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[honeyblackberries]

needing a fresh start but keeping this up for past reblogs and in case anyone likes the stuff posted here ♡

mdni 🔞 contains nsfw | note: this blog interacted with dark content ! view at your own risk ! | no AI writing and don't use my work for anything AI ❌

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[honeyblackberries]

replaced yandere (swampman paradox) x gn reader

He looked odd underneath the flickering bulb that barely lit the dim hallway to his flat. The hospital room that had been housing him for the last few months made everything look just a bit off, so neither of you really noticed how his eyes were darker, features sharper. But not in the chiseled model way. More evolutionary—like how carnivorous animals are made more angular as opposed to their prey counterparts. 

He initially chucked the reasoning up to the sudden weight loss, the healing bones, bruises yet to fade. A “Freak Accident” is what the elderly nurse had called it, a chatty thing. Her voice filling the air when he woke up blearily eyed and body sore like he had just been put through a hydraulic press. He supposed getting crushed between the cab of a semitruck and the side of a mountain would be the closest thing to it.

Phrases like “Lucky young man” and “By god’s grace” were uttered more than twice. Did he know that she prayed for him at the hospital chapel? She does it for all her patients, and the roadkill she sees on the way home, rather saintly of her if she must say. Oh, but close to her in sainthood was the sweet thing laying with their cheek pressed against your hand on the hospital bed, passed out from sorrowful exhaustion and slightly damp with drying tears. 

“Been here the moment news of the accident broke, stayed right by you like a guardian angel.”

The memory made him feel itchy, so much so that he’d been distracted enough to hit his head squarely on the front doorway as he tried to step through it. The place had always been small and shitty so he’d have to bend down to fit, but it had become an involuntary action at this point, never needing to consciously think to lower his head.

He felt hungrier too, or rather, not so much hunger but an emptiness in his gut. Probably a side effect of the weight loss as well, the lack of his usual high protein diet leaving him wanting for more. But no that’s not right, that would mean he should be lacking in strength not feeling an abundance of it.

Your favourite mug lay shattered on the counter, he’d just grabbed it as roughly as he normally would—gentleness never having come naturally to him—yet this is the first time something of yours actually breaks in his hands. 

“Its just part of relearning your motor skills,” his physiotherapist had boredly explained during one of their sessions. But that didn’t seem right either. Physical injuries don't give, they take.

It must be PTSD. Some wires crossed wrong when his life flashed before his eyes. Good people see the light at the end of the tunnel, he sees dark blotches swirling behind his eyes; wakes up to screams he thought were yours at first, but his hoarse throat shows otherwise. It’s unnaturally cold and he feels naked like his skin has been peeled off, a mass of fleshy tender bits exposed for the vultures to pick at. 

You’re especially warm during nights like these, a grounding presence when he slowly starts to lose himself. He’s become needier now—if that’s even the right word for it. Thoughts turning from what he is to what he has. What he can’t lose. 

“Where would I go?”, you mumbled as you rubbed his cold sweat covered back. “Who would take me away?”

He might be going mad. Screws actually loose. Looking at Reddit forums, consulting Dr Google for a prognosis that actually makes sense. He’s not sure how he ended up on some abandoned blog from the early internet, reading the incoherent ramblings of some nutcase who was surprisingly worse off than him, a real sad fucker.

“I’ve Been Replaced!!!.” Every word capitalised, three exclamation marks to show the gravity of it. “Everyone says I should be dead, but I’m not.” Okay yeah buddy, you’re not the first. “I’m me but I’m also not me. I’m the same but different, like I've been cloned and replaced. Oh god maybe it’s Lycanthropy—” …Dumbass.

As he wonders if he should go back to therapy instead of skimming the edges of tinfoil hat wearing, moon landing hoax circles, a comment below the post stands out.

“Dude get some help, idiots should chill with the philosophical BS. All you’re doing is shittily applying the Swampman Paradox [Link].”

Maybe he’s the real dumbass for clicking on that link and subsequently spending the next four hours reading academic think-pieces when he barely finished secondary education. He may not be as well read as you but this is curious. Donald Davidson’s Swampman, a perfect replica of his memories, thoughts, feelings, down to his very atoms, but lacking in any real experiences that would facilitate the existence of such things.

“Is that what truly defines a person? The intangible we hold within ourselves,” you’d asked offhandedly after he showed you what he was reading. 

“If it were the case, what of those who suffer memory loss—neurocognitive disorders like amnesia or dementia—are they not the same person who had existed within their bodies and lives up until the point of no longer having any recollection of it?”

Even as the nightmares get worse, the physical symptoms turning him grotesque—to himself at least, it’s his thoughts that really scare him. Violent, brutal, possessive, with you right at the centre. A little pin cushion he wants to stab all these abstractions into. But it’s not hate, he can puzzle out that much, he could never have any thought or feeling remotely close to that when it comes to you. Perhaps it’s want, the opposite end of the spectrum, a want he doesn’t have the words for. That seems right.

The both of you are out of the house today, for the first time in a long while. Even if he may be “settled in” now, his space consists of just the two of you. In order to properly “readjust” he needs to get out, remember that the world is bigger than you.

That’s not right. 

He watches you from across the room—some small bookstore or was it a cafe, he doesn’t care all the same—and it’s here where something akin to grief finds him. In the middle of a sunlight room on a beautiful day. His brain suddenly conjures up the articles he'd read, the stupid Swampman clone thing. Alright fine, if he entertains the hypothesis that he really isn’t who he believes he is then what? What is he? What does he have to grasp onto? What of his life, his dingy flat, his—you? If you’re not his then he never had anything to begin with.

That thought has resentment taking root, but not at you, never at you. Resentment at the world, at the ‘him’ or whoever it was that took up his place before. If ‘he’ never got into that crash, never swapped places, then it wouldn’t hurt right now. He wouldn't feel the overwhelming loss of something that could never be his. He wouldn't worry about the secret he's hiding, the one that if true, could stop dead the way you look at him.

Light skims across your skin making you look like a mirage. His gaze holds you, confines your form within, even his eyes unwilling to let you go. He doesn't realise how predatory his stare becomes. So depthless and full of something that’s been hidden between the cracks in the walls, in the heat of the truck's headlights, in the old mountain that witnessed a death. 

Your voice comes through tinged with worry, dragging him out of the depths of wherever he had lost himself in. "Are you feeling okay? We've been out quite a while, do you wanna go home?"

“Yeah," he hopes you don't notice how strained that sounded. How his hands tremble a little as he intertwines your fingers and holds on tighter than he ever used to.

[honeyblackberries]

military man x fem reader nsfw (MDNI)

He was hesitant at first, to take you in his arms right when he got home after his initial deployments. Didn’t feel the need to embrace you with all the dirt still clinging to him, a bath first, that was the proper order of things. He didn’t like the thought of tracking mud into your shared flat like a farm dog who had just finished rolling in the pig pen.

His barrack mates would tease him about it, joke about how his lady trained him well. How unlike him, the moment they were through the front door, pants would drop and heated kisses would be exchanged before steps could be made through the entryway. Wives and girlfriends left mewling like cats in heat and being taken on the hardwood floor no different to one.

He thought it rather crass back then. To lose composure and be reduced to some animalistic need. Sure he missed you dearly but what were six to nine months away from you in the grand scheme of things? He knew he’d always be back in your shared bed by the end of it, the right location for a proper romp.

Oh how silly he was to have been so church boy formalist.

He’s not sure what caused it, one particularly long and grueling mission or each year beating down on him heavier than the last, it didn’t matter either way. All he knew was that this time—before sweet words welcoming him back could even leave your lips—his tongue was in your mouth as he full body crowded you against the wall. 

It wasn’t enough. 

Belongings were dropped and his grasp was all over you. Roughly pawing to have you straddled on his thigh. Thick muscles bumping against your clit as he lifted you, maneuvering you higher so your faces could be levelled.

Why did he feel almost too big to kiss you? When had he gotten larger, loved harder.

It was close to depravity the way he mouthed against you, wet and hot across your jaw, neck, shoulders. Buried his face in your breasts, lifted your shirt up and fit one in his mouth. Sucked on it till you were sore and tender only to do the same to the other.

He felt when a wet patch started to form underneath you, when your thighs clenched onto his. A reminder of your full weight being held up by him. He made a mental note to bury his face in them next. Suck and sink his teeth in. The thought was savoury, enough to have him push till you were pelvis to pelvis. Rubbed his hardened dick against you till he felt like he could cum from the feeling alone.

Somewhere beyond the animal part of his brain he registers the sounds you made, the not-words trying to form sentences. When he looked up, your eyes looked bigger, doe like in the haze of his hunger. He imagined the way they’d look at him as he busted a load on your face. Cum dripping down to the hardwood floor.

Now whenever he comes home from a mission, the first thing he does is fuck you.

insert character: simon riley, konig, carlos olivera, chris redfield, leon kennedy

[bucksfucks]

𝐚𝐝𝐚𝐦 𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐭

what wolves fear | series

a lonely cottage, a girl the villagers whisper about, and the creature who guards her door each night.

steam & soft hands | standalone [part of what wolves fear universe]

you indulge in a bath while Adam is out hunting. He thinks you're gone when he can't immediately find you, he just wants to worship you.

now, run | standalone

adam chases reader through the forest after she saves victor from the monster, until adam decides he's done playing with victor and wants to play with her, instead.

but i would kill for you | standalone

adam would kill for you. you beg him not to. he obeys and asks for one thing in return; you.

anatomy of mercy | series

sent north in search of knowledge, you instead find a man entombed in ice—one the world insists on calling a monster. As the Royal Society closes in and restraint becomes a choice rather than a chain, love grows in the narrow space between devotion and violence, where understanding is not safety, but defiance.

[yanderedrabbles]

The Fisherman and The Starwife

There was a sea at the edge of the world. And a fisherman who tried to catch moonlight. And a bride who was plucked right out of the sky. Do you care to hear their story?

It started on a cold night at the edge of the world. Nights were almost always cold in that place where the land falls away forever, but this was a freezing night even by those standards. The sea churned with shards of ice and the waves chimed like rolling glass.

A fisherman was getting ready to cast his lines. And though most fisherman in most parts of the world are busiest at dawn and dusk, this particular man did all his work in the very dead of night.

The nets he cast weren't like any a normal sailor would know. They were woven out of glass - each string made up of hundreds, thousands of clear beads. For this fisherman wasn't concerned with salmon or roe but with another sort of quarry entirely.

This fisherman was fishing for moonlight.

Moonlight was perhaps the most elusive thing to catch. It poured over the land but couldn't be speared or hooked or trapped. Just one pearl of moonlight was considered a king's ransom. Five pearls was enough to buy a man a kingdom. Ten would keep his children and his children's children fed and wealthy for centuries.

But fishing for moonlight was dangerous too. The only place it could be caught was at the very edge of the world, where the sea and sky were so close they almost touched. And the sea here was rough, not just with waves that grew wilder every hour, but with sea bears and moon hounds that could flip a warship with just a flick of their tails.

The fisherman knew all this. He'd seen countless men come and die in their attempts to catch moonlight. Their bodies swallowed by the ice sea, faces blue and bloodless as they sunk below the waves.

The fisherman knew the dangers, but he still went out every night in his tar bottomed boat. For the fisherman had a secret. A way to calm the waves and the water beasts alike.

(And oh, it was a secret costly bought. He'd traded ten years of his life to a sea hag for it and considered it a fair deal).

The fisherman knew the tune of the sea. Each night he would recline in his boat after casting his lines, and unwrap his pan flute from its oilskin. He would play the notes as the sea hag taught him - soft and sweet like the tide crawling out, sharp like the crack of lightning on the waves, mournful as the open ocean.

The sea would listen, and finally calm. The sea bears would dive deep and dream of arctic caves. The wind would cease its mourning. When the fisherman played his flute, all the beasts in the sea silenced their queer voices to hear it.

On this night, the moon was full and bright. Her daughters, the stars, reflected their icy beauty off the water. His music drifted far in the quiet and tonight even more so.

In the spreading canvas of the night sky, one star leaned down to better hear the music.

It was like nothing you'd ever heard before. It wasn't the subtle, tinkling music of the night sky. It wasn't the sweet song of the moon. It was mournful and wild, and you were so focused on it that you didn't feel yourself slipping until it was too late.

A scream. And a spash. And in the span of a breath, a star fell straight out of the sky and into the sea.

The fisherman sat up with a start, and without thinking, reached into the water and hauled you onto his boat.

At first he didn't know what he was looking at. Your hair was soaked and the beads in your hair shone so bright they hurt his eyes. He couldn't understand it - not even with all the strange things he'd seen. How could a girl suddenly appear in place so lonely and remote? Did you fall from the sky?

You sat shivering at the bottom of his boat, too stunned by your fall to realise where you were. And oh, you were the most beautiful creature he'd ever laid eyes on.

In that moment, the fisherman had a choice.

You were dazed and soaking wet. Anything he did to you, you wouldn't be able to fight back. He still had his nets and ropes; he could grab you and take to shore, could force you to be his wife. He was handsome, but strange in his ways and dreams. He didn't have a wife or a lover or even the memory of one. No one would be surprised if he caved to his loneliness and stole whatever good fortune came his way.

For a long, painful moment he was tempted. It would be so lovely to have a warm bed and a warm body waiting for him after a cold, dangerous night. He worked so hard for so little - didn't he deserve a reward?

Instead, he pulled off his oilskin and draped it around your shoulders.

"Be still," he said softly. "Breathe deeply. I will take us back to shore and build you a fire. You won't be cold for long."

You looked up at him, eyes all wide and wet. "Th-thank you."

When he reached the shore, you stumbled and fell to your knees, teeth chattering. You were a creature of starlight and shadow - your feet were never meant to touch the ground.

Carefully, for you looked to him so frail in the thin light of the moon, he picked you up. You smelled like salt and sea, but underneath it was the burning ozone smell of a fallen star. Perhaps that was when he first started to suspect what you were. That what he held in his arms wasn't built of blood and bone.

He brought you to his house and put you down on the hearth. True to his word, he stoked the fire until it roared. You put your palms out to it cautiously, for although your uncle Sun was said to be fire all the way through, you'd never actually seen something burning. Your fingers were so cold they ached and the warmth was a welcome relief.

"Here." He wrapped a blanket around you and set a mug of mulled wine in your hand. "Warm up a little. And then dry yourself off. The sea chill gets in your bones if you aren't careful."

"Wh-where am I?"

He looked at the fire and sighed. "On the shore of the hinterland sea, at the very edge of the world. I fear you're very far from home, wherever it may be."

The wine was warm and sweet, spiced with the last of his cloves and ginger. You drank and finally your teeth stopped chattering.

"Who are you?"

"I'm a fisherman."

You set the cup down carefully, still unsteady. "What is a fisherman?"

He raised his brows but answered you all the same. "Someone who catches fish. Either to sell or to eat. Often both."

You considered this. Stars lived off ether and cloud dust. You had no idea why anyone would want to eat fish of all things.

"What fish do you catch?"

"Ah, that's a difficult question." There was a gleam of amusement in his storm grey eyes. "I'm not like other fisherman. I fish for moonlight instead of animals."

"Moonlight?" That confused you. How could someone catch something so intangible? Did they eat it as well?

"Yes. If you're careful and clever, you can catch moonlight when it reaches down and touches the sea. It's a fortune made to catch even a little."

He looked at you carefully. In the firelight, it was clear you were no ordinary human. Perhaps you weren't mortal at all. As your hair dried, it took on a sheen like starlight dancing on water. Your teeth were small and sharp when you smiled, your pupils shaped like stars in the centre of your irises. It was his turn to ask a question, though he thought he already knew the answer.

"Where do you come from?"

You tilted your head liked he asked the most obvious thing in the world. "From the sky of course. Usually I'm between my sisters Astra and Vena."

He smiled and reached down to throw a log on the fire as though the third brightest star in the night sky wasn't shivering on his hearth.

"Would you like to change into some dry clothes? I haven't any dresses for you to wear, but anything is better than the wet and the cold."

"Oh, yes please."

He brought you the softest, finest shirt he owned.

"I'll wait outside until you're done."

You tilted your head again in that sharp, bird like way. "Why do you have to wait outside?"

He almost choked on his tongue before he could answer. "Because I'm a man and you're... not. It wouldn't be proper."

"But it's cold outside."

You were already dropping the blanket and the oilskin he borrowed you. Underneath it, you wore a silvery white robe that was still wet enough to be see-through. He hurriedly turned away from you, jaw clenched tight.

"It's fine. I'd rather..."

He could hear the whisper of your robe as it fell. He froze, mind racing.

"Rather what?"

Rather not be thinking of you naked in front of my fire.

"... Nevermind. It's nothing."

"You can turn around and stop clenching your hands now," you said, amused.

You were wearing his shirt, the collar gaping at your collarbones. You rubbed the hem between your fingers. "What material is this?"

"Just homespun."

He gathered your still damp robes and marvelled at the almost silk feel of them - woven so light that if it weren't for the water he'd barely feel their weight.

"I like it," you said. "It's warm."

He hung your clothes to dry on the back of a chair. "You can sleep in my bed tonight. I'll sleep by the hearth."

"Oh." You thought about it. "Is it 'not proper' to sleep together?"

Gods in Heaven have mercy.

"No," he said, carefully avoiding your eyes. "It's not proper. That's the sort of thing only a husband and wife can do."

"My mother is married to the Tide. Did you know that? He's not a very nice man."

The fisherman didn't need you to tell him how unpredictable and cruel the tide could be. He made his living by its whims.

"Have you met him?" he asked.

"Once or twice." You came to stand behind him and watched as he made the bed comfortable for you. Fluffing his meagre pillow and dusting out the blanket.

"You have very nice hands," you said. The fisherman stilled. His hands were rough from the salt and hooks and lines of his trade. They ached on bad nights. Were nicked with scars upon scars, a strata of hurts.

You reached forward and took hold of his fingers, drew them towards you. Your hands were soft as only ones untouched by labour could be. 

"You say you are a man, and that we're different. How so?"

He sighed and let you pull him towards you.

"You are from the heavens. You know nothing of cruelty or greed or love. Mankind, earth - it's not the same." He paused. "If I were another, you might be in danger around me."

You looked in his eyes - oh, you creature of starlight, one of a kind, too pure and rare for his common touch.

