Her eyes crawl over to find yours, lids lax with the carelessness solely bestowed on the honest summer child. Her heels are burrowed into damp, glutinous mud, still weeping with the remnants of last week’s downpour. Bare feet tilt at a persistent angle, pushed by the creek's current, the only sounds your shared breathing and the babble of liquid motion over stretches of flattened stone.
“What wouldn't you like?” she drawls, her voice lancing through the balmy stillness between you. “Rich's godawful cologne suffocating you while you try to cook his dinner like a serf?” She snorts, fingers lazily drifting through kelly green blades of bristled growth.
The night before, she had insisted on you stopping by right after work while she grabbed a portable radio for your night to the drive-in. Her mother had indeed been slaving away over the stove while her stepfather, Rich, encased her from behind, barely allowing her an inch of movement in any direction.
But there's one particular aspect that has stuck out in your mind and needled at your idle hours since.
“He kept kissing her neck.” you finally answer, flicking an ant off of your skirt. “They were loud and wet and…and kind of off-putting.”
Alexis grunts, her agreement not needing to be articulated. But her eyes remain on you, eyebrows raised in droll challenge, irises shimmering with something that tugs at your memory.
"Is it just the thought of him kissing your neck, or being kissed on the neck in general?” she questions, her hand falling stationary.
“The thought in general.” you reply, your nose wrinkling. You've always been rather sensitive, giving your peers and family members no shortage of amusement as you twisted and flinched away from gentle pokes and teasing prods. You can't imagine that having lips where your sensation is most heightened would be anything nearing pleasant.
Quiet resumes, and you've just managed to tuck away your sensibilities enough to lay back on the grass before her words reach your ears.
“I could kiss you there. If you want. To see if you like it.”
Your chest hitches, static weighing thick and heavy over your just prone form. The implications don't need to be voiced. The potential fallout sits like a stone in your throat.
“I…I shouldn't…” you trail off, fingers curling into your dampened palms.
“Wouldn't you rather find out now?” There's an odd sort of hunger coloring her tone, desperation tempered with a bite that almost makes you wince. “Why would you want to wait for some prick to slobber all over you just to find out you'd rather be dead?”
The word dead coming out of Alexis Getty's mouth is nearly enough to make you break into peals of laughter. She isn't made for talks of mortality, not conceivable in terms of beginning and end. You can close your eyes and imagine her laying on this creek bed at any period, at any era. The world could be in ruins, and she would still be siphoning the sunlight for all it was worth, gulping it down like a rabid scavenger aware of its closing window.
Call it familiarity. Call it something that won't go past your trachea. Either way, it's just wrong.
You bite your lip, watching as her pupils dilate a touch at the crease in your skin.
“It…it won't mean anything, will it?” you ask. You're not religious, exactly, but the community might as well be your temple, your family its followers, and its creed forbids aberrations.
Her face shutters, her nostrils flaring.
“No.” she mumbles. “It doesn't matter.” Her eyes flash with an accompanying sneer inching at her lips.
“I'm just helping you. I've done it enough.”
Something hot and sour lances your stomach at the reminder. Girlhood is a toothy thing, blossoming in patches of damp in curves you aren't ready for, shark-infested waters you haven't managed to acclimate to, milestones so far out of your reach while others attain them with every other step. Lip gloss and mascara feel like they're trying to glue your orifices shut, making sure you can't see and you'll never be heard. It ends up leaving you sitting in front of your mirror in a daze, wondering when, or if, you'll ever feel ready.
Alexis, on the other hand, was born ready in a way that renders you equally dizzy. She flirts and parries advances with blistering ease, caustic insults and saccharine coos intertwining into a symphony that makes your bones chill as you watch from the outskirts. She kisses and tells with identical nonchalance, detailing her exploits with brash satisfaction moderated with boredom while you stew in something nervous and slippery.
It will be helpful, won't it? To be on the receiving end? To know what she does and how it feels good, so that you can replicate it later?
“Yeah.” you eventually murmur. “You can do it.”
Your eyes slide shut on instinct, not allowing your senses to catch up with what your mind has decided. The second darkness descends, you feel them. Plush, slightly sticky warmth grazes your skin, lighting a traction path that forks lightning around your skull.
You remember when she first moved here, your mother all but commanding you to show her around. You had ended up on this very same creekbed, what would eventually become your ‘spot.’ She had nicked peaches from a yardside farm stand with a quick snap of her wrist, tucking them into her skirts with a wink and a smirk.
