Thinking about Jabber and Mankira and how fucking sad they make me.
Makira is protective. She *wants* Jabber to be safe, to think of himself, to get out as fast as possible. She shields him and works as a ranged weapon when she's unleashed. She's a one hit wonder. Jabber has to actively work against her if he wants to maintain a fight. She deflects poisons outwardly if he's attacked, but it's a punishment if he chooses to abuse this part of her.
And yet, he desires to be strong, to only feel weak on his own terms, to take back his control so deeply he betrays her entirely. Uses the thing that was meant to protect him, be *strong* for him in the ways he couldn't be, for things that she was never made to be.
Do you think she mourns the way Jabber forces her to punish him?
Annie tries out her Nice 'n' Warm tea blend out on Smoke with intentions to pass the time while snowed in. Just for Stack to show up and show that there's nothing wrong with playing games
While snowy winters in Mississippi are rare, they aren’t impossible. The snow steadily falling outside means it is cold, and that means that the whole of Clarksdale, Black or White, is locked into their homes.
Bunked in and bored to death.
However! Annie has a plan to address the need to keep both busy and warm, with a soft smile on her face she watches her tea kettle tink and clink as the water starts to boil. Annie sways in place as she grinds together the warming spices of ginger and cardamom along, some floral tones of dried rose and jasmine into plain black tea leaves for her custom ‘Nice n’ Warm’ blend.
She eyes down Smoke’s finely sculpted back; he is clad in just a pair of pajama pants and his under-tank his brown skin striking against the white of the top and silver of his dog tags. The sight prompts Annie to add a few more pinches of dried Hybrid Damiana aka Love Leaf aka a potent aphrodisiac she’s been custom growing for a while. Hell it was this tea blend alone that was the cause of the mini-baby waved in Clarksdale two summers ago. Can’t do nothing but fuck to cure the fever it causes.
Meanwhile, Smoke watches the harsh flurries of white hit the window pane trying to calculate when would be the best time to run out to the side of the house to get more wood for the fireplace. His brow frowns at the new sight just outside the glass.
“I know that ain’t…. That dumbass!” Smoke scowls as he gets up and hurries out of the room to tug on his sweater and denim coat. Annie frowns herself and looks at the window just to roll her eyes with another exasperated sigh as she sifts the blend into a silk tea bag to plop into the kettle.
There, trudging through the falling snow in just a trench coat, hat, and scarf with a messenger bag clutched in his ungloved fist, is Stack. Annie giggles at the scolding Smoke was laying into his brother as he hurries over the yard while the younger twin slips ’n’ slides on the ice slick footpath. Annie watches as the two basically collide together trying to stop the other from slipping on the ice which inspires a whole new slew of scolding to leave Smoke’s mouth as they hit the snowy ground anyway. She giggles harder yet reluctantly pulls on a long cardigan over her thin house-dress for modesty-sake.
“And why the hell you out in this?!” Smoke’s voice booms as the two finally make it back to the poach in one piece. Stack hurries to knock the snow off his boots and leaves them just in the doorway first, rolling his eyes at Smoke’s questioning. Stack makes a point to toss his snowy coat onto Smoke, making sure the cold of it hits his brother in the face.
“I can’t visit my damn brother and sister-in-law anymore?” Stack argues back before yelping as Smoke slaps snow onto the back of his head with a satisfied smirk at the younger’s jumping shiver. Stack flicks him off as he turns into the kitchen to smile brightly at Annie, the last of his shivers starting to melt in the warmth of her house. He pulls her into a half hug that makes her flinch from the cold but still grin.
“Hey Annie-girl!”
“Hey, ‘Lias.”
“Not in a damn ice storm, ya can’t!” Smoke argues as he puts away their coats. Stack waves him off before settling into the chair Smoke was occupying beforehand and starts to rub his hands together to warm them up.
“Well, I was about to die over at my house. So I gotta valid excuse.” Stack says and Annie gives him a bewildered look.
“What’s wrong? Heater dead?” Annie asks as she sets up two mugs with generous amounts of clove-infused honey into the bottoms before slowly pouring her custom tea.
“Well my dear Annie! It’s pretty simple… I was bored.” Stack explains with a serious expression that cracks into a sly grin as Annie chuckles.
“Stack…. Git outta my house.” Smoke deadpans and that sends the chuckles into cackles from Annie.
“Wow! My own brother! Wanna cast me out into the cold and frozen streets to suffer! To frost over, fall and shatter into ice! Annie, how'd you meet such a cruel man!” Stack overreacts, moping in performance. Smoke scowls as he takes out the other chair and crosses his glorious arms, now hidden by a sweater.
