twitch in your lap.
You are so ready.
“Be good. Promise?”
You nod. Nod so fast, so eager, so absolutely fucking mindless, desperate for him, that if you could see yourself, really see, you might be ashamed. If you were him, you would laugh at yourself right about now, at the pathetic little motion of your head, at how utterly devoted you look, practically panting for it. You’d tease him had the roles been reversed, mock his desperation. But you aren’t him. You’re on your knees. And you are starving.
You lean in, mouth parting, tongue already reaching, and suddenly…
Before you can taste him, before you can wet your lips and take what you’ve been aching for, two fingers shove inside instead, pushing into your mouth. They press down heavy on your tongue, filling the space you left open for him and forcing you open further.
Willing lips wrap around the intrusion, letting your breath come ragged through your nose. You whimper, sucking instinctively, swallowing, eyes flickering up, waiting, always waiting for what comes next.
“Practice, okay?”
The words don’t match the way his fingers push deeper, how they nudge against the back of your throat with the kind trust that says he knows exactly how much you can take. You flick your tongue up, drag it along the calloused ridges of his skin, trying to pull another reaction out of him.
Pressure. Too much. It’s so much. It’s so much that it’s not enough.
He pushes.
He doesn’t wait for your body to adjust, doesn’t ease you into it. No, he pushes. Deeper, all at once, rough and unrelenting, until your throat clenches, deeper so your body rejects it. He wants to hear you gag — those harsh and sudden sounds you could make — and you gag so hard it rips out from you, too raw to be anything but real. Your throat contracts, instinct rebelling against instinct, and heat pricks in your eyes, hot and embarrassing, but you keep yourself open, keep yourself pliant.
He likes you this way, and God, you like him liking you this way. He scrapes against the soft heat of your mouth, his fingers unrelenting, not quite cruel, but far from kind.
But he doesn’t stop.
Doesn’t ease up. Doesn’t coo soft words of comfort like he sometimes does. That’s why it’s only sometimes.
It spills over, running tracks down your flushed cheeks, and still, you don’t pull away. You take it, all of it, because you know what he wants, because you know what this means.
His nails bite at the corners of your mouth, scratching the soft flesh of your inner cheeks as he withdraws, dragging over your tongue, your teeth, your lips, slow and messy — a sharp little reminder left behind in the raw sting of where he’s been.
Red-eyed and ruined, that’s how you blink up at him as spit-slick fingers glisten between you.
His other hand catches a stray tear rolling down your face — you don’t even realise you’re crying, not until his thumb is under your eye, sliding. He collects the bead, pressing it into your lip, smearing salt into spit.
Then, low, dark, a whisper made of iron, “Next time you tell me what to do, remember who owns your mouth.”
And you shudder, shudder, not from cold, but from him. His voice, his hands, his presence wrapped around you like a vice. A shiver rolls down your spine, something electric and unbearable rattling down to your bones.
Tears run cold. Your skin runs too hot to feel them. Your body is burning, but your cheeks are wet, and somehow, your brain can’t tell the difference.
“Can I?” you choke on nothing, on air thick with his absence, your throat already anticipating the shape of him. “I’ll be good.”
“Yeah?” he cooes, soft, low, harsh in its gentleness. The kind of cruelty only he could manage, that soft-petting sadism of someone who knows how much you want to obey.
“Please?”
No need to answer. Verbalise it. The closing of his eyes, exhaling like he is about to fall asleep in your hands, and the bringing of a palm to your cheek with a feather-light slap are enough. Not forceful, either. Just enough to say: Go ahead. Take me. Permission handed over like a knife.
You take. God, how you take.
How long have you waited? How many nights alone, heat between your legs a pale imitation of what his hips, his voice, his weight would feel like? How many imaginary versions of this moment and all past ones have you played in your head? None of them were this good. None of them accounted for the shiver in his thighs or the way his lashes flutter like he’s seeing stars behind them.
He fits. Perfectly. Like you were made for this. For him.