"My sister once fell to the earth. When she returned, she told me of love. And of lovers. Do you...have a lover?"

He smiled, rueful. "No. This is a cold, remote place. And it's a cold, remote life I've chosen for myself."

"Do you want one?"

You were still holding his hand, and he was all too aware of it. How would your hands feel, touching other parts of him?

"It doesn't matter," he finally managed to answer. "I have nothing to offer. No wealth, no great learning, no family honour."

"Oh, but you are kind. You are gentle. You saved my life and invited me into your home, asking for no thanks in return. Is the world of Man so evil, that these things mean nothing?"

"They mean less than you seem to think."

You held his palm to your cheek, tilted your head into his touch. His hands were rough as only ones knowing hard labour could be. What would they feel like, touching other parts of you?

"My mother told me a boon granted is one that must be repaid. Tell me fisherman at the end of the world, what would you have in exchange for saving my life?"

You. I would have you, girl too beautiful for even my dreams.

Instead he said, "Nought. My mother told me a kindness given should not expect to be repaid in kind. All I would have is that you recover, and return to the place you belong."

You sighed and dropped his hand. "As you will, so shall it be."

That night, you slept on a thin mattress and dreamt of the dark sea outside the door. And he slept not at all.

You were awake at the first sign of morning light. You were firmer on your feet and you made it to the door without stumbling.

The fisherman heard you and fought the urge to stand. If you wished to leave before the dawn, he wouldn't stop you. Already he'd met a creature few thought existed. He would be greedy to hope for more of you.

You didn't leave. You stood on his threshold and watched the sun rise at the edge of the world. For though you knew your uncle through stories and messages, you'd never seen him.

"Hello uncle," you said to the pink and orange sky.

"Hello niece. What are you doing upon the earth, so far from your place in heaven?"

"I grew distracted with music and fell into the sea. But a man rescued me and now here I stand."

"I would caution you, niece of mine. I rise and set each day. And each day I see Mankind's cruelty to one another. Murder and imprisonment and awful acts of lust. Linger not too long in this place, lest your man think to do what so many others before him have done."

"Oh uncle, he is not like the stories I have heard. Not like the monsters you warn me against. The earth might indeed be filled with danger, but here I think myself to be safe."

Your uncle sighed and clouds parted in great gusts. "Niece, things are never as clear as they seem. Not when you stand upon the earth. Take my advice and return to your sisters as soon as the night arrives. Your mother has seen even more than I the awful lechery of Man."

You smiled at your uncle, proud and burning creature that he was. "Thank you uncle. But this place is filled with strange and wondrous things. I can not return until I've satisfied my curiosity."

"As you say, blood of mine. But know that regardless of how we love you, neither your mother nor I can protect you when you're out of our reach. Anything that happens, you must fend off on your own."

You glanced back into the cottage, and at the fisherman sprawled on the hearth. "I am not so alone as you fear, uncle."

The fisherman could understand little of your conversation. He could not hear the sun's voice. When he heard your footsteps whispering towards him, he forced himself to hold still. Was this it? A final whispered goodbye?

You knelt at his side and brushed your knuckles against his cheekbone. "Will you wake, saviour of mine? The new day comes."

He opened his eyes. "You're still here."

"Does that displease you?"

"No!" He sat up in a hurry, eyes locked on yours. "Never. Please, stay as long you'd like."

You smiled, secretly pleased. "What do you do in the day?"

He thought for a moment. "I work at night, and the day is spent mending my nets. But you're here now. I think I'd rather show you the secrets and wonders of this place."

"You said few people come to the edge of the world. What secrets could there be?"

"Oh, plenty. All the more secret for having seldom been found."

He turned away from you and built up the fire. "It will be cold today, and the wind will be sharp. Still, would you like to see what I wish to show?"

You watched the firelight flicker across his face - lined at the eyes like he smiled too often, tanned and ruddy from the sea.

"Yes," you said, "I'd like that."

He borrowed you thick furs to wear and wrapped a scarf around your neck. Your robes had dried overnight but one glance at them was enough to know they weren't nearly warm enough.

He packed a small pack with food and wine. At the door, he held your hand while you got used to having the fine pebbles of the beach under your feet.

A cold wind was blowing from the north and stirring the patchy snow on the ground.You could almost hear a voice in it, coldly amused.

"A star so far from heaven?"

And another, softer. Pitying almost.

"Run back to your sisters, little star. The hearts of men have no room for mercy, or for you."

When the wind disappeared, so too did the voices. You leaned closer against your fisherman and let him lead you down the beach. The still rising sun painted the water orange, and the stones reflected it as a bright gold.

Oh, how many colours in this new world. How wonderful the gold, the silver, the thousand shades in between.

"Do you walk the beach often?" you asked.

"No." He sounded amused. "At least, certainly not with company."

He lead you towards a high embankment, and a narrow path crawling up it's side. He kept hold of you as you climbed, his arm steady and strong around you. The loose stones of the beach hardened to shale that crumbled if you stepped too heavily, the path growing steeper as the embankment curved around the cliffside.

The sun was well above the water when you reached the top. But oh, was it worth the effort. The view from the cliff dwarfed anything you'd seen before. The ocean stretched from one end of the horizon to the other, the water black near the shore and then lightening to a dark greenish-blue. The sun caught on the peaks of the waves, turning them aquamarine and gold.

The fisherman set out his bundle of food on a rock. Fresh bread, a thick hunk of cheese, raisins. You ate breakfast with the sea spread at your feet and the warm south wind tugging at your hair.

You pressed the cheese and raisins between two slices of bread and held it to his lips. "Try it like this. It's incredible."

He raised a skeptical brow but leaned down to eat from your hand.

"Sweet," he said, eyes crinkling with his smile.

You thought the cliff and its view was his secret, but that was far from it. After you ate, he led you to a small, hidden path carved into the cliffside. You wavered - the drop down was beyond treacherous.

He held both your hands in his and showed you how to walk down the carved steps.

"I won't let you fall. I promise."

You believed him.

The path led to a cave, its entrance little more than a gash in the cliffside. You squeezed through, not sure what to expect.

What you saw made you gasp. Your fisherman hadn't brought you to a cave at all, but to the last remains of a castle. You stood in a great hall, it's pillars carved out of the stalactites. Moss had grown over the walls and the ceiling, and the whole room glowed a deep blue.

"What is this place?"

"The barrow of a long dead king. Killed before his time, killed in vain."

Flowers were pushing up through the cracked floor tiles. Strange blue flowers that only grew in the dark. Their pollen rose in golden clouds when you passed them by.

"Oh, no place so strange and wondrous exists in the sky."

You twirled in place, your eyes on the ceiling and its strange, twisting patterns. The fisherman watched you, his heart pulling him in two different directions. Would it be so wrong to keep you? To ask you stay with him for the rest of your days?

Yes, some fierce part of him whispered back. You cannot keep a star from the sky. You think you could love her. But what sort of love is captivity?

You grabbed his hands and pulled him from his thoughts.

"Will you dance with me? My sister says palaces are filled with dancing, with music. This dead king must feel awfully lonely, with a hall so cold and quiet."

He followed you, hands slipping to your waist.

"I must warn you. I'm no king's man, to dance gracefully."

You laughed and let him twirl you in his arms.

"I don't want a king's man, nor a knight, nor a prince," you told him, "I only want you."

He caught you again, dropping you in a slow, graceful dip.

"Don't be cruel, little star," he whispered. "To give me dreams I can never have."

The night flower pollen hung in the air, dancing in patterns from your movement. The room was a mosaic of midnight blue and gold. You reached up and brushed your fingers across his lips.

"I am never cruel. I offer what I willingly give."

It would have been so easy to kiss you then. To have, even for just a moment, a love so far out of reach.

"No," he said quietly. "You're too good for me. I will not pull a star from the sky for my own satisfaction."

He put you back on your feet and let you go.

The walk home was quiet. He held you when he needed to, but his touch was light. Afraid almost.

He stoked the fire and showed you how to feed it. Showed you where the food was kept and how to slice the bread. And then he left you.

He claimed to be going fishing, but his nets and lines stayed in the corner of the room.

You watched him from the door until he was out of sight. And then you curled up on the narrow windowsill and waited for his return.

In your chest, your heart ached in a way you couldn't explain.

You asked him to take you with him that night. He hesitated, his glass nets slung over his shoulder.

"It's dangerous."

"Perhaps so, but I want to hear your music again. The sound I fell from heaven for. Will you not let me hear it once more?"

He gave in and told you to sit as still as you could, for the waves were rougher than usual. The night was clear, and as he rowed you out to sea, you sisters' voices chimed in your head.

"Little sister, why do you stay upon the earth? Your place in heaven is cold and empty."

"Little sister, does the man do you harm? Does he hold you prisoner?"

"Little sister, mother worries for you. Will you speak to her?"

"Little sister, will you not come home?"

"Soon," you promised them. "Soon."

The fisherman cast his nets and began to play his tune. And all thoughts of your sisters and your home vanished. To watch him at sea was to witness a creature in its element. Calm and careful, slow and thoughtful.

You didn't leave that night. Or the one after that. Your mother moved through her phases and still you chose to stay on the earth.

You learned how to light and keep a fire, how to mend the fisherman's lines and snares, how to bake bread and mull wine. You learned to sleep with the moon and rise with the sun.

"Oh niece," you uncle sighed, "I fear this love will be your undoing."

"Love? Is that what I feel? This aching in my heart?"

"Love indeed. Why else would a star choose to be a fishwife?"

At first, your fisherman tried to keep his distance. But you were persistent in your questions, in your conversation, in following him wherever he went.

Finally he caved. Started speaking to you without holding himself back, started taking his meals with you. He was careful not to touch you, and perhaps even more careful not to let you touch him. It was friendship, companionship - but always tinged with longing. You would sometimes catch him watching you, eyes sad as the sea.

Each night your fisherman would tell you a story. Both of you sitting on the hearth rug, his hands carving the tale out of the air, his eyes twinkling. Stories of love, of bravery, of treachery.

He told you of a queen carved from the sea foam, of a wolf who shed its skin to find a bride, of cities so bright and sprawling that to see them from above was to think earth and heaven had switched places.

You would dream of his stories, and of his hands. Skimming down your back, warm and strong.

A full month after your fall, your mother frowned down at you and demanded to know when you would be done with your adventure. You wavered, for your mother wasn't the type to accept a flimsy answer.

"When our story is all told," you finally replied.

She kept her frown, but your man was returning from the sea and you were too distracted by him to notice it.

You would happily have stayed just as you were. Sleeping in his bed and sharing his clothes, waking to see him already in front of the fire. But your luck changed - yours for the worse and his for the better.

For the fisherman finally caught moonlight.

You were with him when he reeled his nets in, and you both saw the silver gleam break the water at the same time. He stilled, eyes wide.

"I can't believe it."

He plucked the pearl from its string and let it sit on his palm. It cast its glow all the way across the boat and still beyond. There was no doubt now as to why moonlight was so valuable. Looking into it, you could see what your mother saw. Could see the ocean spread at your feet, could see the stars dancing, could see the breadth of heaven and earth.

"Here." He dropped it into your palm and closed your fingers around it. "Hold onto it."

You looked at him, eyes wide. "You trust me with it?"

He smiled his crooked half smile. "I trust you with more than your know, little star."

As he rowed back to shore, you wondered at how your life might change. Hadn't he once said that the only goal of a fisherman at the edge of the world was to catch moonlight? That even a little was a fortune made?

Would he leave the sea? Would he leave you?

When you were back in the cottage and out of sight of your mother, you felt brave enough to ask.

"Oh, never. I'll never leave you, little star. Not for as long as you'll have me."

You looked at the pearl in your palm. A fortune made... What did that really mean?

"What now?"

He came to stand behind you, reaching out to carefully run his fingertip across the shimmering surface.

"Now I will head away. To civilisation. To find a way to sell it without getting my heart cut out first."

"Why would anyone do that?"

He sighed. "Because of its value. Some men will do terrible things to possess a single beautiful thing."

That worried you.

"I want to come with you," you said.

You could hear the smile in his voice when he answered. "I would have it no other way."

The preparations took almost two weeks. Food to be dried, smoked and packed. Water to be stored. Clothes to be mended and altered for travelling. The boat to be tarred and dragged ashore.

The fisherman was in no hurry. He still told you stories at night, the moon pearl sitting in a box between you and lending its strange silver light to the tellings.

If you'd known what was to come, you would have thrown that cursed thing back into the sea. But though you were many things, you were not an oracle. You couldn't guess the misery it would bring.

On the day before you and your fisherman planned to leave, three men came to visit.

They wore the deep black of thieves and killers, and the knives at their belts spoke plenty of their profession.

They found you both on the beach at sunset, wrapping canvas around the boat. Their shadows stretched long in the fading light, so you weren't sure what you were seeing until they were too close to avoid.

Your fisherman stood to greet them, though from his eyes you could tell he wasn't pleased.

"An unpleasant place, this," said the first of the three.

"Cold and miserable," said the second.

"Though we suppose it does have its charms," said the third.

The fisherman considered them for a long while before replying.

"An unpleasant place, aye. The work is dangerous and the reward an impossible dream. Still, some of us are suited to places like these."

The first of the killers looked at you, ran his eyes over your body.

"For you perhaps. But what of your woman? Surely she would like somewhere warmer."

The fisherman tensed. Just the tiniest tightening of his shoulders, but you noticed it all the same.

"I keep her as warm as she needs," he said.

That made the men smirk. Made them eye each other like the joke was oh so funny. The sun was almost gone now and the brightest of your sisters were peaking out of the purple sky. You could feel their worry at the back of your mind.

"Hurry and come away, little sister. I like not the look of these men."

"Quickly. Before they play any tricks."

You didn't like the look of the strangers either, but you refused to leave the fisherman on his own. Whatever this was, perhaps it might still end well.

The leader rolled his shoulders, sighed like this was as mildly unpleasant as a persistent itch. And then he pulled a moon pearl out of his pocket.

It was much smaller than the one your fisherman caught, but it had a strange red tint to it that made you shiver. If you looked closely, you could see yourself in it. Not a reflection, but a view from on high. Whoever these strangers were, they'd been watching you.

"Enchanted to find others like it. Thought it wasn't worth the money at first. Never bloody did anything," the first one said.

"Not until a few week ago at least," another continued.

You felt yourself going cold. They knew.

Your fisherman must have realised the same thing, because his eyes slipped to you and the pearl hidden on a tether under your shirt.

"That's all you want?"

They looked at each other again, and whatever passed between them was only for them and the wind to know.

"Aye," said the third, "That's all - the bounty of the night sky. Give us that and we'll leave you be."

Your fisherman shrugged like they weren't demanding a king's ransom and then some. He turned to you and carefully pulled the pearl free of its cord. You grabbed his hands and held them.

"Why?" you whispered.

He looked in your eyes and there wasn't any regret there. No grief or anger over losing the thing he'd spent years fishing for.

"I worry of losing something far more precious than a stone."

He pulled away from you before you could stop him and tossed the pearl to the leader. He caught it easily and held it to his eye.

"A finer thing I've never held," the thief said.

"Aye, and a finer thing I've never seen," said the other.

"But that's not all you have, is it fisherman?" said the third.

The fisherman rolled his shoulders and anyone could see the threat in it.

"That's the only thing of value here. The only thing you can take. So have joy of it, and be gone from this place."

"Daughter."

Your mother's voice was sharp. "Come away. Now. These men mean you harm worse than you realise."

"Not yet," you murmured, "Not while my love stays."

The thieves smiled at each other. Nasty grins filled with blades.

"Oh, but you have another thing worth perhaps even more than moonlight. Tell me, fisherman at the edge of the world, how did you rip a star from the sky?"

The fisherman snarled, all quiet calm forgotten.

"Come now, don't be so hostile," the thief mocked. "You promised us the bounty of the night sky. That was our deal."

"The star is not mine to keep nor give."

The thieves laughed. "She wears your clothes and helps in your labour and whispers her secrets to you. How can you claim that she isn't yours?"

The fisherman kept his hands loose at his sides but it wasn't only you who noticed his eyes dart to his knife, stuck into the roll of canvas you were working with.

You reached out and grabbed at his hand. It was dawning on you now what your mother meant. These men were worse than you first assumed, and to stay in their presence was to invite death to your door.

A star leaping back to heaven is an easy thing. Your bones are light and your magic is strong. But to take a human with you? That was another matter entirely. Their feet were rooted to the earth, their bones weighed down by the nature of their birth. You pulled with all the magic you had, but you couldn't move him. Your heart was a fluttering, panicked thing in your chest.

"Mother, please."

"I cannot," your mother said, her voice torn with grief. "He is of the earth. I cannot lift him to heaven no matter my strength."

The fisherman and the thieves didn't seem to notice your efforts. Their eyes were on each other, hackles raised.

The thieves moved first. Drew their knives and rushed your man all at once.

But the fisherman didn't survive on the hinterland sea by being slow or cautious. He pushed you behind him and in one graceful step, pulled his knife loose from the canvas. He slashed at the closest man, his blade a silvery arc that turned the night red with misted blood. The man fell away, clutching his eyes and screaming.

The fisherman was too slow to dodge the oncoming strike, so he threw his arm up and let the leader's blade carve a long furrow down his forearm. Blood welled at his elbow and fell onto the black pebbles of the beach.

He kept you behind him as he retreated, his eyes darting between the two standing thieves.

You were frozen. Eyes glued on the fallen man and the blood welling up between his fingers.

So this is what you meant. That Mankind will do terrible things to each other without a second thought. Oh uncle, I'm sorry I doubted you.

Your mind raced. How to escape with your man alive and in one piece?

The two thieves were spreading out, flanking him as wolves would. The blood from his arm had soaked his side and you could tell he was growing pale.

You needed to fight. You needed to kill. But how?

Stars are no great terror. You aren't like the moon, who can wreck cities with her pull on the sea. Not like the sun, who can turn crops to dust and cities to deserts. You had no weapon, no strength, no great magic.

But I must have something.

Oh. Oh. You did indeed have something. A little magic of your own. There was a reason people wished on the brightest stars. There was a reason a falling star was considered lucky. And you, well, you were one of the brightest stars in the night sky.

No great magic, but maybe you didn't need to move mountains or spilt the sea in half.

Your fisherman once showed you how to use a needle and thread, told you that sometimes injuries were sewn up just like a ripped shirt. You focused on that now. Thread in, thread out. You pulled your fingers through the air like you were sewing a sail.