You had watched her sink her teeth into the warmed, fuzzed flesh, overly eager to see her reaction to the fruits of your land. But then the juice had trickled, and she had slurped the tender meat until you had to focus on your own produce in order to not do something irrational. The thought of her mouth and tongue roving over the mess of sugar and fiber had stained your mind for weeks after.
Now, feeling those same motions on your heated skin, you wish that your dermis could split as easily as a peach's, that she could play audience to the deepest, wettest parts of you.
Seconds or hours pass, time stretching and morphing into a pocket of simple yet devastating pleasure that you can't bring yourself to reconcile with. Her mouth is eternal, her tongue everlasting, and all you want is to fall into the void of athanasia with her.
But eventually, she retreats, breaths puffing in moist drafts over your collarbone. A groan sits leaden in your throat at the sheen of saliva ringing her mouth, and you briefly wonder if it still carries the remnants of nectar.
She looks down at her watch, then jumps to her feet, leaving an imprint in the grass already fading.
“I have to get going.” she mutters.
“What for?” you ask, cringing at the desperation lining your tone. You know it's irrational, but you can't help but wonder if your neck wasn't up to par, if you didn't taste the way men do. You don't even know what men taste like, but a sudden, unquenchable urge wells up within you to not only match it, but better it.
“I have a date.” she answers, blase as ever. A vague silhouette takes form in your mind. Gangly limbs and calloused fingers, nicotine breath and wandering hands.
And oh, how you ache. How you burn. It doesn't matter. It can't matter. But you can feel your teeth lengthening, whetting themselves on sleek and bitter steel.
“Have fun.” you eke out, watching the creek rush by, continuous and unfeeling. A singular stone tumbles along its current. You know that it will eventually fall out of synch, that it'll stray to the banks and find rest among its kin, too burdened to forever be held aloft. And as she makes the solitary trek back to the township proper, you know the feeling so intimately that it nearly ruins you.
—
She's in your front yard. Her body leans against her beat-up Ford Falcon, the engine idling. Her shoe arcs in drag paths through the packed dirt of your entryway, sending up plumes of sepia tinted dust.
You open the door and go out to greet her, the words lapsing to quiet before they reach the open air. Her coming to you is a novelty, and the implication has the hairs on your arm standing on end.
“What are you doing here?” you ask, and ‘here' could mean anything from your property to the mortal plane entirely.
“I'm gonna be gone.” she replies evenly, her hair frizzing in the steadily growing humidity. Her manner is almost frenetic, charged with prey's instinct for watchful wariness. “For a while.”
She looks as though she wants you to wail, to throw yourself down on the earth and beg. But you instead feel a hollow resolve fill your chest cavity. Something ancient and weary resting in your bone marrow knew this day would come, in the half-baked fashion of a child imagining the sun blinking out, plunging the earth into permafrost at the first mention of dissolution. A tumble from the mundane into the ephemeral.
“With the guy from…” you swallow past snarls and profanities. “From that day?” Your voice is limned with a plea so needing and insecure that you almost want her to insult you the way she did the men who lurked outside the storefront window when she bussed tables.
She nods, chin tilting upward in defiance of a structure you aren't aware of. Her eyes meet yours, and your lips nearly form a perfect circle as the memory from before finally settles into resolution, a stubborn fold in a sheet of paper finally wormed out of its obstinance.
Your mother had taken you to a different county, wanting to show you one of the new-age centers for stray animals.
“They don't euthanize them right away.” she informed you as you made your way through corridors of steel cages and echoing yips and yowls. “They keep the majority of them for adoption.”
You remembered that your dad had muttered something about it being a waste of tax dollars, but you thought it was rather nice, to give the rejected a second chance, or at least the hope of one.
You had dawdled by the end of a hallway while your mother talked to one of the volunteers. Peering into the nearest cage, you were caught in your own sort of limbo.
Pressed against the bars was a Rottweiler, lips curled up in a ferocious baring of fatal teeth. But its eyes were open, bare in another fashion entirely, frantically jumping between your face and your hand at your hip. Simultaneously asking you to touch, and daring you to try.
Alexis looks much the same way, you realize, beckoning you ever closer and promising a fitting retribution.
Affection, or perhaps a jealous sort of pity, buoys your next words.