And he tries to be stoic. To keep his posture straight, like his knees aren’t faltering under the quickening of your rhythm, like your mouth isn’t dragging the soul right out of him inch by inch. But you feel it. The tremors. He can’t fool you. And the fact that he tries? That makes you grin around him. Makes you dig deeper.
A drowning man holding on to a lifeline with your name embroidered in gold thread.
“Hey.” he breathes out, unsteady. “Hey.” He tries again, a little more urgent this time.
You look up at him with hollowed cheeks, lips stretched, chin wet, like an offering placed on the altar of his undoing.
“Slow down.” he rasps, but it’s too late.
You’re already past the point of no return. Your eyes burn, wide and locked on his, daring him. Daring him to have you. Daring him to finish.
You take him deeper instead.
“Fuck-”
His voice is rough, and still you take him deeper. Because fuck you means thank you in a language only the two of you speak. Because slow down is a challenge, not a request. Because he said can I? once, too, in a whisper you pretended not to hear, and this is your answer — yes, yes, yes, again and again with your mouth.
He traces your jaw with the tip of his finger — you think he would have done it with his tongue had it not been so far away — then wraps his hand around your throat, just to see what you’ll do.
No, not to hurt.
To watch how your breath changes, how your eyes flicker like the flame of a candle disturbed. To feel the way your pulse flutters beneath the pad of his thumb, as if your heart is trying to reach him from the inside out.
“Tell me to stop.” he murmurs, though his voice barely passes for human now. It sounds fractured. His breath is questionable. It’s like something breaking in real time.
You drag his hand higher, your knuckles brushing his wrist, guiding him with a strange movement. Tighter. Don’t you dare, that meant. Don’t ruin this by giving me the option to leave.
The feeling of his fingers around your throat is the only promise he’ll make. The kind that buries you under desire. You’re not begging, not exactly, but the way you grind against him speaks volumes. You push into him. You would never tell him to stop, never. Not when it feels like your very bones are in sync with every move he makes.
He tells you to sit still, which you already are — perfectly still, like prey just before the pounce. You perhaps already know what he’ll do next. You’ve seen it in his stance before. Braced wide, muscles taut, jaw clenched as though chewing on the thought of it before it happens. His control is on a knife’s edge — a single breath too deep might send it all collapsing — but his feet are too solidly set on the ground for this to stay civilised, as it has been, if you could call this civilised at all…
And that thought, it…it makes you feel dizzy.
You would have smirked — some wicked, knowing little thing — had it not been for the way he fills you, the risk of teeth scraping against the most delicate of matters, the throat sealed around him like it was built to hold the shape of him, breaths running out, and dignity being abandoned entirely.
So, you tie your wrists, invisibly, to his, and keep your hands around your own neck, pushing his harder into your throat, until it almost hurts — almost desperate for it to hurt. The pressure, the delicious squeeze that turns your vision to static and makes the blood rush in your ears. You want him to push harder, deeper, to see if it’ll break you this time. It feels like it might.
He slaps your face once more — just to remind you.
Then he drives his cock inside your mouth with a patience so slow it borders on torment, every inch, a carefully measured violation. His fingers tangle in your hair, not for aesthetics. He forgets how to breathe. His hand clenches around your throat as he picks up the pace, each thrust more demanding than the last. It’s methodical, or rather…precise.
You can’t look away from the way he watches you, his eyes lost in the firestorm of it all.
He holds your head steady and thrusts.
He begs for forgiveness.
Yours, maybe…but what does he need forgiveness for? You don’t have anything to forgive him for. He’s done no wrong, at least not in your eyes. In your mind, this is exactly how it’s meant to be — how it should always be. And all the others, the ones that might be watching from above, from the corners of the room, from the places that matter the least — well, you’re in too deep for them to matter at all. All that exists is the two of you, lost in this mess of need, hunger, and desire.
God has long since shut the door.
You keep taking.
You take as if it’s your right. As if you’ve waited centuries for this moment and you will not be denied it now. Swallowing him down as if he’s the only thing that’s ever tasted real.
Your body moves with his, a perfect rhythm of control and abandon, both of you gasping, breaking, losing pieces of yourselves with every moment. There’s no shame left, not when you’re this far gone. You hear his name, your own voice betraying the madness he’s left in you.