The fisherman flinched but kept his injured arm raised. There was a faint glow from under his sleeve and the blood slowed it's dripping. His steps grew steadier.

As though sensing the change, the thieves pounced. Coming at him from two sides at once. He wouldn't be able to fend them both off.

You acted without thinking. Earth magic and sky magic didn't mix well, but you were beyond caring. You pulled at the ground with your magic and one of the thieves fell, their leg thigh deep in a narrow sinkhole. The fisherman took the opportunity he'd been given. He stabbed his knife into the man's throat, all the way up to the handle. There was an awful, wet choking sound when he ripped it out.

You looked away, sick. And that's when the final thief stabbed your man in the back. The blade sunk deep into his shoulder and he roared, whirling around. Too late, too late. The attacker had a second blade ready and when the fisherman turned, he plunged it straight between his ribs.

You screamed.

The fisherman fell to his knees, blood not just trickling but pouring down his chest.

You caught him before he fell entirely, his head falling back against your collarbone. When they said the dead had no light in their eyes, you finally understood what they meant. You could see it fading.

You poured your magic into him, not caring about technique or luck or skill. That little bit of brightness that makes a star glow, you gave it all to him. Your hands were glowing silver, burning like the coldest night.

And still the blood came. Still his life bled out of him.

"Please," you begged. "Please."

What more could you do? You were light headed, cold.

"Stop!"

Your mother's voice was a frantic shout.

"You'll kill yourself giving him that. Stop it daughter. Stop now!"

Kill yourself? Hope bloomed in your heart. The world needed balance. Death was meticulous with his scales. If you burnt yourself out, wasn't that one life gone? Didn't that mean another could stay?

If you gave your life for his, would he live?

You didn't hear your mother scream. Didn't hear your sisters' horror echo through the night. You dug for that last glimmer inside of you, the last breath of the brightest star.

You gave it to the man you loved.

Kindness need not be repaid in kind, he'd said. But he saved your life. He showed you tenderness, care. You loved him. And if only his body was left, you owed him.

You kissed his hair. Pressed your cheek against him. You felt so cold. Colder even than the night you fell into the sea. I'm dying, you realised. There wasn't fear there. Only regret.

Was it ever so hard to breathe? Your lungs stuttered. You barely cared. All you needed was to know he would live.

The last thief standing watched you for a long while. Saw your glow fading. What use was a dying star to him? He picked up the moon pearls, skirted the injured man who was still rolling on the ground and left. If there was honour amount thieves, he didn't have any.

You were beginning to think it all for nought. He was a limp, heavy weight against you.

"Please," you whispered. "Please."

He stirred. Drew in a breath thick with blood, like the first gasp of a drowning man. When he opened his eyes, his pupils were shaped like stars.

"Love," he whispered. He reached up and cupped your cheek in his palm. "Oh, love."

You kissed him. His lips were rough, but not in an unpleasant way. There was blood on your mouth when you pulled away.

"All those nights with you just across the room, all I ever wanted was to feel your lips on mine."

You sighed, pressed his palm closer against your cheek. "Oh, love. That we could have had more time."

He was still drowsy, still reeling from blood loss. But at your words his eyes sharpened.

"We have time."

He sat up slowly, his hand still on your cheek, his knees in the dirt.

"We do. Don't we?"

Whatever he saw on your face was answer enough.

"No."

"Yes." It wasn't you who answered, and perhaps it was the nature of the speaker that only you heard him.

You looked beyond your lover's shoulder. Standing in his shroud, Death waited.

"A fair trade?" you asked.

The fisherman turned to follow your eyes, but all he saw was the open sea.

"Better than fair."

Death shook his head, long nails click clacking on the handle of his staff.

"It is rare indeed that I claim one of your kind."

There was no triumph in his voice, no sorrow. He truly was implacable as the grave.

"Who do you see?" The fisherman asked you, hands gripping your shoulders, frantic.

You thought he already knew. He was not so long out of the underworld that he could forget the feeling of Death's footsteps passing by. He pulled you into his chest, one hand cradling the back of your head.

"No, no. Reverse whatever you've done. My time has come and passed." His voice was raw, flayed by the salt of blood and tears. "Please."

You grabbed a handful of his shirt, felt the heart beating strong and true in his chest. "I cannot. I will not."

Above you, the moon and the stars wept.

"Daughter. Oh, my poor daughter."

"Little sister, gone, gone, gone where we cannot follow."

Death brushed his hand across your brow and you shuddered. The fisherman pulled you closer, spoke to the air where Death stood.

"Take me instead. It's me you came for, it's me you want. You won't be cheated by a fisherman, will you? So do as you came to do."

"Fair is fair, fisherman at the edge of the world," Death said in a voice like bones rattling.

"A life must be taken. The scales must balance. Even the stars in heaven die at my hand."

The fisherman paled. Very few heard the voice of Death while they still lived, and fewer still kept their minds together after. It was the sound of the tomb, the grave, the earth thudding on the coffin top. When he spoke, his voice was wretched with grief.

"I'm begging you. Let her live."

"We beseech you, let our sister go," the stars chorused after him.

"Please," said the moon. "Please have mercy, Lord of the end."

Death stood at the edge of the world and all of heaven begged him to be kind. Just once. Just for a moment.

"No."

You felt his hand on your heart. And then you felt nothing at all.

The fisherman knew the second it happened. Your body sagged against him, your fingers dropped from his shirt.

He cradled your body and wept his terrible grief into your faded dress.

Death held your soul between his fingers. The size of a moon pearl, but ten thousand times as bright. Few things in his collection were quite as fine.

"I will not be cheated. Not by the innocent nor the wicked."

The wind and the sea sighed. They knew all too well how inflexible he could be. To all the witnesses, this should have been the end. Lovers were not spared by Death. Why would he make an exception now?

And to all who knew the moon, in her timed phases and careful rotation, this too should have been the end. But the thing they most often seemed to forget was this; the moon was still a mother. And though you were dead and on the earth, you were still her blood.

"A link!" your mother whispered to herself. "He lives with a part of her inside him, creature of the earth that he is."

Death didn't notice when the moon reached down for your body. Why would he? The soul was what mattered to him. But she wasn't called the wise woman for nothing. He was about to leave, about to step from one world to the other, when your mother snatched your soul straight out of his hand.

Too late, too late he whirled to catch it, to curse at the moon's trickery. Already she was gone, your body and the fisherman gone with her.

Death cursed, gathered his shroud to pursue, when the Tide finally spoke. The moon's husband was quick to anger and slow to forgive, but he loved his wife. Hated to see her grieve.

"Still yourself, bone lord. I ask you not for mercy or for kindness. I ask you simply to trade."

"What could you have, sea beast? Drowned men are a dime a dozen. What can you offer for a star's soul?"

The Tide sighed, for he knew that Death measured by a metric none living or dead fully understood.

"I can give you a mermaid's heart, still beating with the pull of the waves. I can give you a fishwife, still young and in love. I can give you the most beautiful of my pets, to forever keep as own."

Death laughed, as terrible and grating as a tomb opening.

"No deal at all, sea beast. Life for life must willingly be given."

"I thought so," said the Tide. "But if you are as quick and wise as they say, you would look to the heavens and realise whatever soul you wanted is beyond your reach."

In the sky, twin stars burned. The third brightest in the sky.

Death laughed again. "Oh, the moon is a tricky one indeed. Two stars, sharing a soul."

You might have expected him to be angry, might have expected cursing and rage. Thought he would reach up and pull you both from the sky. But few understood the whims and wiles of Death.

He gathered his shroud and smiled and winked away. He would have you eventually. No one could escape him forever. But a star lives a long time and when it came down to it, he didn't mind waiting.

Death of all people could appreciate a good trick.

You pulled in a breath that rasped and burned. When you opened your eyes, the fisherman was kneeling at your side, your head in his lap.

"My love, how do I live?" You sat up slowly, afraid that he somehow undid the magic you cast.

"You've done a dangerous thing, daughter of mine."

Your mother stood waiting for you, her robes silver and red and the dusty gold of a full moon hanging low in the sky.

"Mother!"

"Don't stand. You're still weak." She frowned at you, and at the fisherman at your side.

"I did not think to ever have a son-in-law. And I did not think to ever watch my daughter die."

You looked her in her eyes, pale silver from end to end. "I'm sorry to have done that to you mother. But I'm not sorry for my choice."

She sighed, harsh from trying to hide her grief.

"You have him now, daughter of mine. The man you gave your own life for. I hope he was worth the sacrifice."

"He was. He is."

The fisherman's arms tightened around you and his head dropped to your shoulder. He was crying, but only you knew, only you could feel his hot tears soaking into your dress.

"Very well. Have your moment with your man. And then come and take your place."

She left you. For a second between the moment she opened and closed the door, you could see the faces of your sisters. Still worried, still pale.

The hall of your mother's palace was quiet. The fisherman kept his forehead pressed against your shoulder, breathing hard.

"I never should have kept you," he said finally. "I should have sent you back to the sky the second you landed in my arms. Oh love, how could I be so selfish?"

"Don't you dare say that. All you did was show me kindness. It was I who chose to stay. And even now, my only regret is that I bought you to such grief."

You intertwined your hands with his.

"I love you. I loved you the moment I heard your music and fell from the sky to hear it better."

He brought your knuckles to his lips and pressed a kiss against your fingers.

"I loved you the moment I pulled you from the sea." Another kiss pressed against your hands. "I loved you the moment you spoke to me, the moment you smiled."

You hesitated, suddenly unsure. "I've made you give up your dream of catching moonlight."

He laughed, eyes crinkling at the corners. "Oh, I've caught myself something much better than moonlight tonight."

I've caught myself a bride. And oh, I'm never letting her go.

If you look to the sky at dawn and dusk, you'll see twin stars. They always rise together, always move across the heavens in tandem, always set hand in hand. Lovers wish on them, pray that Death is as kind to them as he once was at the edge of the world. Fishermen sail by them, trust the steadiness of their light to bring their boats safely home. And stories are told of them. Of the fisherman who tried to catch moonlight. And the bride who was plucked straight out of the sea.

The third brightest stars in the the night sky - the Fisherman and the Starwife.

[bucksfucks]

what wolves fear. masterlist

series summary: A lonely cottage, a girl the villagers whisper about, and the creature who guards her door each night.

series pairing: the creature (adam frankenstein) x reader

series themes: hurt & comfort, trauma, horror, yearning, longing, slow burn, gothic romance, reader will be put in danger/hurt, sexual themes (18+ only MDNI)

series

part i

part ii

part iii

part iv

part v

part vi

stand alone oneshots

the first time the creature sees you in the bath

the creature bringing you a copy of your favourite book

[creamflix-mainn]

heavy tw for discourse but its so disheartening seeing fan fiction writing of all things turn into fast fashion and people dishing out short-form content just to keep their blogs alive when that’s not what they wanna write / they’re inclined to write longer form fics but can’t publish it in time. i promise you people would read your longer, fleshed out fics. you don’t have to treat tumblr like a full time job.

don’t let the so called “algorithm” take away from you the fun of writing fics, please!! you’re contributing to the drought of writers not being active on sites like this because long form gets buried under the endless barrage of short form content

[bucksfucks]

what wolves fear.

summary: a monster keeps your cottage safe from wolves, believing you neither see nor want him—until spring comes, and you finally turn to the creature in the trees and let him know you’ve been leaving the bread, the clothes… and that you were never afraid.

pairing: the creature (adam frankenstein) x reader

word count: around 3,000

warnings: gothic romance (set in 1800’s), talk of death and murder, slow burn, horror, MDNI (18+ only)

notes: hi first time writing in like 2-3 years so be nice please xoxoxo if you can’t tell i’ve gotten into writing horror/thriller and this was the perfect opportunity to dip my toes back in. anyways if you’re reading this here’s a kiss mwah

PART II

He’d been haunting the tree line long before you ever saw him.

At least, that’s what he believed.

All winter, something bigger than any wolf stalked the border of your little cottage, keeping the growls and yellow eyes at bay. You’d wake to claw marks in the snow that didn’t belong to any animal you knew, to the broken bodies of wolves dragged far from your door, as if someone didn’t want you to see what he’d done for you. Your lanterns never ran out of oil. Your firewood stack never emptied. Sometimes, there were heavy footprints in the mud—too large, too uneven to be human—leading back into the forest and vanishing with the mist.

He thought you didn’t know.

But you saw him.

You always saw him.

The first time, it was only a shadow: a towering figure half-hidden behind the black skeleton of a pine tree, watching you as you hung freshly washed sheets beneath a washed-out winter sky. Another time, you caught the briefest flash of his eyes, pale and aching with something that wasn’t quite hunger and wasn’t quite hatred, as he melted back into the dark.

The creature.

Adam Frankenstein.

The villagers whispered about a monster in the woods, a patchwork horror that should have never drawn breath, but you knew better. Monsters didn’t leave bread on your windowsill on nights you forgot to eat. Monsters didn’t stack kindling by your step after snowstorms, or set down a freshly killed hare just close enough that your old dog could sniff it out in the morning. Monsters didn’t linger at the edge of your light like a shield, taking every blow the world had meant for you.

So you started leaving things for him, too.

A still-warm loaf of bread wrapped in cloth and left on a flat stone near the forest’s edge. A thick, clumsily sewn shirt you’d stitched by candlelight, big enough to fit the breadth of his shoulders as best you could guess. A pair of gloves with uneven fingers. Each offering would be gone by morning, and in their place there’d be… nothing. No note. No mark. Just a silence that somehow felt shy.

Spring came slowly, softening the snow into streams and coaxing green from the hard earth. One bright morning, you took your dog and followed the familiar path beneath the budding branches, letting the cool air kiss your cheeks. You could feel him behind you—no longer a rumour, but a steady presence in the spaces between birdsong and the crunch of twigs underfoot.

He was careful with his distance.

Careful with you.

You felt him before you saw him.

The air behind you changed—thicker somehow, as if the very forest were holding its breath.

Your dog’s ears flicked, tail giving the smallest wag, but he did not bark. He sat at your heel, as though he, too, had long grown used to the giant shadow that haunted the trees.

You stood in the clearing, sunlight painting your skirts in pale gold, fingers resting lightly upon your dog’s head.

“I know you are there,” you said, voice steady despite the pounding in your chest. “You have been there for a very long time, have you not?”

Silence.

The birds went quiet. A breeze stirred the budding branches overhead, carrying with it the scent of damp earth and something else—old smoke, metal, and the faintest trace of soap, as though someone had tried, clumsily, to scrub himself clean.

You swallowed your nervousness and smiled, though he could not see it. Not yet.

“Tell me, Adam,” you continued, your tone turning wry, “how much longer until you understand that I have always known about you… and that you do not frighten me in the least?”

Something shifted among the trees to your left. A heavy footstep, then another, crunching over last year’s leaves. Your dog gave a low, pleased whine.

Slowly, as though dragged forward by some unseen chain, he stepped out from the shadows.

He was larger than you had imagined, even after months of stolen glances. Broad shoulders strained the seams of the very shirt you had sewn by candlelight. The fabric sat oddly upon him, as if he were still unsure he had the right to wear something made with care.

His face—oh, his face.

You had prepared yourself for horror.

Instead, you found sadness.

Features too sharply cut, as though chiseled in haste and anger. Eyes a pale, unnatural blue, ringed by the kind of weariness usually reserved for much older men. There were scars, yes, and those patchwork seams that betrayed the unnatural hand that had pieced him together, but beneath them all… he was simply a man who did not know how to occupy his own skin.

He stopped several paces away, hands held slightly out from his sides, as though to show he carried no weapon.

“You… you ought to run,” he said at last, his voice rough and low, the words strangely precise yet hesitant, like a man learning to speak again after a long illness. “The villagers would tell you to flee.”

“The villagers,” you replied, “have never once stacked firewood by my door after a storm.”

His jaw tightened. He glanced away, as though ashamed.

“That was nothing,” he muttered. “A mere… task. I happened to be near.”

“And the hare left upon my step in January? Was that another mere task?”

He shifted his weight, great hands curling into fists. “You were thin,” he said grudgingly. “There were no tracks near your home. I deduced you did not hunt.”

“And the wolves?” you pressed gently. “The ones that never cross the boundary of my field, though their howls wake me in the night?”

His throat worked. For a moment, the creature looked almost… irritated. “They are foolish animals,” he said. “They do not understand when they trespass upon what is mine to guard.”

Your heart stuttered at that word.

“Yours to guard,” you echoed softly.

At last his gaze met yours. There was a terrible vulnerability in it, like a child braced for mockery.

“You ought not look at me so,” he said, voice rougher now. “You ought to scream. Or at the very least, avert your eyes.”

“I shall do neither,” you answered. “You have been my unseen champion all winter, sir. I should think it discourteous to shriek at you now.”

He frowned, as though the very notion of courtesy applied to him was offensive.

“I am no ‘sir’,” he said. “The man who stitched me together did not deem me fit for such a title.”

“Then what shall I call you?” you asked, ignoring the chill that raced down your spine at his choice of words. “The villagers speak of a monster. A demon. A fiend. I do not care for any of those.”

A shadow of something like humour passed over his face. “He called me Adam,” he said quietly. “As though I were the first of my kind.”

You nodded once. “Very well, Adam.”

Your dog, emboldened by your calm, trotted forward and sniffed at his boots. Adam stared down at him as though the small creature were some strange, new invention.

“He does not fear me,” Adam murmured, almost to himself.

“Animals are often better judges of character than men,” you replied. “He knows you have watched over us.”

A muscle jumped in his cheek. “I watched to ensure no harm came to you,” he corrected. “Whether you knew of it or not is of little consequence.”

“On the contrary.” You took a small step closer. His eyes widened, as though you had moved a mile instead of a foot. “It is of great consequence. You believed yourself unseen, did you not?”

He hesitated, then gave a small, reluctant nod.

“Then you must also have believed that the bread, and the shirt, and the gloves appeared by some miracle of the woods.” You tilted your head. “Or did you imagine the forest itself had begun to sew?”

Colour—faint but unmistakable—rose along the visible seam of his throat. He looked past you, toward the stone where you always left your gifts.

“I thought…” He paused, visibly searching for words. “I wondered if perhaps you had set them out for the poor. For some wandering soul more deserving than I.”

Your chest ached. “And yet you took them.”