“Is he nice?” you reply, knowing the answer.
“No.” she says swiftly, intending it to hurt but unable to follow through. “But he wants me.”
You let the pointed comment slide by, readjusting your blouse.
“Well,” you try with a smile, “when you come back, I'll be here.”
A bright laugh tears from her tongue. “You make it sound like you're staying in this shithole forever.”
“You make it sound like you'll be gone forever.” you retort, but somehow it doesn't sound as funny.
You hold up a finger and dash into the house, fingers sliding against glass and fumbling under water before you re-emerge, tossing her a farewell token.
A peach.
Her face lifts and falls and goes every other direction in the span of a second, her limbs spasming.
“A snack for the road.” you tell her. “And maybe a little something to remind you of home.”
She holds the fruit in her palm for a moment or two before biting into it with a savage tear.
“When I come back,” she says through a mouthful of pulp and juice, “we'll share one. We'll buy out that whole damn stand. We'll get sick of them. I promise.”
It's the last thing you'll ever hear from her. And when you're sitting on the creekbed after your mother's wake, not caring if you muddy your Sunday best, a small, worrisome nook of your mind will pause to wonder if Alexis Getty ever ate another peach.
your favourite character from redacted and one headcanon given to them (or more, I'm bad at maths anyway)
(a/n: MARCELINA! have these...mini headcanons under a headcanon...umbrella? reqs open!)
okay, so my character is corvus. i love him so much no one could understand he's my blorbo yadda yadda yadda
but my big headcanon is that he is the absolute perfect person to take on any outing ever, but particularly educational/experiential outings.
i'm talking museums of all make and manner, from art to natural history to pop culture to oddities and abnormalities.
want to explore a historical figure's estate? he's there. spend an exorbitant amount of money just to rent an aquarium out for the night to have it to yourself? he's delighted by the horseshoe crabs.
heard of a tunnel that's said to be a gateway to hell, and you know that it's not real, but wouldn't it be cool to just see it? he's taking pictures of you up against the gaping maw of the other side
(and if i said he would be more than open to going to a comic store, then that's just my opinion okay whatever)
i just think he's the perfect balance of factually inclined and willing to spend an afternoon doing whatever with you. i don't think of him as a blank slate or desperate for socialization. i just see him as genuinely interested in all he can learn, and being in specified areas of novelty is just his kind of vibe
Can I request hux x damien ( I feel like it fits them the most but feel free to change the couple if you like :) ) where hux is doing the thing where you watch a whole episode/ series in parts on TikTok and damien is tellinf him to just watch the show already and eventually catches himself invested in the show too 😂♥️
(a/n: this is solely based on one of my tiktok interests </3. reqs open!)
"When you do their taxes, I'll do the dishes."
Damien's eyes flitted up to the screen hanging nebulously somewhere by his nose. His head was nestled against Huxley's chest, their legs tangled together beneath sheets that had been kicked down to a rumpled heap at their feet.
His brows twitched. After every minute and a half or so, there would be a gap of silence accompanied by the rasp of Huxley's thumb against the phone's surface.
"Huxley." His voice broke the comfortable quiet that fell betwixt them when they did their own things. "We have Netflix. We can watch Young–"
"Yeah, yeah. I know." Huxley smiled down at his boyfriend, giving him a firm squeeze with the arm currently wrapped around him. "But I'm too far in to stop now. And they're adding more every day."
His eyes crinkled at the edges in the way that made Damien's chest constrict since he was branded his 'good luck charm' amidst the clatter of bowling pins and intermittent cheering.
"At this point, I have to be their most consistent viewer. It'd be sacrilege to stop."
Damien snorted, shaking his head. "It's sacrilege to waste a television show that was made for television that we could watch on a television on your phone."
Huxley, of course, didn't take the bait, simply shrugging and scrolling to the next episode, or rather, clip.
Despite himself, Damien couldn't help but to let his eyes drift upward every so often. The large yellowed captions smack dab in the center of the video certainly made watching it easier, and he would be lying if he said that some odd section of his brain didn't light up at the novelty of watching a show in a vertical fashion.
"He annoys me sometimes."
Huxley peered down again, a semi-triumphant smile settling on his lips. "Who?"
"Sheldon." Damien answered, giving Huxley a beat to respond with a succinctly righteous remark, and when he didn't, continued.
"It doesn't take an actual genius to recognize when people are upset sometimes. Accuracy is great and all, but he needs balance."