And when he finally whimpers, “Please.” like it’s the first word to ever come out of his mouth, you pull off enough to spit all around him — the filth, the worship — slickness coating him, and whisper with cracked lips, “Give it to me. Come in my mouth.”
His hands are rough, his thrusts ruthless, but somehow — impossibly so — you make him gentler with every second. You make him softer than he ever meant to be, softer than he’s ever let himself be. This, this is what stokes your desire and fills you until you feel stretched thin with it, until you could burst, the way you break him without saying a word. You make him see you, see how you hold him in your mouth, how you’ve always wanted this — wanted him. To feel him unravel in your hands, to have him so completely that nothing will ever come between the two of you.
You wonder if you could stay here forever. You wonder if this would ever be enough.
“I’m gonna-”
Break me open, you wish to tell him, but you don’t. You couldn’t. You’re full of him, and still wanting.
You don’t want him to put you back together. Not ever.
Your only dying wish is for him to let you stay wrecked, stay aching, stay his. To see what you see. To finally make him understand how fucking beautiful he is like this — undone, desperate, a trembling thing in your hands. To know this is what the two of you were built for: not peace, but this slow, holy destruction.
If only he could see how perfect you are, how only the two of you can be.
He doesn’t finish the sentence. Not because he doesn’t mean it, but because it doesn’t need to be said. It’s written the tremors of his body, hips stutter against your mouth like he’s malfunctioning. A machine built to desire and desire only you. You, the mouth that won’t quit. The eyes that don’t look away. The hands that hold him like scripture, trembling with belief.
You close your eyes, but only to feel him more clearly. To take him in like a sacrament. The muscles in your thighs tense, your stomach flutters with something carnal and holy. He tastes like he was meant to be swallowed — like your body already knows him. Like your throat was made for him. Your hands press against his thighs now, not for leverage, but to remind him: you’re not going anywhere.
“Oh God-”
You’ve claimed this. You’re his altar, and he’s come to pray.
And when it’s over, when his body stills and softens but the world still sways, he looks down at you, wrecked and just perfectly content. You wipe your lips with the back of your hand like you’re sealing that promise, and he watches you as if you’ve just ruined him in the best way a person can be ruined.
There is no going back.
There is no version of him now that doesn’t want to live in your mouth, in your hands, in your eyes forever.
And somewhere inside you, that thought settles like a seed in your belly: He’s mine. Even if he runs. Even if he denies it. Even if you never speak of this again. He’ll carry the ghost of your mouth with him.
Everywhere.
He falls asleep against your shoulder after you fuck him later that night, more than just his mouth — and only after he took you for himself — to make the most of the freedom lent by the absence of the sun. You have invaded him, and now you’re in every cell of him. If he cuts himself, you will flow and pour from him. You wonder if your name would spell out in the blood. If your breath might still fog the inside of his chest. You don’t know what to make of that.
You stare at the ceiling, bare and blank like a body ready to be written on, already thinking about next time, for a long time, before your head settles on top of his and you go down under.
You wake late in the night with a hangover — though you don’t remember any substances being involved, other than the slippery ones, the secretions and sweat, the wine of skin — lending a gauzy distance to your senses. You feel hollow and aching, like you’ve been emptied and then filled again with something not quite yours, which, well, in the grand scheme of things, you were.
Tender and raw.
Your fingers still smell like him, you notice, when you go to scratch at your nose. Skin oils, salt, that peculiar male sweetness that only lives between his legs.
You came so hard you bit your own shoulder in contortion, earlier, before it had even begun, the main act of the night. You were tasting him on your tongue, that part of him, the sweetest one, your reward and your ruin, and your fist worked mindlessly between your thighs, where he couldn’t see — for he was on his knees before you — and you couldn’t either, because your eyes were glued to the arch of his back. The tension in his spine. The constellations of moles and scars and freckles you’ve memorised. You ran your hand along his spine and felt his sweat break through in real time, the pulse of him under your palm, alive, alive, alive.