“Yes.” His gaze dropped to his hands, as though the gloves were still upon them. “I told myself I had stolen them. That you would never know. That is the sort of thing a monster does, is it not? Take what is not his?”

“If I leave something upon the edge of the wood with no name attached,” you said gently, “is it truly theft for the one I hoped would claim it… to do so?”

His eyes snapped back to yours, startled. “You… hoped…?”

“For whom else do you suppose I stitched sleeves of that length?” you asked, lips quirking. “There is no man in the village with shoulders so broad as yours, Adam.”

He stared at you as though you had struck him. Not in pain—more in stunned disbelief.

“You… knew,” he breathed. “You knew I was there. All this time.”

“Yes.”

“And you were not afraid.”

You considered this. “I was wary,” you said honestly. “At first. One does not wake to strange footprints and dead wolves without a certain degree of alarm. But then I saw you. Hiding like a boy behind those poor trees, trying very hard not to be seen. And I thought—”

You broke off, biting your lip.

He took a half-step forward despite himself. “You thought what?”

“I thought,” you said slowly, “that no true monster skulks in the shadows to keep a woman’s cottage safe through a winter as harsh as this last one. No true monster leaves food instead of taking it. No true monster looks at another living soul the way you looked at my dog last month—do not pretend you were not there, I saw you through the curtain—like you were afraid to even breathe in his direction for fear you might somehow break him.”

He said nothing. His breath misted faintly in the cool spring air, harsh and uneven.

“You should not look so kindly upon me,” he managed at last. “It is… improper.”

“Improper,” you repeated, amusement bubbling up despite the solemnity of his tone. “We are alone in the forest, Adam. There is no vicar here to scold us.”

“It is not the vicar I fear,” he muttered. “It is myself.”

Your smile faded.

“Why?” you asked.

He looked down at his hands again, turning them palm up as though they were strange objects he’d found rather than parts of his own body.

“These hands have done terrible things,” he said quietly. “I have torn wolves apart, as you have seen. I have broken men who sought to harm me. I have throttled hatred at its source and found only more hatred beneath it. I was created in violence and I fear I shall end in it as well.” His eyes lifted to yours, desperate. “I cannot trust myself near that which is gentle.”

Your throat tightened. “You have been near me all winter.”

“At a distance,” he insisted. “A barrier of trees. Of shadow. Of night. It is different now.”

“Is it?” You closed the gap between you by another small step. He sucked in a breath, shoulders going rigid. You could feel the heat radiating from him now, unnatural in its intensity, like standing too close to a forge. “I feel no danger from you, Adam.”

“You should.”

“But I do not.” You lifted your hand, giving him every opportunity to retreat. “May I?”

He stared at your outstretched fingers as though they were some holy relic. “I… do not know.”

“We shall discover it together,” you said softly.

After a moment that stretched thin as spun sugar, he extended his own hand, large and scarred and trembling just enough for you to see. You laid your palm against his.

Warm. Solid. Very real.

He flinched, not from pain, but from the shock of contact.

“See?” you murmured. “You have not broken me.”

“Not yet,” he said hoarsely.

You squeezed his fingers. “Nor shall you, if I have any say in the matter.”

For a heartbeat, the forest was nothing but the two of you and the soft panting of your dog at your side. A bird dared a tentative trill somewhere above, as though deciding the danger had passed.

“You treat me as though I were… a man,” Adam said quietly, almost accusingly.

“You are,” you replied simply.

His brows drew together. “I am a collection of parts stolen from graves. I am a blasphemy against God and nature both.”

“You are standing in the sunlight speaking to me with more courtesy than half the men in town,” you countered. “If that is blasphemy, then perhaps we have misjudged Heaven.”

A startled, rough sound escaped him—half laugh, half exhale. As though he had forgotten how ordinary mirth should feel in his chest.

“You should not say such things,” he chided, but there was no true censure in it. “You are too bold.”

“You have been listening to me mutter to myself all winter,” you reminded him. “You ought to know by now that my tongue is not easily tamed.”

“I know many things about you,” he admitted, voice going soft. “I know you speak kindly to your dog even when he chews your shoes. I know you hum that same song each morning when you light the stove. I know you eat too little when you are anxious. I know you cry when you believe no one can hear.”

Your breath caught. “You ought not watch a lady in such moments,” you said, flustered.

“I know,” he said, guilt flickering through his gaze. “And yet I could not look away. Your sorrow… it frightened me more than wolves ever could. I wished to tear apart whatever had caused it, but there was nothing there. Only you, and your hands shaking, and your tears falling into the dough you were kneading.”

You blinked rapidly, your throat thick. “You saw that.”

“Yes.”

“And you still think yourself a monster,” you whispered.

He hesitated. “Do you not?”

You stepped closer until there was barely a breath between you, your hand still cradled in his. You had to tilt your head back to meet his eyes fully.

“If I say no,” you asked, “will you believe me?”

“I… do not know.” His voice cracked on the words.

“Then I shall tell you as many times as necessary until you do.” Your lips curved into a small, earnest smile. “You are not a monster to me, Adam. You are the reason I have slept safely these many months. You are the reason my dog still runs through these woods without fear. You are the reason I am standing here today, whole and unharmed.”

He swallowed hard. “Any man might have done as much.”

“But no man did.” You lifted your free hand to his chest, pressing your palm lightly over where his heart would be—if it beat. “You did.”

His breath hitched. For a moment, he seemed to forget how limbs functioned, standing utterly still as though one wrong move might shatter the moment into fragments.

“You should not touch me so,” he said weakly.

“And yet,” you murmured, “you do not step away.”

He closed his eyes, jaw clenched. “Because I am selfish. Because I have spent a season watching you from afar and I am not yet strong enough to deny myself this one brief… kindness.”

“Adam,” you said softly. “Look at me.”

He obeyed. Slowly, hesitantly, but he obeyed.

“There is nothing ‘brief’ about what I intend,” you told him. “You have guarded my cottage as though it were a kingdom. Will you not allow me, at the very least, to guard your heart in return?”

His lips parted, but no sound came. You could see the war waging behind his eyes—fear and longing and disbelief all tangled together.

“You… would keep company with me?” he managed at last. “Knowing what I am?”

“Knowing who you are,” you corrected. “A man named Adam who walks the tree line at night so that I may sleep. A man who refuses to let wolves cross my field. A man who looks at my foolish old dog as though he were some creature made of glass.” Your fingers curled briefly against his chest. “If that is monstrosity, I shall gladly consort with monsters.”

Another laugh—clearer this time—escaped him. It transformed his face, smoothing some of the harsh lines, revealing the man beneath the scars.

“You are very stubborn,” he said.

“So I have been told.”

“And you would not… flee, if I came nearer? If I…” He faltered, gaze flickering to your joined hands. “If I visited your cottage when the sun has set?”

“I should be most put out if you did not,” you said lightly. “I have an extra chair by the hearth and no one to fill it. My dog prefers company. As, I suspect, do I.”

He stared at you as though trying to determine whether this were some cruel trick of the mind. At last, cautiously, he lifted his other hand to hover near your cheek, stopping inches away.

“May I?” he asked, echoing your earlier words.

You leaned into the space between, closing the distance yourself. His fingers brushed your skin—calloused, uncertain, trembling. He cupped your cheek as though cradling something far more fragile than you felt.

“You are warm,” he whispered, wonder in his tone.

“And you are real,” you replied.

His thumb swept once, reverently, along your cheekbone. “If I frighten you,” he said softly, “you must tell me at once. I will go, and I shall not trouble you again, though it break what passes for my heart.”

“I do not believe you capable of breaking my heart,” you said. “Guarding it, perhaps. As you have guarded everything else.”

His eyes shone, sudden moisture gathering there. He blinked it away quickly, as though ashamed.

“I do not understand why you would offer such mercy to me,” he murmured.

“Perhaps,” you said gently, “it is not mercy. Perhaps it is simply… affection.”

The word seemed to strike him with more force than any blow.

“Affection,” he repeated, voice barely audible. “For me.”

“For you,” you affirmed. “For Adam, who walks the forest so that I might live another day to bake too much bread and scold my dog and sew shirts far too large.” Your smile softened. “Stay with me, and I shall show you there is more for you than shadows and solitude.”

He drew in a long, shaky breath. When he exhaled, something in his posture eased—the line of his shoulders, the set of his jaw. As though a burden he had carried alone for far too long had shifted, just slightly, into your waiting hands.

“Very well,” he said at last, voice low but resolute. “I shall try.”

Your heart lifted, light as the first spring breeze.

“Good,” you replied. “Then you shall walk me home, Adam. And after that, if you wish, you may sit by my fire and tell me all the things you have seen from the edge of the wood.”

He glanced once toward the deeper forest, then back to you—the woman who had left bread and stitched shirts and dared to speak kindly to the creature everyone else feared.

“As you wish,” he said quietly.

And when you turned toward the path, his heavy footsteps fell in beside yours—not behind, no longer hiding in the trees, but at your side. Where, you suspected, he had always longed to be.

[honeyblackberries]

Thinking about Rafayel who teaches his kid Lemurian. The act is relatively unconscious. It’s not like he’s intending to make them fluent in a dying language, but he just can’t help and slip into the foreign tongue when he’s around them. Something he used to only find himself doing with Thalia. 

It feels right, using phrases he remembers from his own childhood. Even if he can’t recall anymore the voices of those who said it.

You didn’t catch on initially, thinking the grown man was only babbling back at the smaller version of him. Silly baby talk that wasn’t meant to be English or any other language you understand.

It’s become a joke that you almost missed the moment your little one was speaking their first words, not catching onto what was happening until Rafayel whipped his head in their direction so fast you thought he might snap his neck. Pulling out his phone to record the moment and begging “Say that again Fishie, yes yes! Did you hear that Cutie?!”

Some phrases are more commonly heard than others. Of course there's the usual things all children learn.

"Dada"

"Mama"

"Yes"

"No"

"Please"

"Thank you"

Then there are the reprimands. Things that you have a strong feeling Rafayel used to be on the receiving end of, rather than being the one yelling them from across the room.

"Don't touch that”

"Don't eat that”

“Come back here!”

But your favourite will always be what's said through giggles. What's whispered with full hearts underneath soft blankets.

"I love you"

[ozzgin]

Yandere! CoD Headcanons: König x Reader x Ghost

Featuring two men, one mission, and a female reader that caught their interest more than they’d like to admit. TW: Obsessive behavior, violence, dubious consent, mildly NSFW

[Part II]

It really shouldn’t be that fucking difficult. You go, you complete the mission, you return. Repeat. That’s what they’ve been doing for years. So much, in fact, that most of it is really just a sequence of mechanical actions, done so often they’ve become part of the subconscious. Crushing the throat under an armlock, stalking the target, mounting the suppressor before a sneak shot. Like driving a car, it becomes a learned routine.

Naturally there are elements of novelty to each mission. New teammates, new places, new requirements. It’s all part of the job. People come and go, comrades stay in your heart. What happens, however, when that latter part isn’t enough? Both Ghost and König have become accustomed to the classic rule: don’t get attached. Yet this time, for whatever reason, the nagging anxiety in the back of their heads just won’t go away. A pitiful need is clawing the walls of their pride, like a stray dog whimpering after the first sign of shelter. People come and go, but (Y/N) stays. Somehow this statement has materialized in their hearts and no other truth can be accepted.

They cannot pinpoint the exact moment this insidious feeling has nestled its way in. It started rather innocently. The first brief greetings were done on the loud, bumpy ride towards the temporary base. ‘Greetings’ is a generous word for it. Ghost had nodded at you in acknowledgement, and König merely glanced at you before staring into the distance.

You scarcely interacted with each other on the field, although that’s probably where their respect for you had gradually built up. You’re swift and efficient, nearly competing in ruthlessness. For König, the most memorable affair was you quietly twisting the neck of an enemy he failed to detect in time. His eyes widened upon seeing the barrel pointed at him, but just as speedily your form emerged from the shadows and you lunged at the assailant. Once the deed had been done, you merely lifted your hand in a thumbs up gesture and you went on. He remained there for a good minute, staring at the massive man you took down without hesitation. Similarly, Lt. Riley felt the cold beads of sweat forming on his forehead as his teammate shouted into the radio, demanding reinforcements. He wouldn’t make it in time and the anticipating guilt begun knotting in his stomach. He was searching for a solution when a prolonged round of bullets jolted him back to the radio. Moments of static silence, before you spoke in your headset: “Targets down. Out.” And just like that, you had vanished.

The realization hadn’t truly hit until they encountered you out of battle. They were going over the map when a small, dainty hand pointed to a random location. For a second they were startled, wondering if a civilian somehow entered their base. They hadn’t even registered your presence. Standing next to König’s enormous frame, you almost faded into the background as one of the furniture pieces. You were still in uniform, sure, but the heavy combat accessories and the dust of the bloodied fields seemed to have added more inches to your posture, at least in their imagination. You glared incredulously and inquired if it’s dementia or misogyny stopping them from recognizing (Y/N) (L/N). Ghost cleared his throat and curtly apologized for his reaction and König mumbled a continuation to it, suddenly and unexplainably awkward.

Such a faux pas would normally be swept under the rug. Had tactfulness and diplomacy been their key strengths, they wouldn’t be out here shooting people. But whatever embarrassment struck them on that particular day continued to linger, tugging their focus in a restless reminiscence. Until it finally occurred to them it wasn’t embarrassment persistently occupying their minds. Rather, and it should’ve been obvious, they have since become helplessly infatuated with you. The elephant in the room had gotten a name. But this particular elephant came with thick tendrils of obsession, spreading out relentlessly and asphyxiating any attempts to subdue it.

It really shouldn’t be that fucking difficult. Except it is. It’s hard for Ghost to look you in the eyes and give you the orders without clenching his fists and desperately trying to bury the avalanching thoughts of pushing you against that very wall, railing you until you forget his name. König can barely peek in your direction without being plagued by indecent images of your flushed, drooling face as he slams into your frail body.

Even worse is when the men become aware of each other’s intentions. Ghost had meant to check up on you after the latest expedition, but he stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of König inspecting your wounds, his large hand resting innocently on your thigh as he squatted before you. You were in too much discomfort to notice, but it was clear to him. This bastard had a death wish. Days later it was König’s turn to taste the bitter betrayal when he heard your vibrant laugh approaching. You were thanking your companion for the entertaining workout and Ghost took advantage of your relaxed, distracted mood to place a hand against your arched back. That’s when he looked over with a predatory, malicious glint in his eye, as if marking his territory. You smiled, blissfully unaware of the suffocating tension within the room.

It’s no longer a matter of you accepting them or not. It’s who gets his hands on you first. You really must try to see it from their perspective, (Y/N). Put aside their love for you for a moment, and think about it. They’re only doing what’s best for you. Someone like you will never be satisfied with just any other man out there. You need a fitting partner, one that can protect you with imperishable, incessant loyalty. That’s truly the logical conclusion to it: there’s no one else for you. Just like nobody will ever compare to you in their eyes. And lamentably, you can’t afford to doubt their argument. The clock is ticking, and before they know it, the mission will be over and you’ll all be shipped to the next task. They can’t have that. They must act now.

“Isn’t it kind of early?” You ask, stretching up to check the ammunition shelves. Ghost asked you to help him gather some supplies from one of the storage closets, yet no one else is currently preoccupied with it. The hallways are empty and the only sound is your own shuffle between the cramped walls, emphasized especially by the tall man next to you. “I like to plan ahead” is all he answers. He bites his lower lip underneath the mask, contemplating his next step. How the fuck do you casually tell someone they’ve been your wet dream for months and you’d like to make it official, with or without their input? He should probably leave out the first part. Yeah. You don’t need the details of his nightly activities. Nonetheless, he has to make it clear who you belong to now. Afterwards he’ll deal with the pest that’s been wagging his tail around you.

“Oh, fuck this.” He eventually huffs out, exasperated. You jump slightly at the sudden outburst and turn to him, confused. He approaches you until your back hits the shelves, at which point he slams a hand above your head and effectively traps you between his sinewy arms. Perfect fucking spot. No, he shouldn’t get sidetracked. Plenty of time for that later. “What the hell?” Is the only thing that comes out of your mouth. His eyes are hollow, yet determined. A cold shiver runs down your spine and your eyes dart around the room, looking for an escape. At this distance you wouldn’t be able to tackle him down. He’s too big. Goddamnit. You grip his forearm, hoping to find some switch that pulls him out of this bizarre behavior. Ghost opens his mouth to speak, but the words dissolve into the explosive noise of the door ripping from its hinges. You yell at the sudden commotion.

König walks in, bending under the small doorframe. He seems to have just returned from the battlegrounds, vest splattered with fresh blood and sleeves scratched and torn. Despite the usual cloth draped over the head, you can discern a feral expression plastered on his face. “Du Landschlampe.” He growls and extends a hand towards Ghost. He clicks his tongue, annoyed, and is forced to release his hold on you to block the incoming blow. This is your chance. You nod at the Austrian man, grateful for his help, and proceed to sprint for the exit. Contrary to your expectations, he swiftly blocks your path and you slam into his body as the air is abruptly expelled from your lungs. You fall to the ground from the powerful momentum.

“You’re not leaving until we settle this”, König states in a low voice. Ghost reaches for one of his pockets and pulls out his hunting knife with a parading twirl. “That, I agree with. Let me show you exactly what happens to the fucker that messes with my woman.” König lets out a chuckle. “I was going to say the same thing.” You can only stare in terror.

What on Earth is going on?

[honeyblackberries]

skin of an apple

caleb x non mc!reader (gn) 2k

cw: angst, lore inaccurate, incorrect use of science references (was an arts student)

inspired by caleb's time at the toring cybernetics institute | also on ao3

You first see him when you step into the laboratory on a cold Monday morning. Inside a room initially similar to the others you've walked through. A windowless space kept unsurprisingly sterile with overhead fluorescent lights. The bulbs however look dimmer here, lifeless in comparison to the floor to ceiling cryogenic chamber. The object is jarring, standing out like a sore thumb, glowing like an unnatural beacon. 

And there he is, a man in the centre of it all.

An unknown mist floats around him—it shifts his dark hair. He’s like a black hole, pulling in anyone who enters the room. And you have just unknowingly crossed his event horizon.