Huxley hummed an agreement, and they lapsed back into silence to watch the next clip, neither choosing to comment on Damien's seeming conversion; one out of grace, and one out of chagrin.
being friends with fanfic writers has got to be the best thing about the internet. i get to be tortured by the gods BUT i'm also their favourite little guy who they send sneak peeks and drafts to. everyone go make friends with writers NOW
what do you think avior's thought process was when he first realized that he had feelings for starlight
could be just thoughts...or a fic....if you wanted....
- jacketthief
(omg, an honour to receive an ask from my idol. Feel free to steal all the jackets I have if this rant does not meet your expectations)
Oh Avior, you complicated but beautifully minded individual...
It's not easy to describe what he felt, for he was not supposed to feel anything or know it at all. He was a d(a)emon, born of magic and spellsong that sounded similar to a harp being played, a distant sound, gentle and soft. There was no space for things of no importance for him. Think of him as a devoted scientist, his work his only muse.
Starlight was thrown into his Hell by accident, so he should feel guilty. If it weren't for his haste and lack of awareness, they would still go to work the next day, however dull it was. He should be remorseful, especially when after some sense of time passed, and all he got in return, were even more questions than answers. They were a human, magic barely there compared to him, where every single fibre of his astral being thrummed with it. Was he blaming himself? Probably, but he didn't know it was actually called that.
He should be second guessing himself, espefially when their hand touched his for the first time, yet instead of pulling away, they leaned in, fingers squeezing three times, and it didn't make his skin crawl because it was uneven. The mortal didn't care for logic or symmetry he was created with, their core was free and their thoughts were a jumbled mess, and Avior couldn't understand why it wasn't bothering him after the impromptu hand holding like everything else that was out of place. He arrived for perfection, every step calculated, every decision made with purpose. His fundamental trait, the base of his existence, was left in shambles, and instead of hating it, he thrived amongst the rubble and ruin.
He should be confused. Never before he experienced something remotely close to this, though being an inchoate allowed him to gain a better insight on various emotions, his feeding never falling into a routine. He wanted to learn about the nuances of shock, rage, and happiness. In his years spent outside of Aria, he tried his luck and got a taste of whatever he could find and learned that despite being initially sweet, the aftertaste of desire left him sour and unsatisfied, quick to grow hungry again.
In Hell, he didn't need to feed, his magic always coursed steadily through his whole being, powers never growing weak. He was not hungry, he was not in any need or wish to taste more, but his mind screamed at him to get that more, target of his conflicted thoughts sleeping soundly in the space they dared to call their own, keeping his mind raging. He didn't need to sleep, but judging how peaceful they seemed in the state of u consciousness, he began to consider doing the same, just to get the grasp the idea behind it. He made fun of their constant questions and comments, their penchant for learning never stopping, but in the end, he was absolutely the same. And suddenly, instead of wanting to know more about the whole world, the desire began to circle around something much smaller yet of the same importance.
The longer they talked, the more the puzzle pieces of what looked like an abstract began to fall into the right places, sight presented with something that finally started to make sense.
The long conversations they had felt like the sweet taste of whipped cream on their coffee, sprinkle of cinnamon adding a bit of a spice to it. Their touch on his shoulders sent fireworks down his spine, just like the ones that lit up the night sky at the New Year's, loud explosions matching his speeding heartbeat. The kiss, first one he has ever gotten, felt like the warmth that emanated from their core as they told him about their favourite book they read, tone excited like a wag of dog's tail upon beinf petted, words tender like their lips against his own. Excitement, he understood later, as he pushed himself against them for more, a different type of hunger suddenly clouding his logical brain. But not for the feelings, yet for the thrill that made his breath hitch and the torture of being stuck turned into an afterthought.
Their embrace felt like the sun gathering the world into its arms, warm and gentle upon rising on a spring day, their head on his chest late at what they considered night, a steady and pleasant weight of a day well spent, satisfaction bubbling in his ribcage that barely could accommodate the unknown and foreign.
Their body reminded him of the similar sweet scent of a pie freshly baked, which he once caught a whiff of as he walked by a bakery, plums and sugar dancing in the air of a cosy looking place. He needn't eat, but even a d(a)emon like him could be swayed into a humane indulgence they called his "sweet treat".