You’re not sorry. Still.
You’d do it again.
You will do it again.
You’ll moan again if he dares to move in this unconscious state. A twitch of his thigh, the adjustment of his cheek against your chest, and you’d be whimpering into the night like a dog in need of affection. But no — he’s sleeping, and you risk a small kiss on his head to release this wave of warmth that threatens to drown you. It breaks out of you before you can catch it — this terrifying, humbling tenderness. A small liberty. Your little boy.
It’s hard to sit here, so close to him — feeling him, hearing him, smelling him, smelling like him — and not kiss him everywhere. Harder still to resist the urge to wake him just to say, Look at me. Just once more.
In the morning, he reaches for you again. You let him. You always let him. You wonder — is something meaningful only because you can remember it? Or is it meaningful because, in a manner of speaking, you are leaving it, even as it happens? Leaving the moment, the feeling, the warmth. Leaving all the memories you have, leaving everything, and still choosing to return. You ask yourself that, almost every time, after a night like this.
He makes you feel it in the early hours, those strange liminal hours barely coloured by the first dim washes of light — a time when the world doesn’t yet exist, when only bodies and breathing matter. Your legs still shake from the memory of him inside you. Your fingers press between your sticky sticking-together bodies, tangled thighs, and still find him there, even though he’s long since slipped out of you. A ghost of him, lingering. Long dried traces of a love so loud it left stains.
You would phrase him in what you keep silent, every night, but you don’t know how. You try — God, how you try — but when you put pen to page, either it breaks, or bends, or bleeds. Your thoughts drown in the abyss of ink and memories and feeling. You would phrase him in thousands of phrases. You would write him in marrow. You would sew the infinite thread of words on your lips, let them come undone only for him, but instead they fray, fall, falter, lost in rivers of anguish. Perhaps that’s why he stays the artist and you the art.
Your lips tremble with it. With love. With longing for it. When you open your mouth to bring his presence back, to make him remember these tender special moments too, only strangled hiccups come out.
So you say nothing.
You whisper nothing.
You sing nothing.
What good are words when all you want to do is bleed into him?
He never asks. He, too, is afraid. Maybe because he already knows.
Since when did he want you to be his slave and he your God? And through him nothing, no one and nothing else, just you, you possess him like a sweet heresy. Blasphemy.
It’s a heavy love.
But it is yours.
And you’d carry it to your grave if he asked.
And maybe even if he didn’t.
a/n: I can’t believe I used a bible verse for this. It really, really fits though :) You, you, you…
it's just the way it changes, like the shoreline and the sea
MALE reader. sub al <3 feelings ; sex ; issues ; tears [ implied unhealthy lifestyles + alcohol is mentioned ]
Going to a party with Alex usually meant standing by his side and observing other people, since you were not much of a party animal. Neither was he, yet he would still find a way to vanish into thin air suddenly if you forgot to keep him close. Uncomfortably close.
This was one of those rare occasions when you two hadn't arrived at the party together, and your first time seeing him after a couple of months of separation was not planned, or even expected. You spent the entire night studying him from afar.
You noticed how he wasn't drinking a lot. Perhaps because he planned on having something worse than a glass of tequila the next day, so he was balancing it out, but you felt warmth spreading through your chest as one of his – friends? – called out your name, and you saw heat creeping into Alex's face when someone joked about you ogling him from across the room.
"Just making sure he isn't getting into any trouble, that's all," you joked back dryly, since that's what you were supposed to do, for some reason. And because you had missed seeing Alex's face break into a smile.
You loved how his eyes would crinkle when he smiled or moved his mouth around a guttural phrase in one of his songs, and it hit you later on, when he stared up at you, eyes half-lidded and brimming with tears as your fingers held his tongue down, only then did the word come to you.
Pretty.
Not that you had never thought of him as a good-looking man before, far from it, but as he knelt at your feet, pushed his flushed face up against your calf, silently begging you to tug on his greasy hair, you realised just how precious moments like this were, and how often you'd find yourself nostalgic because of them.