The stranger, oddly enough, reminds you of wet specimens. Creatures injected with formalin and left to soak in glass jars, forever suspended in time. But unlike them he is very much alive. Despite the wires that pierce his skin and the fact that his right arm is completely inorganic—making him appear a few steps away from becoming more machine than man—his chest steadily rises and falls as he breathes. His fingers twitch, his eyes shift behind closed lids as if dreaming. 

You think he mumbles something but you’re too far away to be sure.

When your application to be a low level research assistant at Ever was accepted a few months ago, you wanted to cry from joy. 

Yes, you thought. This is what I’ve been working for.

Weight finally off your shoulders from knowing that the seemingly endless uncertainty in your life had become worth it. The tears, debt, and sleepless nights were building up to this moment. A foot in the door, a step towards something grand…

Human experimentation however, wasn’t what you had in mind.

“Just make sure you do what’s asked and keep out of the way,” the lady showing your group around states, ignoring the ethical violation in an epoxy glass case.

“Professor Lucius has no patience for useless things, especially if they annoy him.” Perhaps this is the usual around here.

Someone steps on your foot as they pass by and that briefly draws your gaze away from him. It’s time to go on to look at a different area of the building. 

As voices draw further away; not one person turning to look back, you don’t rush to keep up with them like you should. Instead you stay.

The hum of machinery shifts from background noise to the forefront of your senses, it rings slightly in your ears. The brand new lanyard hanging around your neck tightens like a noose. But you find that you can ignore those feelings when your eyes land on him again. 

Now that you’re alone together, your feet move and suddenly you’re standing close enough to the glass to touch it. And you do just that, laying your palm flat against what separates the two of you. Fingertips smudging the polished surface.

Without the distance you can make out the furrow of his thick brows, the curve of his jaw, the bob of his Adam's apple, and the expression on your face reflected back at you.

By your third week at Ever, you’d come to think that you’ve settled into the job pretty well. Moving past the initial shock from day one, this whole situation is actually pretty good.

So what if the researchers don’t bother to look you in the eye when they speak to you. It’s nothing you’re not used to. They're busy people on the cusp of a new dawn for human evolution (or something like that). And so what if your colleagues still haven’t added you to their group chat. Friday drinks are overrated and it’s not like you could afford to do it more than once a month anyways.

Besides, you didn't choose this job for others, who cares what they think or how they act. It's the work itself you love. It keeps you hooked and has become a routine you’ve sunken into. Knowledge, structure, the motions of swiping in and out of the lab.

You’d ended up rostered on the graveyard shifts, odd hours that no family man would ever have preference for. It suits you well. The darkness, the quiet, and him.

Caleb, you believe his name was—it’s written down on all his files. Mentioned in passing comments. 

The forefront of cybernetic body modification. 

Greatest potential so far.

It’s fascinating really, just what scientific innovation can achieve. Being capable of turning the remnants of tragedy into fuel for the brightest star. Being able to provide a second chance at life to someone who would otherwise be gone too soon.

Caleb is a fighter for being able to survive what he has, and he’s a pain in the ass for your entire department. Able to keep up with everything being thrown at him, yet stubborn in the way his subconscious refuses to yield to necessary change. No one has said it outright—lest the Professor overhear—but doubt in his success is starting to bloom.

Day in, day out. Test after test, all failed. A looming threat that they could have been wrong about him.

You’ve found yourself wondering aloud as you monitor his vitals if he can hear what's going on, if he’s even aware of what's happening. Asking him if he knows just how many hopes and dreams are riding on his success. Asking him if he’s scared. If he’s lonely.

Sometimes you find yourself talking about your own day to day. What you packed for lunch, what your home life is like. Filling your time together with conversations where you carry out all the back and forth.

You’re not entirely sure why you do it. Doesn't really matter.

Caleb must've woken up only a few hours before you arrived—well over the time that had been anticipated. That's the only reason for the hectic buzz you walk into. People flitting around the room like fruit flies. 

It disorients you. Seeing him just, well, there. Amongst everyone. It feels like a dream; actually, hallucination might be a better term. Like watching your goldfish walk around outside its bowl. The sight almost makes you drop what you’re holding.

He sees you fumble and his stare is unsettling. You’d come to notice that he never really had an expression when he was unconscious but somehow he looks more distant when he's awake.

Against your wishes his gaze meets yours and wow, you weren't expecting what you see. It's like looking at the meeting of twilight and dusk, deep purple depths you could study under a microscope.

“Stop standing around and get to work,” someone barks at you. And maybe you imagine it but an emotion akin to recognition flickers on his face when you speak up to apologise.

Entropy and atrophy are words that couldn’t be more dissimilar. 

The former is a measure of how many possibilities reside within what can be seen. The seams between pieces, microstates that aren’t visible. Disorder that can be found within the whole.

The latter is the wasting away of something due to underuse or neglect. A gradual decline or decrease in form and function. The degeneration of cells, organs wasting away.

You would use both to describe Caleb.

The former being how he is, the way he came back so to speak. Now, while you hadn't met him before, it wouldn't take a genius to tell that although he may appear wholly the same; there's something different going on inside of him. Putting chips in someone’s brain can do that.

The latter is a little more straightforward, obvious to everyone in the lab and to him. His right arm, while theoretically superior to the original, lacks proper motor skill. The limb hangs heavily against his side, moves awkwardly when he tries to use it. While attached to the body it's not functioning alongside it.

Neither of these things will be a long term issue—that's the defence you give to your colleagues when they complain about him.

Patience is key and you just so happen to be well practiced in it.

Caleb initially refused to talk. Refused to be touched by anyone, let alone be willingly strapped to the table and probed. The most cooperative he’d been was when you would coax him into eating, and lucky for you that was the best place to start.

He liked apples, each one on his plate devoured faster than anything else, so you took some creative liberties in their presentation. The first few rabbits you made looked really bad, no other way to put it. The next few had missing ears, better but still terrible. 

At some point he must have felt bad for the fruits you were butchering because after a few attempts he said, “You're slicing them too thin, they should be a little thicker.”

The advice worked, sort of. You now had one misshapen rabbit with lopsided ears and a pile of discarded apple peels. And to your surprise, he was in a similar situation. So engrossed in your task you hadn't realised that he joined in. What was upsetting though is that besides the way it got squished when his metallic fingers held it too tightly, his rabbit looked better than yours.

When did things really start to change? Oh right, the day that snake-like man gave you a fright. Nothing terribly cruel, just empty threats around swallowing you like a mouse or breaking your leg to see if you could survive a cybernetic implant.

You honestly didn't even realise that you looked like you were about to cry, and you hadn’t noticed that Caleb entered the room until the bully was shoved to the floor and you were being taken down the hall. 

“Don’t let people treat you like that,” he said. Hand on your wrist, clasped over your lab coat. Grip firm but not tight, giving you the option to pull away if you wanted to. You didn't.

You can still picture the way his back looked as you followed a beat behind him. The way he was kissed by sunlight when you passed by the corridor with the large glass windows. It was like you caught a glimpse of who he was before and you still find yourself thinking about it.

Maybe that was the turning point, when you both became friends or something halfway there. 

You were the only person he would let come close enough to check his blood pressure, and he would start to respond to your small talk—even asking how you were liking Skyhaven or what time you catch the bus to work. And on warmer days (once he was trusted enough to be allowed outside of the building) you’d sit in the complex’s garden and watch the clouds. 

Always thinking, as he sat on the other end of the bench, that he was better suited to be under the bright blue sky. Forgetting that similar to an animal in a zoo, the illusion of freedom is not the same as the real thing.

Looking back at it, you should have noticed how in all the time you’d come to spend with Caleb he never once told you about himself. At least not in the ways that mattered. But you were no better, also filling the moments you both shared with other words. None that begin to touch on what you’re really feeling. 

Perhaps you’ve never been a good liar, always one to wear your heart on your sleeve without meaning to.

“You just remind me of someone,” Caleb said as the breeze brushed past your cheek. And you knew what he really meant. 

The confession isn’t what hurts though, it’s the rawness in his voice. The honesty you hadn’t anticipated him ever showing you.

A worse man would play along, use you, get what he wants. But Caleb isn't like that. He'd preemptively shoot you in the heart to stop it from beating for him. He's not yours and won't let you allow yourself to think he could be.

This might be the first time you really see him. Finally catch the way the bored depths of his eyes don’t reflect you, but someone else.

Who? He never elaborated. And oh how that left you to wonder what about you isn’t really your own. Which part of yourself needs to be teared out so that he’ll look at you the same way you look at him.

a/n: spent too long on this not to post it but also maybe i'll rewrite it later

[ceilidho]

BIRD DOG | Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader

MOODBOARD · AO3

A few times a year, Simon goes home to an empty apartment in a shithole city and counts down the days until he can leave. This time, there's someone waiting for him when he comes home.

Convenient. He was already planning on ordering takeaway.

Or: the live-in masseuse au

tags: Size Difference, Size Kink, Explicit Sexual Content, AFAB reader - Freeform, Masseuse Reader, Forced Cohabitation, Strangers to Roommates to Lovers, Porn with Feelings

The mangled hand of fate lets him go but seldomly. 

He does, though, get a few weeks off a year. Bids farewell to his captain (the barest hint of a nod after leaving each other on the runway, chopper blades spinning faster and faster, the other man headed back out, his duties never finished; the world can never let them both rest at the same time) and then he’s gone, bags long packed and truck loaded the night before last. He drives a long, circuitous route after leaving the military base, the mask only shed when the paranoid prickle in his head finally abates. 

It never quite goes away though.

And then comes the drive back, the road long and the drudgery endless. One hand on the wheel, the other hanging out of the side of the truck, a cigarette pinched between two knuckles. Occasionally, he takes a drag. 

This is the part he always hates. The drive back. Roads winding through quiet towns and over hills, blue disappearing into black, streetlights piercing the darkness and demarcating the beginning and end of civilization. Manchester is a long drive north. He stops once for a piss by the side of the road and then carries on. 

It’s a wonder they let him go at all. He is violence forthright; setting him free does no one any good. It’s hardly even a reward for him, more of just a pretense of normalcy. A week to stretch his legs, so to speak. If he were anything other than human, maybe they’d force him to stay on base indefinitely, secured and contained behind barbed wire fences and reinforced concrete walls.

But a few times a year, they play this game and send him off into the world.

There’s an apartment in Manchester that he’s rented for as long as he can remember. A shithole flat in a shithole borough, and though Simon’s squirreled away enough money to buy a place of his own, the thought of owning anything makes his skin crawl. It’s not in his blood, he thinks. He’d sooner live in a shack in the woods, no fixed address or way to find him. Even his flat in Manchester is rented under a different name, and he pays his landlord in cash for the year. 

It’s dark when he reaches the city, the sky soot black and patchy with clouds. Moon nowhere in sight. Nothing beautiful ever visits Manchester. 

But there’s a light on in the window when he pulls up in front of his place.

Odd.

Would’ve remembered if he left the light on the last time he was in town months ago; filament would’ve blown out in at least that time as well. Still, there’s a light on in the living room window and a new curtain pulled across to keep anyone from looking in.

Simon stares at the light while he leans outside against the truck and finishes his cigarette. Stubs it out under his boot when it’s down to the filter and locks the car door behind him. Violence already itches under his skin, knuckles tingling like they know what’s coming if he opens that door and finds some junkie living in his flat. It’ll be worse if he finds out that his scumbag landlord moved someone else in after picking up on him being gone nearly half the year.

His key still works though. Fancy that. 

He finds you like that, sitting up from a nap on his couch, sweater slouched down a shoulder and groggily blinking open big doe eyes that widen when you notice him in the doorway, fear making you freeze up. 

You’re a pretty little thing; a pleasant surprise to find something like you sitting on his couch. It quells the violence simmering in his belly because it awakens another appetite instead. Like a meal delivered right to his door. He was already planning on ordering takeaway. 

He drops the duffel bag by his feet, propping the door open with it. “You lost, bird?”

Terror leaves you mute. He can only imagine; he must seem like something straight from a horror movie—defenceless girl waking up to the dead-eyed stare of a giant dressed in all black watching her sleep and blocking her only way out. That’s not completely true; there’s a backdoor through the kitchen that leads into a laneway behind the house, but the door sticks in the winter, not easy to open in a hurry. 

He has as much right to ask as you do to run at the sight of him though, considering it is his fuckin’ flat. 

You can’t seem to choke out a single word. Scared stiff, likely, heart slamming against your chest while the worst scenarios possible play out in your mind. Simon nearly rolls his eyes. 

“Fuckin’ ‘ell,” he grumbles, finally kicking his bag out of the way so the door can shut behind him. “Cat got your tongue or somethin’?”

The sound of the door slamming shut must finally snap you out of it because you scramble off the couch, nearly tripping over the arm when you run for the back. Screaming too, just to piss him off extra. His back already aches something fierce from the long drive—he wasn’t expecting a headache on top of everything else. 

“Heeeeeeeeelp! Heeeeelp!” 

Your screams are borderline deafening, almost more aggravating than finding someone living in his flat in the first place. 

You scramble down the hall, so terrified that you go for the first open door, slamming it shut behind you. His eyes follow the shape of your bare legs and the way the muscles in your ass move as you run. 

“I’m c-calling the police!” you yell from behind the bathroom door. 

When Simon looks back down the hall, he notices your phone on the floor, bright side up. Must have dropped out of your pocket when you bolted like a scared cat.

“No, you’re not,” he says blandly, staring at the door. There’s a pause on the other side like you just noticed your missing phone, then a bleat of panic. “Don’t try going out the window either—thing’s been sealed shut since the nineties.”

On the other side of the door, the window rattles in its frame for a good few seconds before you give up on trying to escape that way. There’s a pause while you consider your options. Simon waits patiently on the other side of the door, his temper slowly but surely getting the better of him the longer he goes without a shower and a beer, locked out of his own bathroom. 

What a bloody headache. 

He pounds a fist against the door, bracing his feet in case you try to open it and scurry out around him before he’s had a chance to have a chat. “Gonna come out now?”

“Get out of my house!” you shriek instead of being polite. 

Figures. He should’ve known his landlord would pull some shit like this. “How long’ve you been living here, bird?” 

“I have a knife!”

Pretty thing that likes to lie. There’s not a shot you have anything better than a hair dryer or nail clippers in there. 

“Better get away from the door ‘cause I’m kickin’ it in,” he announces, taking a step back to give himself some distance and waiting a few seconds for you to realize that he’s dead serious before you start screaming at the top of your lungs again. 

Got quite a set on you. That doesn’t matter much to him though. The door caves in after only a few good kicks, the frame splitting right up through the lock when it finally gives, and the two halves—the door itself nearly snapped in half—banging against the wall when it ricochets open. 

You’re trembling between the toilet and the wall when Simon walks in, knees practically knocking together. The crotch of your shorts are wet and there’s a small puddle under you; must’ve pissed yourself in fear, and he’d almost pity you if you weren’t squatting in his flat. 

The closer he gets to you, the harder you wail. Full on bawling now, snot and drool dribbling down your face, and Christ, he sure picked a bad time to grow a heart. He’s not immune to a pretty girl in distress, much as he wishes he could be. 

He kneels in front of you, purposefully blocking your only way out, before knocking his knuckles under your chin, huffing out a breath when you flinch. “Ain’t gonna hurt you, bird. You’re just in my flat, is all.”

“Your flat?” you repeat in disbelief. “This is my flat. I pay rent!”

“Got a lease then?” he asks, and though your eyes are still bloodshot and your nose is still leaking, you nod. 

“Yes.”

“Show me then,” he orders. 

And you do when he steps back to give you some space, scampering shamefully to your—his—bedroom to rifle through the dresser until you pull out a handful of papers that look suspiciously like a lease. He skims it with a growing tick in his eye. It looks like one because it is one.

“See?” you mumble. He ignores the attitude in favour of reading until the end, where he finds his landlord’s name, the blotchy signature underneath it unmistakable. 

“Bullshit,” he grunts through his teeth.

“It’s not. You can call him and ask! Where’s yours?” 

His copy of the lease is tucked away in a drawer in the kitchen, buried under loose rubber bands, old batteries, and takeout menus from restaurants that went under years ago. When he returns with it and holds it up to your nose, you frown.

“Oh. I guess that explains some things.”

“Explains some things, huh? The clothes didn’t tip you off?” Simon asks, referring to the sweatpants and shirts still lining the dresser shelves. Your lips tighten. 

“I thought the previous tenant skipped town and left his clothes. I was gonna throw them out eventually.”

“Good thing you didn’t.” His voice is thick with sardonicism. 

It’s an interesting standoff to say the least. You, standing there in your soiled sleep shorts with tear-streaked cheeks, and him still decked out in his military gear and boots tracking dirt across the flat. You sway on your feet, the adrenaline crash likely intense. He catches you when you sway too close to him and you flinch when his hand clamps down over your shoulder, a new wave of adrenaline coursing through you. 

“I’m fine,” you snap, taking a step away.

For fuck’s sake. His mood darkens at the continued hostility. It’s not like you’re the one who came home to a strange man squatting in your flat—if anyone has a right to be hostile, it’s him. 

Skittering back into the bedroom, you shut the door behind you, likely to change into another pair of shorts. Simon’s mood festers the longer he waits for you to come out. The last string of his patience nearly snaps when you finally creep back out into the living room, the sour expression on your face pissing him off even more.

“I’m gonna call Tom,” you mutter, picking your phone off the coffee table.

“Go ahead.” He doesn’t bring up that it won’t change a thing. Not his problem if you’re so green behind the ears that you think your landlord will drop everything to answer a call, especially after dinner. 

No one answers when you ring, just as he thought. He plops down on the couch and rests a foot on the coffee table, ignoring the way you pace back and forth waiting for your landlord to pick up.

“No answer?” Simon asks rhetorically. 

“Aren’t you gonna try?” you ask.

“Yeah. Tomorrow. When ‘e’ll actually pick up.”

“Well, what are we supposed to do then? I’m not getting a hotel room for the night.”

“Me neither, birdie.”

He meets your stare with one of his own. It doesn’t take long for you to give in. 

There’s a pullout bed in the couch that you offer to take and he lets you because he is, at the end of the day, a selfish prick who won’t give up a week of decent sleep for anybody. Not when his back and neck have been acting up for the past month and keeping him from getting more than three hours at a time. 

The ache behind his eyebrow throbs as Simon sits on the edge of the bed. A slow exhale. 

Tomorrow can’t come quick enough.