They were his own, their skin like liquid gold, precious and rich whenever he kissed it, clear and vivid images of the most beautiful sunsets behind his closed eyes upon every touch, voice bewitching and making him swoon, perfectly fitting itself with the notes of his own music, core singing the highest notes with ease and grace. Only after meeting them and tasting the full potential of desire, he understood that the aftertaste was not sour, but a full on explosion of overwhelming sweetness, one that only kept him wanting more and more, fill never achieved. For the first time, he was not upset or frustrated by it, instead, he accepted it with a clear mind and arms wide open, be it for another curios question or a simple hug that in his mind, never was just simple.
The love was an enigma because he had never experienced it before, yet he knew exactly what it was. And he was fine with the mystery being unsolved, as long at they were with him to prove that the answer was not needed, not when he had them by his side.
He was a d(a)emon. He shouldn't feel any of the things which he did, emotions only proving useful as a source to survive. He was not of earthy standards and he did not subject to earthly and human laws yet the human made him understand what he brushed off as unnecessary, giving him not only the first hand experience, but also the sensations that finally were right and whole, instead of mismatched and short lived.
He felt what they did on the happiest days of their life, their fond memories turning into his new view of the world he once took as an experiment to conduct and analyse, not a place of wonders.
Especially strong, he felt the pain that almost ripped him in half upon the impact after pushing them out of the Hell, heart turned into nothing, no longer beating, he once again had no reason to keep it. They taught him so many new things and gave them names and reasons behind those. They even proved to him that d(a)emons could bleed, his eyes obscured by the thick red as he blinked, trying to call back to the golden hour of their love, and gentle rise of their chest as the rift closed, a veil of dark fading around his dwindling consciousness.
Hiya! May I request some Milo/sweetheart anxiety comfort? Exam season is kicking my ass rn lol
(a/n: best of luck with your exams!!! reqs open!)
"You're gonna leave a valley in the rug if you keep pacin' like that."
They barely deigned to give him a half-hearted glare that reached nowhere near their eyes.
"'m not pacing." they muttered, choosing to ignore the desecrated fibers with a sniff. The department had considered them for one of the toughest jobs of their career to date. It would look absolutely fabulous on their record if they succeeded, padding out an already impressive reputation.
They would become the laughingstock of their cohort if they didn't.
The thought of snickers hidden behind hands put to smiling lips, or worse, pitiful stares following them through corporate hallways, made their veins run frigid and their chest twist until it ached.
"Sure." he drawled, standing up and eyeing them with a tender sort of caution. He had heard them rant endlessly about this opportunity since they had received the email about it two days ago, patiently listening to them weigh the pros, cons, and every little gray area of nuance in between.
"Touch?" he asked plaintively, holding his palms up and toward them.
They deliberated, silently cataloging the incessant buzzing along their skin, weighing whether or not the pressure of his fingers would worsen or alleviate the sensation.
They settled on a nod, allowing him to lead them to the couch, where they now sat shoulder to shoulder.
"What if I crash and burn?" they whispered, darting a look at him.
He shrugged, poking his tongue into the inside of his cheek as he thought.
"Then you do." he finally said. Upon their responding glare, he let out a chuckle.
"What? It could happen, hypothetically. "But as much as our brains like to conjure up the notion, life isn't always a series of slamming doors while we wait for other ones to open. They're more like elevators. You just missed the one, but the next carriage is coming up behind the same sliding doors. Sometimes, you're in the right place, you just flubbed the timing."
He leaned into their side. "But if you do great, then we'll go celebrate. And if you mess up horribly, I'll let you wallow for an hour or two, and then we'll go out to celebrate you tryin' anyway."
They blinked, mulling over his words, the buzzing dulling to a manageable presence.
"Wow." they said, nudging his arm. "You almost sounded like you knew what the hell you were talking about."
"Prick." he muttered, cupping their face in his hands to place a lingering kiss on their forehead.