“Ah, you’d be a’ight nigga.”
“Elijah, be nice to lil brother.” Annie teases with a kiss to the side of her husband’s head as she settles one of the aphrodisiac mugs in front of him and warms her hand on her own. She then prepares the other kettle with plain water to boil once again. She contemplates making it all chamomile and lavender to knock her brother-in-law out so she could get her nut in, in peace.
“Yeah! Be nice to lil brother, like the woman said!” Stack places the messenger bag on the table and starts to dig through it. “ An’ for you Annie! I got some new records for ya, hot off the press outta Atlanta” Stack bribes her. Annie oohs while Smoke rolls his eyes and lights his pipe, she pulls out the small circle and eyes the label for a name. The only thing scrawled on the little paper circle of pink is “ Dirty Lucille.”
“So bored? Whatcha tryna do?” Annie asks Stack as she accepts the gift, being a proper host while Smoke takes a big sip of his tea in trying to warm back up.
“Uhm, I don't know. What was ya’ll ‘bout to get into?”
“Hibernation.” Smokes deadpans, making Stack’s face drop into a matching look of disengagement as he turns his head to look at Annie, a move that says with not a word “this nigga.” Both men give soft smiles as Annie clutches her belly with laughter at the two's antics. She walks around the kitchen table, sipping her mug as she goes back towards the sitting room and further back to the bedroom.
“Give me a second. Let me get my donimos, work some money off the both of ya’. Elijah’s gonna wash the dishes.” Annie taunts with a wink as she leaves. Smoke unabashedly watches the heavy sway of her wide hips and bounce of her ass. So entranced in the look of his wife he didn’t notice Stack’s eyes roaming her over as well. He takes in her upper curves and the glistening skin of her neck that was showcased with her hair pulled up in a puff.
Stack swallows heavily and rolls his toothpick over his teeth; he then gets up to busy himself so Smoke didn’t catch on to him. Stack snags another mug out the cupboard and hums at the two kettles. He eyes the one that already had the white ribbon of a tea bag hanging out of it and pours some from it along with two big scoops of sugar. He barely lets the cane sugar melt before taking back a big gulp and humming at the strong warming flavors.
Both brothers settle down, Stack rolling a cig to share when Annie comes back in with a cheshire grin and sets the bright blue tin full of dark wood dominos with dots of bold white on the table. She hands the tablet of paper to Stack, who automatically divides it into threes and puts little nicknames on top to signify who's who. Annie slides Smoke the thin domino stand out the box before dumping the little bricks onto the table and her Man starts to mix them with instigating clacks.
“Now Annie, I love ya! But you just any ole nigga when it comes to dominos. I ain’t gonna be nice and soft like him.” Stack taunts with a point of his thumb to Smoke. Annie scoffs and flicks his forehead.
“You can keep runnin’ that mouth, cause I’m finna run them pockets.”
“My pockets!?”
“Imma start with ten dollars down, unless ya pussy?”
“American green?” Stack asks with a sly grin that turns wild as Annie pulls out a true ten dollar bill from her cleavage and slaps it down where the game is going to be built. Stack is quick to pull out a roll of cash from his pocket and adds two tens in.
Smoke smacks his lips then gasps when both brother and wife whip their heads around to him.
“Where’s ya bread bruh?”
“Hell nah, I ain’t sacrificing my green to you damn chickenheads!” Smoke swears as he pulls his seven dominos from the pile.
“Dem sound like broke nigga words. Dem words all you can afford, Elijah?” Stack says. Smoke rolls his eyes watching Annie take a gulp of her tea and lick the lush of her lips.
“Ain’t broke, my habits keep me from that. Like not letting yo cotton-mouth ass con me.
“Ah, baby! I thought you just played in puss, not that ya was one.” Annie tuts next and Stacks hollers as Smoke gasps at his wife.
“Watcha self woman ‘fore I have ya bent over my knee wit something in ya mouth!”
“ ‘Long as some money on it! Put it in, Mister Moore.” Annie ends with a purr that makes both brothers shiver. Smoke kisses his teeth but takes his denim coat off, making a show of pulling out the roll from the inner pocket then tossing a twenty and ten on the pile.
Just like that, the game begins.
For the next 40 minutes nothing but rude taunts, flirty insults, and dominos slams fill the air of the little kitchen that gains so much heat the window fogs. All three mugs of Nice ‘n’ Warm are bone dry empty and sweat rolls down all three’s of their brows. Stack’s eyes damn near cross between looking at his hand of bricks and the glistening of Annie’s tiddies. She’s taken off her cardigan 20 minutes in, uncaring to the sharp side eye her husband gives her in favor of taking money out of his coat pocket. Annie’s plump mounds drag on the table before jostling back in place when she kicks back in her seat. The younger twin licks sweat off his upper lip before shedding off his sweater, leaving him in his undershirt.