In the morning, Simon rings his landlord and listens silently as the fuckhead blubbers on the other end of the phone about late payments and eviction notices.

“This ain’t a charity, y’know,” the other man sniffs. “I gotta pay my bills too.”

He lets the man make excuse after excuse and accuse him of this and that until he finally goes silent when he notices Simon hasn’t said a word in minutes. At which point, Simon icily reminds him of what he does for a living and the fact that he paid him for the year in full just a few months back. 

Not much to be done after that. There’s silence on the other end before his landlord tries to hem and haw his way out of it. He offers Simon one of his other properties currently sitting vacant on the other side of town, but that’s not the answer that Simon is looking for. 

“If anyone’s moving out, it ain’t me,” Simon growls into the phone. 

The wounded look that you shoot at him rubs him the wrong way.

His landlord’s still rambling on about moving costs and lawyer fees when Simon hangs up, no longer in the mood to try and talk things out. 

He doesn’t really understand the legalities here, but he knows he can’t just toss you out on your ass when you’ve also got a lease, same as him.  

“I have every right to be here,” you start up the second he hangs up the phone, not letting him get a word in edgewise, shoulders rolled back like you’re trying to be assertive. “I’ll take it to court if I have to.”

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ.” Simon scrubs a hand down his face. 

“I’m serious. Rent is expensive and this is the only place close enough to where I work that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg—and I don’t have the money to hire a lawyer to get my money back—”

“I’m not gonna kick you out,” he finally snaps, fed up with your caterwauling. 

You pause, hope warring with disbelief. “You’re not?”

He gives a curt shake of his head. “Too much of a headache. I’m only…in town for a week anyway.”

“Oh. ‘Til when?”

“‘Til whenever I’m back.” Purposefully cryptic. He gives you a flat look when you open your mouth to pry some more. 

You reconsider, chewing your bottom lip until a better question occurs to you. “Are you in town a lot? Because I’m not sure how else we could make this work. I could sleep at my cousin’s until you leave?”

“Your cousin live around here?”

You hesitate. “No.”

“Then that ain’t gonna work, is it?”

“At least I’m trying,” you hiss, and Simon has to tamp down the amusement that swirls in his chest at the sight of your shoulders puffing up. “I’m not ripping up my lease and if you’re not either, then we have to figure out something unless you feel like taking this to court.”

While Simon wouldn’t usually take kindly to being threatened, his annoyance never quite develops into anything more substantial. 

“Just keep outta my way and I’ll keep outta yours,” he says. 

“Fine.”

The agreement you come to is that when he’s in town—seldom and erratic—he’ll take the bedroom and you’ll sleep on the couch, a fair compromise since you have the flat to yourself the rest of the year. 

He doesn’t explain himself, of course. Doesn’t explain why he’s allowing this instead of dragging you to court kicking and screaming. It’s no one’s business but his why he chooses not to go down that road.

He tells himself that it’s easier this way; that it’s easier just to run your lease out and spare himself the legal mess. It’s not like he’ll even be around most of the time anyway. 

What he carefully side steps, even in his own mind, is the sharp displeasure that accompanies the thought of forcing you out of his flat and onto the streets.   

Cohabitation is—

Easy wouldn’t be the right word. He certainly doesn’t make it easy on you, leaving his dirty dishes in the sink and his half-empty beer cans in the shower caddy, his cum drying on the wall over the tub spout. You try to do the same by leaving your dirty laundry on the communal furniture, but it doesn’t have the same effect. 

It’s interesting, at least. It’s not as though he’s never lived with anyone before—his memories of his early years in the service are littered with bunkmates packed into every corner of the room, and learning to sleep everywhere from moving caravans to while standing in formation, always surrounded by other people—but he’s paid his dues. Barring deployment, he thought he’d earned the luxury of his privacy. 

But it’s not all bad; it’s been years since he had fun like this. 

You try your best to annoy him in return, but you don’t realize that you’re playing chicken with a man who’s been buried alive. There isn’t much someone like you could do to break him. 

Living with another person doesn’t soften him up one bit. There’s a time for change and it’s not off the back of a four-month covert operation, his nerves still razor sharp and ability to sleep practically nonexistent. He gets precious few weeks to himself and he isn’t going to waste them trying to get in the habit of smoking on the porch instead of in his own living room. 

“I’m a masseuse.”

“Oh yeah?” Simon grunts, barely listening. There’s a match on the telly and a beer in his other hand—a perfect afternoon, if only you’d just stop yapping in his ear for five fuckin’ minutes. 

“Yes, and I can’t show up to work reeking like a chimney,” you explain, scooching closer to him on the couch while being careful to leave some distance between the two of you. For all your posturing, you’re still timid around him, like a kitten hissing and spitting around a much bigger cat. 

“What’s that got to do with me?” he asks rhetorically, not in the slightest interested in how it pertains to him. He takes another drag from the cigarette dangling between his index and middle finger, ashing it over the side of the couch. 

“It means I’d prefer if you didn’t smoke in the flat,” you say, hissing the last few words. 

He takes another drag, turning to look at you before exhaling right in your face. “That’s a shame.”

You cough and squawk, and he fights down a grin. 

For the most part, he leaves you to your own devices, intent only on enjoying his time off. He fixes the bathroom door at least, which you begrudgingly thank him for. 

A week and a bit, Simon reminds himself when you come in through the front door chirping into your phone, your voice effectively drowning out the TV on in the background. When you spot him staring at you from the couch, you go quiet as a mouse and slink off to the bathroom, locking the (newly installed) door behind you. He supposes it’s the only place where you feel any semblance of privacy since his bedroom is off limits until he leaves. It does leave him without a bathroom though. 

Pissing in the alleyway behind the flat half an hour later, he scowls into the darkness and reminds himself that he has no one to blame but himself for this mess.  

When his leave comes to an end, Simon doesn’t bother to give you a heads up. You’ll realize it in a couple of days when you notice his absence around the flat, the siege finally lifted. He supposes you’ll be grateful for his departure and grateful not to make you feign politeness.  

Duffel bag packed away in the car, he leaves with the bed still unmade. Knows that’ll ruffle your feathers later on when you come home, but it’s his parting gift. His reminder to you to enjoy the couple months reprieve his job allows you. 

And then the road slips away under him and he’s gone. 

The months away are just complex rearrangements of the same thing. Each time it drives his soul deeper into the gully, buffeted by katabatic winds. 

His daily life on base is split into brackets of time. Wake up, go to the gym, work, clock out, see the captain for a drink. Wash, rinse, repeat. Each day blending into the next. Back where he belongs, under the thumb of a system that he’s long sold his body and freedom to, and sent out God knows where to do God knows what. 

Then, again the rooster crows at first light and he lifts himself out of bed.

When he’s deployed, everything changes while everything stays the same. He doesn’t have the same freedom of movement as he does on base, but in truth very little changes from one deployment to the next if you zoom out enough. Limited time to sleep on the chopper before it touches down, body tensed for what’s to come, and then he’s off, his objectives clear. 

Driving a knife into a neck to the hilt and pulling it out one inch at a time. It’s the one he knows how to do, and he does it well. He doesn’t have to like what he does; he doesn’t even have to think about it so long as it gets done. 

Ghost exhales and slips the mask back on.

In [redacted city] in [redacted country], he sets his scope up in the window of a building across from one where his target is slated to be in twelve hours and then he waits. Flexes his fingers when they go numb and ignores the thirst clawing up his throat. Four hours later, his elbows ache something fierce from digging into the ground for hours on end, a sharp pain shooting up his arms, but Ghost pays it no mind. Mind over matter. 

Amidst the hours of laying there and waiting for his target to come into frame, his mind doesn’t wander. That’s a luxury for a different time—when the job is done and his target is executed. 

At the very edges of his consciousness though, something flickers. The skin around his eyes pinches as he pushes the half-formed thought away. 

Then his target walks into the room and everything else disappears.

You’re still there when he returns months later on another government ordered leave. Same petulant frown and wobbly lower lip when he walks in through the front door, dripping wet from the rain outside. When he tosses his duffel bag onto the couch, you scowl, nudging the bag onto the floor with your foot. 

“You could’ve rang,” you mumble, pulling the throw from the back of the couch over your lap to hide your bare legs. Pity to be deprived of a nice view, but Simon doesn’t take it to heart. 

“Didn’t think you’d still be ‘ere,” he grunts instead, shrugging out of his jacket and shaking it dry, suppressing a smirk when you start squawking about getting water all over the floor. 

That’s partly a lie, though not one he’ll ever admit to. Simon figured there might be a chance you’d be gone, but in the time since he last saw you, he’s done enough digging around online to know that you weren’t kidding about the lack of affordable flats in the area. There’s hardly a unit nearby that isn’t going for double what he pays, some even more. 

“Well, guess I’m sleeping out here tonight,” you grumble. You’re on your tiptoes in the doorway to the living room now, the throw wrapped around you like a security blanket. 

He doesn’t answer that. No point getting your hopes up when he has no intention of giving up the bed. 

In another life, he might be enough of a gentleman to let you sleep in the bedroom while he takes the couch, but in this one, his back is ravaged by sciatica and his dominant hand and wrist twinge with the beginning of carpal tunnel syndrome. Most nights, it’s a miracle if he can get five uninterrupted hours. 

So no, he won’t be giving up the bed.

But Simon toys with the thought of dragging you in with him. It’s been awhile since he had a woman, so long that the memory is fuzzy when he dredges it up, and though his hand does the job when the itch grows severe, he’s no monk. He could pull you in with little effort, sweet talk you until your knickers are around your ankles and your legs are in the air, hot cunt steaming when your legs part and he sinks his cock in deep. Wouldn’t take more than a half dozen thrusts before he busted, pretty pussy painted with his cum.

In the doorway, you eye him dubiously, scrunched nose expressing your discontent. 

It’s an idea, at least.

He still leaves his dishes in the sink and wakes to you pounding on the bedroom door, whining about having to scrub his plates with a pot scraper, but time and distance have mellowed any hostility in you. You treat him less like a stranger intruding on your space and more like a roommate you’ve grown to tolerate despite his many faults. 

The oddest thing is opening the fridge up to more than just a six-pack, a stick of butter, and three half-empty bottles of mustard. Fresh produce and meat spill from the shelves now, leftovers packed in tupperware and neatly labelled. He eats like a king now, takeout relegated to the days when you don’t feel like cooking. On those days, Simon heads down to the chippie a few streets away and gets enough for the both of you before heading back to eat on the couch with you. 

He still gets a kick out of leaving his cigarette butts in cups strewn around the flat for you to find. 

“So what do you do anyway?” you ask out of the blue.

“What’s it matter?” Simon grunts from beside you. He has to slow his usual gait to keep pace with you—which is irritating as all fuck—but you didn’t leave him much choice when you insisted on going to the store well after dark.

“I’m just making conversation. You always get so squirrely when I ask—what are you, some kind of secret agent?” 

He’d roll his eyes if he had any less self-control.

“No way. No way. You are?” you gasp, suddenly glued to his side, hands scrambling for purchase on his bicep and shoulder. 

Simon stares down at your hands clutching his arm, unconsciously tucking his bicep between your tits. “Best to not ask questions, bird.”

You pout. He ignores the impulse to lean down and sink his canines into that plump bottom lip.

His nose itches because the world is changing. 

He used to catalogue his time off base in much the same way. Wake up, workout, tinker with the junk pilfered from estate sales and scrap yards he’s frequented over the years, then head to the pub for a drink. Wash, rinse, repeat. 

That’s changed since you came into his life. Aside from when you’re out working, you unbalance his schedule. Upset his routines. The structure propping up his entire existence gets taken down in an instant when you open your mouth and ask him to the market with you, giving him no choice but to slam the door shut behind him and drive you there.

Each day comes with its new flavour, a new bite to it. 

“You’re not eating takeout again?” you ask him, aghast when you come home from work to find takeout containers all over the coffee table

“Always a fuckin’ lecture with you, huh?” Simon grumbles into his curry. Shovels another forkful into his mouth. 

Just as he expected though, you don’t let it go. He was a fool to think you would. It’s not so bad at first when all you do is cook for him—with the life he’s lived, he’s never been one to turn down a home cooked meal, so he accepts the proffered food happily—but it’s another thing entirely when you rope him into it.

He’s already pissed off when you wrangle him into the kitchen under the guise of needing his help—absurd after your subterfuge from the day before, his expectation being that you were happy to do all the cooking yourself, not force him to debase himself by chopping up all the vegetables and meat while being ordered around like a line cook. 

What really ticks him off though is that—

he grumbles to himself as he chops the mushrooms into thin slices

—you keep getting away with it.

The worst is when you catch the tremor in his hand at the breakfast table, quick eyes picking up on the subtle quiver instantly.

“Something wrong with your wrist?” you ask. Always prying into his business. 

Simon closes his hand into a fist. “It’s nothing.”

You frown. “Doesn’t look like ‘nothing’.”

“Well, it is.”

“Can you relax your grip? I just want to see that again.”

How he lets you talk him into massaging his wrist is beyond him. Then you press your thumbs into the meat of his palm and rub in smooth, circular motions, and his brain goes offline for half a second. The relief hits him like a cudgel to the head; knocks him upside. 

“Jesus fuck, bird,” Simon groans. His knee bangs against the leg of the table. 

“Feels a bit better, huh?” you ask, the corner of your mouth quirking up in a crooked, teasing smile.

And fuck if it doesn’t feel a thousand times better by the time you’re done. He snaps when your thumbs dig in too deep at his wrist and pain radiates up his arm, but all you do is laugh it off, smiling to yourself when you press down on a tender point on his wrist and his jaw goes slack.

Sometimes, he wishes he could study you like a bug. Pin your arms and legs down to get a closer look. Kneel over you and pin your shins down with his to keep you from squirming away, then tuck his fingers into the inside of your cheeks to pull them open. 

But he keeps his hands to himself. Just barely. 

He doesn’t stay long this time, called back from his katabasis before the week’s even up, Price’s voice urgent over the phone. His duffel bag is packed before the call is even over, boots laced up and mask folded neatly in his pocket for when he leaves the city limits. 

“You’re leaving?” you ask when you notice, and if Simon were less of a realist, he might think you sounded upset. 

“Need me to take out the trash?” he asks, his answer implicit. Yes, he’s leaving. Even if it weren’t for his job, he’s not the staying type; those kinds of decisions are out of his hands anyway, and even if it were up to him, he’d be long gone by now. Adrift; across the pond or somewhere down in the Balkans, far enough away that you couldn’t find him even if you wanted to. 

That’s what he tells himself. Whether he believes it anymore is another question.

You’re quiet for a second. “Sure. Thank you.”

Simon nods. Nothing more to say. The ache in his gut could be anything else. 

He lifts a hand on his way out, ruffles your hair once before he’s gone.

Rain soaks him down to his britches but still he stands in it without complaint, watching some of the privates unload a delivery truck parked outside of the commissary. Even the mundane parts of his job are his to attend to and he does so with little complaint.

When they finish around eighteen-hundred hours, he signs out for the day and heads to Price’s office for a drink. It’s so routine it’s practically part of his DNA. 

Price already has both glasses poured when Ghost arrives, two fingers each, and it goes down smooth when he rolls the mask up over his nose to take a sip. 

“Got out the pricey stuff just for me?” Ghost asks. He can tell by the taste and from the bottle sitting on the shelf behind Price, label facing outward. 

“What else am I saving it for?” Price asks rhetorically. “I’m not letting the good stuff go to waste.”

Ghost hums. It’s still raining buckets outside. He watches as it hits the windowpane behind Price’s desk, almost transfixed.

“Got time for a drink before you’re out on Friday?” 

He shakes his head. “No time. Gotta be out by six.”

“Six?” Price repeats, a mite surprised. “Why? Something waiting for you back home?”

Ghost doesn’t answer. 

Price lifts an eyebrow. “Well, spit it out.”

He shrugs. “Nothing to tell.”

“So there’s no one back in Manchester?”

“Didn’t say that.”

Price’s lips twitch into a grin under his mustache, eyes faintly amused. “Heard.”

Truth be told, he has started to think of you as someone waiting back home. Maybe not for him, but waiting all the same. Why else would you be back in his flat in Manchester in his bed if not to wait for him to come back?

It almost makes him itchy to leave. He can tamp down the urge when the situation calls for it, but it sits right under his skin most days. If he thinks about it for too long, his focus goes razor sharp and the edges of his vision go blurry. 

In the present moment, he brings the glass to his lips and tips his head back, letting it pour down his throat. 

He has some nascent idea of where this is going.

As always, you’re curled up on the couch watching TV when he walks through the front door, on the verge of sleep. When your eyes land on him, you blink away the sleep and smile so brightly that his chest aches. “Simon!”

In nearly forty years, no one has ever said his name like that. Brimming with brightness and warmth. Like for once someone has longed for him in his absence. 

All he can do is stare at you for a time. It should make his skin crawl, and it does, to an extent. He should be out the door already—lease broken, all his shit in the back of his truck, ties cut, and so many kilometers between you and him that he has no choice but to forget your face. 

Instead, he kicks the door shut behind him and ruffles your hair when he passes on his way to the bathroom to piss and scrub a towel over his face. 

It must be a form of self-punishment. That’s the only explanation for why he comes back every single time when he has more than enough money to fuck off down south for a week instead—he could be spending his leave in Costa Brava or sipping rakija in Kotor, but he chooses to come back to this hovel with its bleak weather and seedy underbelly every single time. What other urge would drive him to abuse himself like this other than masochism? 

Any attempt to answer that is swiftly dismissed. 

One day. One day is all he manages after promising to keep himself in check this time around. He manages to get through that first day largely because of the physical distance he puts between the two of you, playing chess with a couple old men in the park, rock doves pecking at the birdseed scattered under the wrought iron tables and benches. 

His restraint breaks when he catches you dozing off in front of the television, socked feet tucked under your thighs and head balanced precariously on your fist, elbow resting on the arm of the couch. 

He sits down beside you and his lip twitches when your head bobs, slumber briefly breached when the cushion under you dips with his weight. 

“C’mere, girl,” Simon grunts, pulling you onto his lap. 

You go somewhat willingly, only putting up a little bit of a fuss. Grumbling to keep up appearances. But that melts away the second he tucks your head into the crook of his neck, body going lax and fingers burrowing into the fabric of his shirt at his belly, gathering it together in your fist. 