Idk if this counts as a request but who from redacted do you think definitely recreated the famous Spiderman kiss? 👀👀
SUPERHERO/COMIC ASKS FOREVER OKAY THANK YOU BYE
those who have attempted and failed, miserably or not: guy, asher, hudson (do we remember him?). guy made it his mission to try out every kiss possible on honey, and that was…not one of his finest moments. asher gets a c- because all he did was bend over the couch that baaabe was laying down on and kiss them upsides down
those who attempted and succeeded: VINCENT SOLAIRE. i’m so heavily convinced that he was a comics guy because his childhood/early adulthood was in the BOOM! he would have been just learning to read longer stories when some of the most crucial works were being published, including kraven’s last hunt. i think he’d have grown up a spidey fan, and especially todd mcfarlane’s takeover of the series. ANYWAYS. whether this was before or after lovely’s turning is fine, but i just know he walked them home one night and dragged them into a tucked-away alley, nimbly leaping from the pavement and onto a nearby fire escape, tugging them in for a kiss
hc/self projecting? via @h3lektra 's hc of asher being a marvel fan
asher asked for a comic book birthday themed party (could be any age), and his mom knew NOTHING about that medium
cue decorations that are a mix of dc and marvel (deadpool table settings, justice league plates/napkins, batman and spiderman streamers, hero themed snacks, gigantic wolverine poster to take photos against, superman themed cake)
YES my mother did this for my 20TH BIRTHDAY upon my request :3 and YES we watched x-men '97 while i yapped about the original storylines
excuse me, do you have anything on Avior? I miss this man so much that I'll take anything
(a/n: IT HAS BEEN DONE. titled after, and loosely based on, the song i'll provide below. hope you enjoy!)
to have and to be held
character(s): avior, starlight (cameo/mention)
pairing: avior x starlight
wc: 1k
emotional angst
These were the days he had come to hate the most.
He woke up with a crick in his neck and a miserable, festering, permanent heaviness in his chest. He didn't have to sleep. He knew that. Fatigue was more so a conditioned response to time passing than a need for a restful recovery.
The crick in his neck was from the rigid position he had held himself in for hours on end, resolutely staring at the same dust and rock that had encompassed his entire world for the past…however long it had been.
He could feel an odd numbness in his arm, a dull prickle spreading throughout the muscle. His heart leaped into his throat, eager to feel what his addled mind had assumed to be the cause: them, head tucked into the side of his chest, having been there all night.
But when he lifted his arm and it came up effortlessly, he let it land with a limp thud onto his cheek, his excitement snuffed as easily as it had sparked.
He closed his eyes, willing himself to steel his resolve, to not give in to the searing temptation whose flames licked at the tender spot behind his ribcage.
He knew what he would see. It was the sight that had been torturing him for the past three weeks, at the very least. Bile rose in his throat at the very thought of witnessing the tableau that had branded itself into a stark imprint on the backs of his eyelids.
To mitigate the craving that threatened to gnaw its way out from behind his sternum, he took stock of his environment for the nth time. Rock. Dust. More rock. Ever more dust. Tinge of smoke, residue of flame. As far as his eye could see.
He could make his rounds, poke and prod at the edges of his eternal prison, and see if any give had presented itself since the last time he had checked. He could sit, and wait, and strategies, and remember that he had already tried that particular angle, rinse, repeat. Rinse, repeat. Rinse, repeat.
Rot.
He couldn't take it any longer.
He turned onto his side, his eyes squinted shut until he took one final, shuddering breath, and opened them.
And immediately, a drawn, wounded keen fled his tongue, swept away to the distant aether in swirling eddies of airborne ash and sulfur.
The sunlight hadn't dimmed from the creamy, buttery glow it had bestowed on the city's landscape, making the reflections against corporate sheets of windows easy to see, leaves to glint an almost garish shade of viridian, and hair of all shades to display glimmering highlights not normally exposed.
And it drew his gaze to the object of his most ardent desires and wretched regrets.
They were encountering a familiar face approaching them from the edge of the rift, and his blood thrummed with the need to know. Who were they? A friend from school? A coworker? He racked his brain to parse through every single conversation they had had under a dome of artificial stars, sitting through depictions of mundane architecture and the rote routine of their daily tasks.
No specific names came to his attention, so they obviously weren't important enough to warrant mention. Still, the lack of recognition irked him.
But mere agitation was nothing compared to the utter grief that took his body in a jolting spasm as his visual path finally settled on the point where they made contact.
His love had a genuinely pleased smile on their face, their hand outstretched in warm greeting. Their fingertips had graced their acquaintance's upper arm, pads barely grazing upward from where they had been nearly a month ago.
In cruel, self-loathing mimicry, his hand moved of its own accord, wrapping around his bicep, his tendons shifting incrementally to best match what he saw before him. He applied further pressure, dimpling his skin and holding onto himself with all of his preternatural strength.