His deep, growly voice reduced to soft whimpers, pathetic little huffs as you scraped your blunt nails down his hips. Slick and filthy, all over from hair pomade, sweat, the sloppy kisses you pressed just below his ribs and into his inner thighs. His stomach, supple and thick right where the hem of his boxers peeked out of his jeans.
He was divine. Simple as that.
Pretty, pretty.
Now, where did that word come from?
In the middle of that tasteless party, a girl had come up next to you, leaning against your shoulder and smiling as she followed the line of your nearly unfocused gaze.
"Your friend's really pretty," she said, pointing her nose up at Alex, who seemed lost in an awkward conversation with someone you couldn't even recognise.
Feeling her fingers softly curling in the hem of your jacket sleeve, seeing she had an unlit cigarette balanced perfectly between her lips – already stained cherry pink with her lipstick. It came naturally to ignore the strange feeling her small comment had given you. You simply pulled a Zippo out of your pocket.
But it never left your mind. When you and Alex left the party, somehow still together and respectively sober — you brought it up. Curious.
"Some girl at the party said you're pretty."
He put on his signature grin, a makeshift form of mischief gleaming in his eyes like a promise. "You sound surprised."
You scoffed. "I don't think she recognised you, Al."
His expression flickered back to an unreadable one. "What'd you say to her?"
"Not much, till she asked something else, and then I just said you weren't looking for anything. She was nice about it, though. Nice overall."
Alex regretted being sober. "Lying to strangers 'cause of me, I see."
"There was nothing else to do," you said, before laughing to hopefully ease up the tension. "You've got some boring friends, mate. I don't know why I keep... going back."
Alex hummed, slowing his steps. His gaze travelled around the sky, and the moon reflected in his eyes was almost there — burrowing beneath his eyelashes, hiding. Then he smiled again, like that yellowish little circle hanging high and dry above you two actually gave him an idea.
"What'd you want to say, then?"
"What?" You slowed your steps, too.
"If you hadn't been one of my boring friends, what would you've said to her?"
That was it. Time stopped, replacing the future with something plunged right out of your late-night mirages.
The second you got in Alex's bedroom, nothing seemed to matter. Time bent and coiled like reed stems in your hands. He found himself perched on your lap and pushing you back, too proud for his own good, so you nudged him playfully until he toppled over. Falling from your lap, where he had been hoping to keep circling his hips. He stifled a complaint when he realised he had hit his forehead against something solid, – your elbow? – and you scrambled to grab a hold of his waist.
"Baby?"
You tucked his mussy hair behind his ears. Smiling at the sideburns. His eyes fluttered open. Wide, hungry, unforgiving. Stubborn tears threatened to spill down his cheeks.
Something tightened deep inside your stomach at the sight. The rawness of it irresistible and nearly suffocating. And not even then did that word come to you, since all you had the chance to do was to stare at his pouty face a moment longer before he lunged at you.
His futile attempts at pretending to be angry with you died down soon enough because you weren't playing along. No, you kept doing what he feared the most. You unbuttoned his shirt and pressed tender little kisses into his collarbones. All smooth skin and divots only deepening as his shoulders curled inwards, the unfamiliar— nostalgic sensation of your breath tickling his chest had him lightheaded.
Long gone was that dirty look he had earlier, and as you rubbed your thumb over the darkening circle under his eye, you saw it all.
"Oh, c'mon, love. You're fucking me up. What'd you have to look so goddamn innocent for?"
Alex narrowed his eyes at that, like he was going to get defensive. "'m not innocent. Just not used to it."
"To what?"
He huffed. "Don't act like you've got a name for whatever this is."
You grabbed both of his wrists. Pushed them together and held him close, just like that. Uncomfortably close.
"I've got a name for everything, and I don't think you'd like hearing about it," you said. Alex frowned. "God, I forgot how stubborn you get when nobody's been fucking you properly in a while."
He tested if your grip around his wrists was strong enough.
"D'ya have a name for me too, Mr—?"
You shut him up this time. Kissed him until he started pawing at your shoulders, like he had any right to be the one expecting more, begging for attention. Like he wouldn't easily go cold turkey on you and disappear the next morning. He had done that before. Left you with nothing more than a couple of bite marks and a strange little Zippo lighter. It was empty, too.