Christ, Simon thinks, dropping his head back on the couch. What am I doing?

Even he doesn’t know these days, but his chest aches in a way it never has before. He makes a mental note to see a doctor when he’s back on base. 

His back aches too, but you pick up on that rather quickly, hounding him when you recognize the stiffness in his back for what it is. It takes you days to wear him down enough to agree to a massage, but eventually you do. He regrets it the second the words leave his mouth, leery at the thought of putting himself in such a vulnerable position.  

You lock him out of the bedroom while you set up your table and do all the little things that you need to do in order to set the mood. His nose wrinkles when the smell of incense hits him. 

“You can strip down to your comfort level,” you explain after letting him back into the room, patting the bed as if he doesn’t know where to lie down. “Then get under the blanket and let me know when you’re ready.”

He cocks a brow. “You trying to get me naked, bird?”

“Simon,” you sigh, a touch exasperated, hands on your hips to emphasize your weariness. 

His belt clinks as he unlatches it. “Don’t worry, birdie, just gimme a second to get these off.”

A frustrated growl and then the door slams shut behind you when you bolt out of the room. 

He spares you the indignity of having to repeat yourself, sliding under the towel and barking at you to come back in when he’s stripped bare and covered. You slip back in quietly and flit over to the dresser to press play on your music.

The first touch of your hands against his bare back almost makes him flinch. All his regret comes rushing back and he very nearly calls it off, and then you press the heels of your palms into the meat of his shoulders and the bottom falls out from under him. Then you drag them down the length of his back and he very nearly bites his tongue clean off. 

Simon doesn’t bother muffling his noises when you dig your hands into his back to work out the plethora of knots, huffing and groaning like he’s balls deep. When you get to his shoulders though, he has to fight to stay put, 

“Oh, your back is really messed up,” you note, a bit breathlessly. 

He doesn’t acknowledge your words, too intent on not vocalizing his pain. Not even a grunt passes his lips. 

You work years of hard labour and soreness out of his muscles, leaving behind a new man. The oil coating your palms makes your hands glide across his back. 

He must fall asleep at some point because he wakes to the sound of television in the other room. Groggy at first, cotton mouthed and sleep drunk, and when Simon stumbles into the living room, you’re sitting on the couch with your knees drawn into your chest. 

“Oh hi,” you say when you notice him standing there. “Sleep well?” 

Speech still beyond him, all he can do is nod and plant himself on the couch beside you. Shirtless still. Simon only notices it himself when he tips his head to look over at you and finds that you won’t meet his eyes, gaze steadfast on the TV. 

“Shoulda ‘ad you do that when you moved in,” he says. 

“I could give you another one before you leave,” you reply, still not looking over at him. He bets that if he brushed his knuckles over your cheeks, they’d be hot to the touch. “Just tell me when.”

Maybe he will. What use is there in depriving himself of life’s little pleasures when his soul bears all of life’s bruises? 

He reaches over to pinch your cheek, grinning when you yowl. Just as warm as he thought.

One thing Simon doesn’t take for granted anymore are his scarce moments of privacy. No stranger to a little exhibitionism (barracks walls and tent flaps hardly muffle sound, and he’s learned over the years that men will tolerate anything if it means they can rub one out in peace), he still appreciates the time he gets to himself to take care of things. 

He’s only just finished tugging one out, his jeans buttoned back up and his hand still wet with his spend, when you walk in the front door.

You start up the second the door slams shut behind you, steam practically billowing out of your ears. “Well, thanks a lot—one of my regulars just gave me shit because she said I smelt like an ashtray and she couldn’t ‘properly relax’ for the whole hour—” 

Afterglow proper scotched, Simon sits there and lets you cuss him out until the pounding behind his eyebrow becomes unbearable. 

You go quiet when he rises to his feet, unused to him actually reacting to your whinging. Sometimes you don’t realize how accustomed to him you’ve become—how ingrained he’s become in your everyday life. What continues to elude you for no good reason is that you live with a stranger, and a strange man at that. It would piss him off if it were anyone other than him. 

Practically chest to chest now, you nearly go cross eyed staring up at him. Jaw unhinged and mouth dangling loose, just the slightest gap between your lips like you forgot to close them. He lets you size him up for a second before lifting his hand to your mouth and slowly but firmly shoving his cum-covered fingers into your mouth.

Dumbstruck, all you can do is stare up at him with his cum-slicked fingers in your mouth, holding them there for a few more seconds and whimpering when he drags them out and then feeds them slowly back in. You even go a little glassy-eyed.

When he finally pulls his fingers out and lets his arm drop to his side, you sway on your feet a little, at a loss for words. There’s a creamy sheen on your bottom lip that disappears when you suck it into your mouth on instinct, eyes going wide when you recognize the taste on your tongue. 

“Thanks for cleaning that up, birdie.” And then he reaches down to zip his fly up, smug when your eyes flit down to his crotch. 

The stakes are different now than what they were all those months ago. It can’t be a carefree cohabitation when he’s playing for keeps. Whatever that means. 

But his time is cut short again, the world catching up to him and yanking him back. And when Simon goes this time, he can’t help but drag his feet on his way out.

You’re looking good. A comment made in passing, Price’s face barely twitching through it, but Ghost catches it and he lets it sit for a moment before responding.

“Yeah?” he grunts, looking away. The recruits round the part of the track closest to where they stand, panting through their seventh lap. 

“Put on a bit of weight since you left,” Price notes. 

“Calling me fat, sir?”

He rolls his eyes, huffing out an exasperated breath. “Give it a rest, you fuckin’ muppet. I said you look good.”

Price isn’t wrong though. He both looks and feels different. With increasing regularity, he watches the clock and counts the days down until he’s released from his duties again. His want has him circling like a bird of prey. 

All his life, he’s had to live in the moment, concerned only with the immediate, tangible present because that’s all that life let him have. And though it’s been decades since he’s needed to be in survival mode, those instincts have never quite left him. 

The shock to his system has left him forward-thinking for once. A girl in his house and food in his fridge; his body feeling better than it has in years—he’s still lucky if he gets more than five uninterrupted hours of sleep, but his expectations are different when he’s not at home. Even the concept of home is foreign, like a language he’s just starting to learn. 

The future isn’t some nebulous concept out of his reach but a real place that he gets to walk into. 

Desire tips him like a scale. There may not be any coming back from this.

Love shows him no mercy, so he doesn’t show you any either. 

Months pass before Simon’s leave comes around again, and when it finally does, he’s already packed and signed out before his last day on base is even up. He says his goodbyes to Price on his way out and the other man visibly suppresses a smile, eyeing the bag clutched tight in his hand. 

“Give her my best,” is all he says before getting back to the paperwork in front of him. Simon leaves without another word. 

Then the long drive back. A skein of birds in flight follow him for part of the journey. A train running parallel to the throughway follows him for the rest. Tree boughs bend under the weight of the last snowfall.

Then he blinks and when his eyes open, he’s home.

You’re still sitting on that blasted couch when Simon opens the front door, pretty as a peach in August, and his name rings like a bell off your tongue when you say it, summoning him to you. It’s not his fault that his urges prevail, that he has no choice but to throw his bag down onto the carpeted floor and stomp over to you, lifting you up by the collar of your housecoat and dragging you into a scorching hot kiss. 

“Mmf,” you squeak against his lips, eyes flying open. 

It’s messy and frenzied, spit dripping down your chin and his tongue halfway down your throat. No finesse or skill to speak of, only an incessant buzzing at the back of his head that only quiets when you give a helpless little moan, an instant balm to his suffering. 

Simon pulls back for a moment to let you breathe. “That’s my welcome ‘ome?” he murmurs. His lips brush against yours when he speaks. 

“W-welcome home?” you repeat, flustered, your lip catching against his. He sucks it between his when it does, cock throbbing in his pants when you gasp, hot breath billowing into his mouth and making his head spin. 

This is nothing like being high on pain meds or three sheets to the win. It pulses through him and makes his cock chub up, forcing him to shove a hand down between his legs to readjust himself. That gets you good when you notice. 

He kisses hungry and mean, ever greedy for your mouth, fitting his hand over the back of your head and angling you how he likes. Holding the delicate cradle of your skull in his palm and knowing that he could crack it if he squeezed his fingers hard enough. The thought sends a rush right through him, his violent underbelly scratched in just the right way. 

“W-where’s this coming from?” you gasp when Simon pulls back. You look thoroughly flustered, but he ignores you to hook a finger in your mouth and wrench it open. 

“Open,” he grunts, giving your inner cheek a sharp tug. 

You go cross-eyed when he spits in your mouth, the glob of spit landing right on your tongue, and your affronted little gasp hits him like an arrow shot straight through his heart. He’s considerate enough to seal it in with a kiss, making sure not to let you waste a drop. Tongue pushing in right after to lick it up, growling at you to suck it when you only nervously kiss back.

His patience isn’t infinite though and kissing barely wets his appetite. It’s not enough to plumb the depths of his hunger when there’s something uglier down there waiting with its jaws wide open.

He twists you around and bends you over the back of the couch, rucking your housecoat up to your waist. Your knickers get ripped clean off, tearing at the seams, and your ensuing shriek nourishes the hunger simmering low in his belly. Appetite never satiated, belly never full. 

He likes that you didn’t expect him back so soon. Fuzzy, unshaved legs and holey socks; pimple patches on your face and nothing under your robe. The lazy domesticity appeals to him in a way he never would’ve expected. 

Then his fingers split the seam of your pussy and the runoff of his appreciation cascades down the slopes of his shoulders and his back. Slick drips from your winking hole, gathering together into a tight bulb before a single drop drips onto the couch beneath you. 

“Fuck—now there’s somethin’ to come ‘ome to,” Simon grunts, and then drags his tongue between your dew-slicked lips.

His enjoyment was a foregone conclusion when he imagined this back in his quarters in the barracks, cock in hand, but the reality of having his mouth on your pussy exceeds his expectations a thousandfold. It’s all soft, pillowy skin and sweet nectar. He gorges himself on it, an almost pathological need to be tongue-deep in your cunt.  

“Wet little gash just sucks ‘em right in…” he murmurs, plunging two fingers into your hole slowly. The soft flesh of your hole bulges around his fingers when they sink in all the way to the knuckle. 

“Fuck—don’t call it that,” you bleat, so pathetic that he’s smitten. 

“Shouldn’ta wagged it at me if ya didn’t want me to touch it,” Simon teases, then crooks his fingers just so and your leg spasms. 

He keeps you stuffed full until your legs shake, on the verge of coming, and then he rips them out. 

You practically scream in frustration, twisting to look at him from over your shoulder. “What’s wrong with you?” 

“Somethin’ wrong, birdie?” He smirks when you arch your back, pushing your ass back in his face. 

“I want to come, Simon,” you whine, wagging your ass in his face again. Just his luck that a little slut like you dropped into his life.

“Alright,” he sighs, mock aggrieved. “Lemme see if I can ‘elp with that.”

Ungrateful little thing, he thinks when he turns you over onto your back and heaves you up into the air. 

“Simon—”  you keen his name when he has you pinned up against the wall, his arms scooped under your thighs to hold you in place. 

He plunges into that warm little honeypot between your legs in slow, measured strokes at first, savouring each punctured whimper and hiccup that drops from your lips. Each flex of his hips brings him that much closer to heaven and that much closer to hell.

“Didn’t think you could just barge in without consequences, did ya?” Simon asks rhetorically, voice gone brassy and tiger-stripped, thick in his chest. “Been sleeping in my bed for nearly a year, ‘aven’t ya? Ain’t I owed this?”

He means it too. 

“You’re—so full of it,” you retort, hiccuping through your words.  

Your arms hang limp around his neck, fingers twined at his nape and nails scratching at his hairline. The low ache in his back is barely a deterrent—he’d hold you up all night if it took that long to make you come. A distant voice at the back of his head reminds him that he’ll suffer for it in the morning, but he shakes that thought away. 

He chases the beads of sweat snaking down your chest and tits with his tongue, straightening back up only when that nearly makes you lose your grip around his neck and topple out of his arms. 

“Hey,” you pout when Simon chuckles, digging your nails into his back in retribution for laughing at you. It has the opposite effect though, the pain stoking his pleasure and sending a shiver down his back, his next thrust so rough that you bounce in his arms.

Your skin smells like sweat and musk this close, so heady that his head spins. It registers dimly at the back of his mind that he’s still dressed while you’re fully nude, housecoat and knickers in a pile on the floor in front of the couch, but he can’t pull away now, not with the need to come pressing into him on all sides, dick hard enough to split diamonds. 

He stares down between your legs where his cock splits you again and again, a ring of white cream at the base. He could paint that little snatch white with his cum or stuff it deep inside, both options appealing to his baser instincts. It’ll be a coin flip in the end.

When the ache in his back grows too significant to ignore, he lifts you up off the wall and drops you down on his cock, burying himself to the hilt before carrying you to the open door to the bedroom. 

“Sorry, pet,” Simon murmurs when he feels you clench around the thickest part of his cock, whispering a little oh fuck to yourself under your breath. He kicks the door shut behind him with his heel. “Back’s shit. Mind taking over for me?” 

The mattress squeaks under his weight when he sits down on the end. You blink up at him. “You want me on top?” 

He nods and hums his assent, digging his fingers into the muscle and flesh of your ass and kneading. “Yeah, bird. Still wanna see all the pretty bits though.”

The pretty bits being the globes of your ass facing him while you ride his dick, his hands pulling apart your cheeks to watch you take it inch by inch, thighs quivering with the strain.  

Your thighs are stretched out on either side of him, pretty calves resting perpendicular to his chest and toes curled into the mattress. He eyes those with some interest before your pussy distracts him again. There’s no angle that isn’t nice to look at, but this has got to be his favourite so far, tight bud between your cheeks clenching every time you drop down onto his dick. It’s easy to ignore the ache in his shoulder with a view this nice. 

“Fuck, birdie,” Simon murmurs, dragging his hand over your ass and then swatting it, grunting when that makes you clench up around him, inner walls squeezing his length and nearly milking him dry. “Coulda been doing this the whole time.”

You laugh a bit breathlessly. “No—you were way too annoying.”

Smack. You yelp when he backhands your ass and your shoulders go stiff, spine a taut line with your impending orgasm. Simon can feel it like a knot in his throat, pussy so hot that it nearly burns him alive. 

“Shit,” you gasp, hands on his legs the only thing keeping you upright. You nearly rip out the hair on his thighs when you curl them into fists.

His hands glide up and down your sides, touching wherever he wants. It’s his God given right after housing you for so long, and though Simon clings belligerently to that belief, like the foundation of his existence is built on quid pro quo, on doing nothing for others unless there’s something in it for him, there’s something else that burrows underneath that maxim. Something far truer and more terrifying, and if he were to look it dead on, it would bring him to his knees. 

Simon grunts, lungs pummelled when you squeeze around his length, tight as a vice.

Good thing you’ve got him on his back instead.

In the end, it’s not up to him whether he comes in you or not. When his cockhead bumps against your cervix and he feels teardrops land on his thighs, your shoulders shaking with the force of your sobs, the spigot loosens and his stomach aches with how hard he comes. His heels dig into the mattress, hips lifting up, trying to cram more and more of his cock into your cunt, tendons straining against his neck. 

“Take it, bird,” Simon snarls, teeth grinding together, his voice sounding wrecked even to him. “Take it nice ‘n deep, fuck—wanna see it leak from your hole when I pull ya off—”

Your nails sink into his thighs, cutting him off. 

He does too, when you flop down beside him onto the bed and he tucks you under his arm, spreading your legs so he can push his cum back into your cunt, fingers pearly white with your mixed juices. 

“Oh God,” you whisper, squeezing your thighs together around his hand until he’s forced to wrench them open again, hovering over you this time, the cudgel dangling between his legs already thickening up again. 

And that’s how he spends his week, in a suspended state of euphoria, no sense of time passing. It doesn’t matter where it goes as long as you crawl into bed with him at the end of the day, eyes sparkling with delight. 

The leaving is tougher than it’s ever been, claws scoring right through his chest when Simon tips your chin up and leans down to slot his lips over yours. He’s not made for this sentimental bullshit, but it finds him either way. 

His chest burns on the drive back to base, acid reflux a bitch as always. 

The next time his landlord calls, he comes bearing good news.

“I’ll cut you a deal on the first month to make up for the…mix up,” he starts begrudgingly. “But don’t worry—the girl’ll be out of your hair by the end of the month. Gonna tell her today that I can’t renew her lease.”

Simon hangs up without saying a word, swathed in anger. Nearly crushes the phone in his grip when his landlord calls back a second later. He ignores that call too.

If he were a different man, if this was a different world—

No one ever knows when their world is about to change until it does. 

But even if his walls have grown barbed wires in the years that he’s been alone, there’s always a way to dig out from under. 

The return home is different this time around, the wind under his sails all but lifting him into the air. 

A year to the date almost. Another month and time will wrap back around on itself, the seasons changing the same way they have for all thirty-seven years of his life. When fate lets him go this time, Simon heads over to Price’s office before taking off for the week, carving out time for one last drink before he hits the road. Over a whiskey and kretek, he tells Price his plan and only just keeps from rolling his eyes when Price barks a laugh, clapping his hands together.

“Never thought I’d see the day,” he chuckles, shaking his head. 

“Shut up.”

“It’s a big step, Simon. I’m proud of you.”

Simon rolls his eyes, pleased despite himself. “Stuff it, old man.”

And then he’s gone again, following the same winding road back, with one stop along the way this time. He stays overnight at a local inn after signing the paperwork, too exhausted to keep driving. Too much on his mind anyway. 

It means nothing to him that people do this sort of thing all the time. He has survived the locust years of his life and come out the other side. That should be enough to give himself some grace when he tosses and turns all night, back pain flaring up and immobilizing him for an hour. Only when the first rays of dawn pierce through the threadbare curtains does it finally abate, and he heads out after his morning piss, ignoring the cramp in his belly on the drive over.

You greet him at the door when you hear his car pull up, standing under the door frame while he gets out and rounds the car, bare toes curling at the cold air. And any effort to tamp it down now is in vain, his chest filling with something unspeakable and unsaid. 

“Put your shoes on,” Simon instructs, coming over just to pull you in for a kiss before nudging you back into the flat, shutting the door behind him. 

“Why?” you ask, lifting a brow. “Wanna go for coffee or something like that?”