It wasn't enough. He knew the etchings of their fingerprints, the dips and curves and striations that were unique to them, and them alone. Much as he tried to push past the glaring differences and focus on the act itself, his brain just couldn't ignore the bare fact that it wasn't them.
A tidal wave of concentrated revulsion swept through the hollow cavern of his abdomen with a ferocity that nearly knocked him off of his feet. Where or who it was directed toward, he couldn't begin to fathom.
Them, for leaving him? For abandoning him to all the trappings of divine retribution with none of the actual substance? For burrowing their way into the weakest, fleshiest, invisible parts of him? For asking so many questions and telling so many jokes and carving their existence into his senses so inextricably that to be apart from them felt like a rending?
At their companion, for being able to witness them? To touch them? To be the recipient of their smile and their voice? To escape his remembrance and his approval by proxy?
Himself, for letting them go? Being confined here in the first place? Crawling back to this very same rift day after day like a kicked puppy anticipating the next steel-toed impact, desperate for any glimpse of what he had given away?
For wanting them back so badly it burned? For contemplating reaching through the looking glass and pulling them back? Eroding their agency and self-determination for his own comfort?
For wondering if that was enough to stop him at this point?
He huffed out a breath before something thick and swampy lodged itself in his throat, and he began to weep bitter tears that pocked the sand below, graphite dips that pattered at a steady rate.
His internal sense of time had long been tipped off-kilter, his approximation of a circadian rhythm long out of sync. But something deep within him told him that he had wasted yet another day in its entirety standing in inaction, staring desperately at what he knew he shouldn't want to have.
He drank in the last of his self-allotted time, then promptly turned his back on the rift and laid down, taking a few wavering breaths before he slowly wrapped his arms around his chest, fingers trailing desire paths up and down his ribs, the way they used to.
feral over the milo aftercare post-- can i request him lovingly forcing aftercare onto a sweetheart that's really bad at receiving affection??
(a/n: i'm always here to provide aftercare...or to write characters providing...for other characters...or listeners...you get the point. reqs open!)
"What are you doing?"
The question was warm in timbre, but pointed in subject. They halted their current arc of movement, their bare foot settling on the hardwood, the resulting twinge from that infinitesimal amount of pressure enough to set their teeth on edge.
"Getting water." they rasped in reply, their own voice hoarse and gritty from prolonged bouts of vocalizations that had hummed against the glass bulb in their bedside lamp.
"Lay down." he urged, hands reaching forward to circle their wrists so gently, so reverently, as though even after all that he had done to ruin them in the best way conceivable, he couldn't bear the notion of truly causing them harm.
"You've been through a lot. You, uh..." Here, his voice trailed off as an irrepressible grin tugged at his lips as his eyes danced over the amorphous splotches of bruising and changes in pigment from nips, impacts, and the myriad of positions they had been in.
"You need to recover." he finished, maintaining a steady eye contact with them until they relented, allowing themselves to be led back into a supine state while he went to get the water.
When he returned, they took the glass from his hands, only to slosh a fair bit of it onto their naked skin, their wrists unable to accommodate the weight. He immediately braced his palms around the cup, bringing it to their lips and holding it at a perfect angle, allowing them to drink deeply, relishing the cool liquid and its soothing effect on their parched throat.
He set the glass down and rejoined them in bed, fingers beginning to dance along their shoulders, elbows, calves, and thighs. They stiffened, not out of revulsion or discomfort, but out of lack of familiarity with just...receiving something so quaint and yet so impactful.
"Thank you." they mumbled as he worked out a particularly tense spot at the skin bridging their tailbone to their thigh. "You don't have to do this."
He froze for a moment or two, then resumed his work with nothing but a huff.
"I literally do." he said quietly. "It's the bare minimum. Like, so bare that it's not even funny. But whether I have to or not is irrelevant to the fact that I want to."
He tilted their chin until they were face to face, his eyes shining with something that made them want to duck their head in ingrained avoidance.
"I want to be the one who brings you pleasure, in every sense of the word. Sexual satisfaction is one thing, but I want to be the one helping you down afterward. Seeing you feel any type of good at my hand...there's nothing better in all the world."
Their lips pursed a fraction, heat pricking at their cheekbones.
"Right." they mumbled. "Ditto."
He laughed, rich and full-bodied, and leaned in for a deep, sumptuous kiss that left every nerve in their body standing on end.