Pretty, pretty, pretty.
He shut his eyes tightly as you coaxed him onto his stomach, turning into putty in your hands when you pressed down on the prominent line of his spine, whispering a soft, "Can you arch better for me, love?" And if he had been doing a good job of keeping his emotions at bay all night, he couldn't do it anymore after you brushed your knuckles against the short hair on the back of his neck, and told him just how good he was for letting you do this again. Whatever this was. Frisson ran through his entire body, nearly touching his heart, too. Now, that would have been too much, even for him.
With the position Alex was in — hips lifted and face down, — he easily muffled his noises, no doubt drooling on his pillow a bit indecently and acting too much like a messy little thing. You marvelled at the soft curve of his waist, at how effortlessly your hand slid down his back. Your touches were gentle to keep him pliant, but firm enough to have him gasping sharply, twisting his head to the side to look at you over his shoulder.
You didn't pull away or pause your movements after he had come all over his tummy. Even given you a drawn-out whine and one of those adorable keens. You just pressed your mouth against his temple, breathing him in.
You gently helped him turn onto his back. Desperately needing to see his face more than you had ever needed anything in your life. His bitten lips, sticky eyelashes, cheeks shiny and rosy from sobbing a bit too hard.
The colour, or rather the soft glow of relief, looked almost angelic on him. You leaned in closer, asking quietly, "feeling alright, baby?"
Alex nodded, a small grin tugging on his lips as he saw you staring at him, all awestruck and worried. Stupid, he thought, then nodded once more for good measure. The way he looked almost shy again was doing something horrible to you. It wasn't just Alex and his unpredictability. You could barely recognise yourself.
"Yeah," you said, burying your face in his neck for a brief moment. "That's just what you do, then, hmm? But I knew that already."
He smiled. Toothy and sheepish.
"No idea what you're talking about."
You smoothed his petulant frown over with your thumb and wiped his tears away, too. There wasn't much left, most of it had dried already, leaving nearly invisible tracks on his cheeks and a telltale pink colour in his eyes. "Of course," you said, playing along this time. "I don't mind. I've got you."
Alex sighed in response, letting his fingers touch your chin. He wanted to touch you again, but didn't know how. The frenzy was over. In fact, his bones were aching, and he was starting to dread the filthiness surrounding him. It had reached something deep inside him, something that wasn't even meant to be acknowledged, let alone loved. He tapped your chin.
"You don't mind now. But you will," he said.
"I won't."
"You can't know that."
"And you can?"
"Yes," he grinned. "I can do everything, really..."
"Can you do something for me then, sweetheart?"
Almost hesitantly, he nodded.
"Don't let me miss you like this again, because if you do, I won't go about it the long way. I'll just tell 'em you're even prettier with tears framing that little snarl—"
"No, you won't."
"You can't know that," you said, sitting back.
"Well, I know you."
"Then act like it, baby."
Alex went actually quiet. He heard you whisper something about running him a bath. Jokingly promising to carry him if his bones were truly aching that badly — God, did he say that out loud? — But it wasn't really a joke when you asked if he still wanted the chocolate muffins he wouldn't shut up about during the ride home, and all he gave you was a sleepy nod.
He moved back onto his belly, not caring about the filth anymore. Giddy. Pleasantly turbid happiness scratching him like a lungful of daffodils. Blinking slowly. Already missing the solace he knew he'd find in the warm feeling of your weight pinning him down. He shivered.
A/N: the caption is from Hey, That’s No Way to Say Goodbye by Leonard Cohen. <333 tried writing masc reader since everybody (goblin) seemed to want that ... let's hope it's not bad. Mwah.
Imma be real i don't know anything about your interests i just saw your post about Arthur Morgan x male readers and wanted to say you are NOT alone... I have already read all the ones Tumblr has... 😭😭
Me too. I’ve genuinely scoured the deepest corners of this place and apparently only like 3 people write them😭
kaledo-art
origamiaround
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