“Something like that. Why aren’t you putting your shoes on?” 

Herded into the truck after getting dressed, you badger him with question after question the whole drive over while Simon keeps his mouth shut, focusing on the road in front of him. It’s not a long drive at least, but your incessant questions make it last an eternity. 

Until he pulls up in front of a house with a short gravel walkway and a garden in desperate need of attention, milkvetch growing near the front step. The outdoor sconces are new though, and though Simon already has a few things in mind to fix up around the house, it’s got good bones. Leagues nicer than the place you just left.

“Are we picking someone up?” you ask when he puts the car in park, confused. You stare at the door as if waiting for it to open. 

Simon doesn’t respond.

You look over at him and he takes one of your hands, holding it palm-side up and covering it with his own ugly mitt. You feel something cold drop from his hand into yours and he curls your fingers into a fist to hold it.

“No.” 

When his hand moves away, you uncurl your fingers to find a key. It means so little and so much all at once. If he could say it with words, it wouldn’t be the same so there’s no point in trying. 

“It’s ours?” you ask.

“Yeah.”

There’s a watery sheen over your eyes when you look up, and your lip wobbles. And in a way different than ever before, his chest grows tight, the ache in his heart a fresh and welcome pain.

[honeyblackberries]

Sylus dreams of his son

cw: angst (kinda?), references to his dragon myth, lore inaccurate, same universe as the world you left behind

Sylus is someone who could never have a dreamless sleep. The haze of his subconscious habitually drifting between fragments of sunlight and laughter, then darkness and the cold. It has almost become routine, the way his dreams usually play out.

The beginning is always in the arms of love. Careful hands trailing through his hair, sweet nothings given wings by a gentle breeze, spring flowers as far as the eye can see. But there is a glass like haze present, clear enough for him to remain unaware of it until the light reflects in just the wrong way. It’s then when the reds of the field turn from blossoms to blood. 

The ending is always slow. Not the death itself but what leads up to it. When your joy turns to tears and his breathing halts. There is no pain in his body, no feeling where the sword pierces his chest. Yet his heart aches as your tears fall, and the ghost of your sorrow follows him into the waking world.

Those dreams used to bother him once—they still do on the bad days—but he'd gotten used to them over time. Focusing instead on the way you feel when he holds you. Learning to believe that time has moved on and it now promises him a life by your side.

So, it’s safe to say that when this dream starts differently, Sylus can’t help but be caught off guard.

It begins and ends with a young boy; one who appears to have made himself comfortable in the old church from the past. His back is facing Sylus and he sits on a wooden bench in front of a pipe organ. Feet dangling in the air as he clumsily presses the keys in an all too familiar melody, humming along to himself. 

Outside light filters through stained glass and surrounds him in a flurry of colour. A chess board lies abandoned on the floor nearby. And then, a familiar voice—your voice, calls out an unfamiliar name.

The boy stops and turns himself around so fast that he almost loses his balance. Now that he faces Sylus, his familiar white hair and red eyes are apparent. He says something that sounds like “Mama” then asks for a few more minutes to continue practicing the tune. And the whole situation is disorienting yet strangely wonderful. Fantasy that feels nothing short of something real.

Sylus reaches out, his hand almost touching the boy's chubby cheek, but everything fades and the boy slips through his fingers.

He awakens back in his bed and is left to sit with a feeling, foreign yet one he’d recognise from the very marrow of his bones. He would do anything and everything for that boy. A little thing seemingly brimming with all that is good in the world. Someone he’ll never meet yet a face he’ll always see in people on the street.

And Sylus knows that he’ll always wonder about whatever happened to him.

[yanderenightmare]

♡ TW: noncon/dubcon, yandere, bullying, jealousy, possession

♡ FEM reader

It’s after getting caught red-handed tumbling out of seven minutes in heaven with a random guy you’ve only just met that you’re struck with the incomprehensible realization.

Seeing your bully’s face standing in the cheerful crowd of the party, all rumpled, all fierce, all murderous. You start to piece it together, but you’re too slow in understanding it. All those times he’s stuffed you inside your locker, smacked you upside the head, thrown your bag into the lake, pushed you down to the dirt, called you names, and overall made your life a living hell, what he’s really wanted to do is something much, much, much more fucked up.

Your eyes couldn't be wider, your heart couldn't beat faster, not unless it wanted to take flight and leave your body dead beneath him. His hand is half the size of your face, glued over your mouth with tightly sealed fingers. The muffled noises that leave it are lost in the chatter and thump of bass and drums coming from downstairs, where the party rages on, uncaring of the two of you having gone missing.

He’s drunk. But not drunk enough to use it as an excuse. No, he’s fully alert. A bit panicked even, realizing he’s gone too far, and yet, not able to stop himself. 

“You’re not supposed to be here…” he says under his breath—so low and soft, in a growl you barely hear. His fingers play with the lace edge of your hiked dress, a look of restraint painted clearly on his face. “You’re not supposed to wear dresses like this.”

He sighs deeply, then swallows thickly. His tented crotch brushes against you, and you squirm, but at the same time, you’re too afraid to move. Like you’re trapped in a room with the worst predator. 

Your hands twist. He had them tied up with his belt, behind your back, getting crushed beneath you, and only further spurring the panic in your chest as he takes hold of your face and leans in even closer, the tip of his nose gracing your jaw, taking in your scent with a slow sniff.

The goosebumps that erupt come out sharp, and you quiver with a whimper, feeling his lips smear your neck, his breath hot and wet against you, growling low, “You’re supposed to be at home, nose-deep in a book, thinking about the next exam… while I’m supposed to be here, dick-deep in some slut, thinking about you.”

His other hand, warm and gritty, slides up between your thighs, tenderly trespassing with a caution that tells you he knows he’s crossing a boundary.

“That’s how it’s supposed to be,” he insists, and yet, when his fingers reach your cunt, feeling its cozy heat and wanting it all to himself, all his restraint goes slack.

His body sinks against yours with a heavy outlet, buries his face in your neck, nuzzling there with what sounds an awful lot like a whimper.

“I have to fuck you,” he mutters darkly, like it’s a confession of some kind. “If I don’t, someone else here will…”His whole body shakes, unstable like a nuclear meltdown, seething with his teeth up against your ear. “And I refuse to let that happen.”

♡ BNHA – Bakugou, Shigaraki, Dabi, Hawks, young Enji ♡ JJK – Sukuna, Geto, Gojo, Naoya, young Toji ♡ HQ – Kyotani ♡ BLLK – Shido ♡ DS – Sanemi

♡ FEM x M INSERT masterlist ♡ GN x M INSERT masterlist

[honeyblackberries]

blue collar!Toji who works with his hands all day, uncaring of the wear and tear inflicted on them. be it from bad weather, poor working conditions, or just a general laziness in his actions; his hands as a result are a bit rough around the edges (just like the rest of him).

blue collar!Toji with a thick layer of calluses on the pads of his fingers, built up from all those years of manual labour. the hardened skin felt whenever he grabs your thighs or draws shapes into your lower back. short nails and fingers stained from his smokes. little traces of dirt and tobacco that seem to stick around.

blue collar!Toji who—despite not understanding why you’re so adamant to put some of your damn hand lotion on him—lets you do it with a grumble. at first he acts like a cat, hissing at the prospect of being groomed, but slowly his attitude starts to deflate.

your hands are warm and gentle as they rub his, and the lotion smells sweet. terribly unfitting for him yet perfect for you. he can’t help but wonder how many times he’s been touched like this, full of care.

blue collar!Toji knows that unlike you, his large hands weren't made to be gentle. his touch is heavy—at times almost clumsy so—the weight of it not like that of a lover. tenderness is not something that comes easy to men like him, but know that he’s trying to be softer for you. please be patient with him.

“see? it's nice, you big baby.” you tease.

“yeah, yeah…what did you say the smell was again, peach?”

blue collar!Toji now carries a small tube of hand lotion with him, the same one as yours. you snuck it into his jacket pocket one day and he never took it out. it stays tucked away safely, right next to his beat up wallet and a pack of marlboro reds.

[yanderenightmare]

The Four Seasons as Boyfriends

♡ TW: nsfw and fluff, really soft yandere, if yandere at all

♡ GN reader

Autumn is always half awake but never fully asleep. 

In the morning, he likes pairing coffee with a smoke out on the balcony—standing shirtless, black tattoos on his pale skin, despite the cold wind, watching the sun rise, sporting tousled hair and dark sunken eyes. 

He spends his days more or less the same way. There’s a briskness in the breeze and rain every other day, and all the leaves have turned shades of brown and orange, matting the ground in wet heaps, leaving the trees to look like skeletons. He likes going for short walks just before the sun goes down, when the sky is a warm pink and there ain’t a soul to be seen, and it feels like the two of you are the only people who’ve stayed behind before the apocalypse came.

At night, he’ll stay up late, watching Halloween movies with you in his arms, drinking something stronger than coffee, and smoking something different than cigarettes. He’ll never flinch when the gory scenes play. He’ll just run his thumb up and down your arm and hold you close with a low chuckle.

He’s a quiet guy who spends his time observing more than talking, a real philosopher, writing down things on this old typewriter he has, anything from crime novels to other horrific things. He’s somewhat grim that way—you think he might have been a mob boss in his previous life. 

But he’s got this dry-humored side as well, and a romantic one too—one that whispers awfully heart-gripping things to you in bed, gives you small gifts on all your anniversaries. Half-mast dark eyes without a smile on his lips, bringing your palm up for a kiss. 

Maybe it wasn’t a past life, you think, maybe he’s a vampire who’s been plenty of things. Come to think of it, you’ve only ever seen him outside when the sun has been safely hidden behind a veil of grey clouds. You don’t know, he just seems like he’s come from another age in the way he’ll treat every day like something to be enjoyed slowly, every moment together to be savored, and every detail of your face something to be not just remembered but cherished.

♡ BNHA – Bakugou, Shoto, Shigaraki, Dabi, Aizawa, Shinso, Overhaul ♡ JJK – Sukuna, Geto, Megumi, Toji, Yuuta, Choso, Higuruma ♡ HQ – Kageyama, Kuro, Iwaizumi, Sakusa, Suna ♡ CSM – Aki, Yoshida ♡ BLLK – Reo, Rin, Sae ♡ AOT – Eren ♡ DS – Akaza, Tomioka, Genya ♡ HxH – Chrollo, Illumi, Feitan

Winter wants to spend all his days inside, wrapped up with you in bed like a bear in hibernation. You have to all but fight your way out of his hold in order to get up. 

He groans when you leave, whimpering at the cold, but eventually, he musters up enough willpower to follow you. He’ll have the duvet wrapped around him still, slippers padding towards the smell of breakfast. He’s still sleepy until he gets a good, warm cup of chocolate coffee. 

Clad in a warm blue sweater, pilled from wear, but cozy still, and a pair of baggy corduroys and fuzzy socks in all sorts of colors. 

He’s super reluctant about leaving the house—will literally find any excuse not to and do anything to avoid having to. He’ll stand in the mudroom with you like an obstinate brat as you dress him, putting on his scarf, hat, and gloves for him before pulling him into his jacket. 

He’s pouty at first, whining about his nose freezing, but after a while, he gets more than happy-go-lucky in the snow. Acting just like a dog, bounding about, tackling you down, and rolling around with you so that you’re both sure to catch a cold. 

You build a snowman together, make angels, and a little igloo where he’s deadset on the two of you sleeping tonight. Yeah, not likely, is all you think, knowing him and how the minute the two of you get home, he’s going to hunker down with all the duvets and blankets he can find and cry about how he’s never going outside again. 

And sure enough, the two of you trudged home, freezing cold and exhausted from all the frivolity, he in a whiny mood. You enter the shower together, and he just stands there, arms around you, draping you with his entire body under the water, defrosting. 

Like before, you end up doing things for him. Shampooing the sweat out of his hat-hair and soaping the rest of him up, then doing yourself the same way.

He’s just as clingy when you’re done. Dressed in fluffy robes, he’ll hold you close on his lap and put on a Christmas movie, something funny, something for children, The Grinch or Home Alone, or a romcom you’ve watched a thousand times before.

He’ll eat gingerbread men instead of dinner, drink one too many cups of eggnog, and tell you how he wants to curl up inside your heart where it's nice and toasty and stay there forever—meanwhile, his hand explores your naked body under your robe.

♡ BNHA – Denki, Kirishima, Shigaraki, Toaya, Hawks, Natsuo ♡ JJK – Mahito, Gojo ♡ HQ – Hinata, Tanaka, Kuro, Lev, Bokuto, Miya twins, Tendou ♡ CSM – Denji ♡ BLLK – Nagi, Bachira ♡ DS – Doma, Zenitsu ♡ WB – Umemiya, Togame

Spring is an early bird. Big breakfast spreads every day, wild flowers on the table in a hand-painted coffee mug, toasted bread with a dozen types of spreads, sliced meat, cheese, scrambled eggs, different jams, strawberry, peach, blueberry, apricot, raspberry, and all the currants.

He’s always got a big goofy smile on his face, wearing baggy dongeries and bright pastel-colored T-shirts—green, pink, yellow, and blue. His hair is fluffy, his eyes are round, and he’s always got a new pair of suede sneakers on.

He’d make a great dad, having the personality of a guy who’s a kindergarten teacher, the way he’s all about DIY easter decorations. He has his own craft cart, fully equipped with different colored paper, patterned tape, and glitter in all pretty colors.

He’s never been a very traditional guy, always raving about new ideas, dreams he’s had, things he’s seen when scrolling through Pinterest—you can't hope to keep up...

Your walls have all been painted—not like other walls—but as if the wallpaper were canvas. All your chairs have been bought at yard sales and other second-hand stores, refurbished by him, and hand-painted in different colors with cushions in different fabrics. Your coffee table is an old wine crate he found at a junkyard. All your blankets are knitted with spare yarn from all his other projects.

He also scrapbooks like no other, filling the pages with receipts and tickets he’s saved from your outings and vacations, and Polaroid pictures he’s taken of you, with dates and locations written along the white bottom.

Not to mention, how in the kitchen window, he’s hung the empty egg husks from breakfast, decorated with swirls and dots, with letters spelling Happy Easter!

He also makes you love letters—indulgent paragraphs with an overwhelming amount of love-bombing and hopes and dreams about your future together, always with the wording of a five-year-old child talking about their favorite type of food. 

Yeah, he’s no poet, but it’s the thought that counts, and so A for effort!

♡ BNHA – Deku, Denki, Kirishima, Shigaraki, Hawks, Mirio ♡ JJK – Gojo, Yuji ♡ HQ – Hinata, Sugawara, Bokuto, Miya twins, Tendou ♡ CSM – Denji ♡ DS – Zenitsu ♡ WB – Nirei, Umemiya

Summer is tan with tan lines from his swimming trunks. He’s all smiles and loud laughter, too careless for shades and sunscreen, and so you’re the one who’s left running after him when he sprints towards the water, like a parent, shouting at him to put on some protection.

He filled the cooler up with sodas and beers before you left home, and has brought along firelighters, making a bonfire on the sand for grilled fruits, vegetables, and meats, so that the two of you can spend the day.

His hair is sun-damaged and bleached with saltwater, but he makes it look good with his freckled face, looking as though he lives on the beach. He’ll go in the water several times, never tiring.

He likes to promenade in flip-flops like he’s on constant vacation,  always shirtless, letting his swim-trunks dry while the two of you walk along the shore as the sun gets low, giving you his sweater once the air gets a little chilly. Making plans for how you can fill the rest of the summer. 

He’s got never-ending ideas, you don’t think you’ll have time for it all—hiking, biking, camping, festivals, outdoor movies, picnics, farmers markets, berry picking, kite flying, ice cream, gardening, going diving, sailing, fishing, hot air balloons, parachuting, bungee jumping, skydiving—yeah, his ideas get progressively more extreme as he goes.

But at home, when he’s all drained out from the sun, he’s a quiet presence. Warm still, but calm, lining up pretty seashells and dried-up corals along all the windowsills, before the two of you hit the shower. Washing off salt and sweat, and about a bucket's worth of sand that remains between the cracks in the tiles.

He’ll leave kisses against your neck and shoulder, murmur things in a voice you don’t recognize from the day, but a grainier one belonging to the night, telling you all the dirty things he’s going to do to you now that the sun’s fully down.

♡ BNHA – Denki, Kirishima, Touya, Hawks, Natsuo ♡ JJK – Gojo, Yuji ♡ HQ – Hinata, Sugawara, Tanaka, Kuro, Lev, Bokuto, Miya twins, Tendou ♡ CSM – Denji ♡ BLLK – Nagi, Bachira, Shido ♡ WB – Umemiya

♡ FEM x M INSERT masterlist ♡ GN x M INSERT masterlist

[honeyblackberries]

whenever new sylus content comes out in game it all just further solidifies the fact that he's so much more than the typical 'morally grey villain’ love interest people could easily write him off as. i always find myself reminded of the fact that he’s not only such a well written character but a really good lover. 

he makes sure mc/the player is well fed before he starts to eat, he makes it a point to get her favorite drink for her when they meet up. when she challenges him he matches her energy, when she wants to do something he always indulges her and goes along with her plans. 

alternatively, when she doesn’t want to do something—even if he thinks it’s good for her or he would prefer for it to happen—if she says no then the answer is no. like while his first instinct was to kill the old lady who stabbed her during the zoion hunt he backed off when she told him to. he bandaged her up with care and didn’t simmer in his own anger or try to contradict her wishes like other depictions of that genre of man might have.

they play video games together. he fist bumps her when she does a cool move to shoot down their enemies. he’s trying to become a better singer so she’ll like it when he sings for her. he says the soul is one of the most precious gifts given to humanity and implies that she makes up half of his. he wants to help her become strong enough to protect herself. he says their connection transcends current circumstance and repeats constantly that their lives are bound together.

everything sylus has done previously was in preparation to meet her. everything he does currently is working towards having a future with her. when instinct and base desire tell him to devour her, take her strength and be rid of the power she has over him, he doesn’t give in. and with the hints to more of their past lore it seems like in each lifetime he’s stuck in a never ending cycle of having to kill her or be killed by her again and again, yet he persists.

he's the type of man i personally want to work towards deserving and i'm coming to understand how i've accidentally mischaracterised him in the past. i think i could write as many fics about him as i liked, but i would never do him justice.