“Feeling that heat, Stack? Can’t take it?’
“Oh I got sumthin’ you can take a’ight, Ann. Hard!” Stack bellows slamming down a double five brick and cackling as he adds 20 to his point count. He took the swift kick to his shin by Smoke like a champ, reveling as Annie pants in a frustration that seems to be more than just competition but a madness that was starting to plague him as well.
A tightness in his pelvis only a tiddy fuck or a taste of something pink may remedy. Not being teased by his brother’s wife just sitting there in all her thick and hot body glory.
Smoke, of course, was worse off. His dick was straight hard, one hand commands his bricks and the other on Annie’s thigh gripping a bruise into the chocolate softness. Everytime she pressed her thighs together for friction he made a point to run his fingers down her panty-covered slit forcing her to open up and Annie forced out another flirt from her sinful mouth to pretend she had some kinda upper hand.
“Fuck you! ‘Lijah! Play that gotdamn snake eye you got so I can getta twenty piece back!” Annie fusses and Smoke smacks his teeth in time with a swat to the side of her ass. The recoil of it aches his dick to just have Annie sit on his lap and remedy him. The memories of her riding him like she’s was a Kentcky pro on a mustang almost makes say fuck it to the game and fuck off to his brother.
“I ain’t got shit but dick to give you, Woman!” he hisses out instead as he picks up the double one anyway. Annie’s giggle is twisted.
“Man, then put it on the table!”
Annie rolls her eyes back and lets out a moan when Smoke teases her slit again and it becomes a bit too much. She presses her hand over her mouth in surprise that it came out of her. Both Smoke and Stack grow still as a cold night. That moan… it means something… it charges the space with pure lust and pushes boundaries. Annie yanks Smoke hand off her by the wrist and Stack swallows to see his twin’s hand glistening with that bit of wetness he’d sneakily been drawing out of her.
Thoughts of symmetry filled the younger twin's mind at that moment.
Would his hand look the same if baptised by Annie?
Annie lets out a shaky breath, they watch her body bounce as Annie presses her legs together, and straightens up. Annie placed down her third domino with a soft click, it and the crackling of the oven the only sound among them. Stack squints at his dominos, he had two options.
Win the game but lose the sight of Annie.
Stretch the bets and see where this goes.
Annie’s eyes go wide as Stack abruptly stands. Her jaw drops to see his dick just as hard as Smoke’s, both brother’s velvety girth’s throbbing in showcase through their pants.
“Let’s put it on the table, Ann.” Stack offers. He barely gets a chance to breath before Smoke snatches him by the collar and nearly hauls him clear across the table.
“Fuck you say, bruh?”
“You heard me, Annie-girl said put some dick on the table, why would I refuse the lady’s request?”
Annie is between the brothers in a flash. Pressing her back against Smoke to force him to put distance between himself and Stack then Annie lays her hands against Stack’s firm pecks and staggers him back a step.
Yet, she kept her hands on him.
“Elijah. Sinmi.” She commands him, her Man sucks in a breath with a bit of a hiss between the teeth but relents. His hands drift down to her supple waist and grip her flush against him with a grid forwards. The poke of dick-printed fabric against the back of her pussy is sticky with precum and makes Annie swallow down a throaty whimper at the tease. Stack watches her inspect him, his heart pounding at her calculating glances as she undresses him with her eyes. Annie’s hands skim down his front until they rest on his waistband and from there she pops off his buckle. Stack thrust forward a bit so his pants don’t fully fall off then and there.
“Fuck this game.” Annie says. Stack eyes go wide as Smoke’s hands surge up Annie’s body to grasp Annie’s tiddies in two gripping, overspilling handfuls of plump, brown flesh. He bends down and licks a kiss onto Annie’s neck with a glare of possession.
“Yeah, fuck this game. Take yo ass on home, nigga. Annie, take yo ass on to the bedroom before I put cha on this table again.”
Annie shutters for a moment, hands flying up to his ear and tugging down it lightly with her nails.
“You ain’t the one decidin’ the game ‘ere. Ms. Annie is.” Stack stands his ground with a nod. Annie chuckles darkly at that, a throaty sound that damn near vibrates through both siblings.
“Annie?” Smoke asks into her hair. Annie trails her hand down from Smoke’s head, then back onto his body until it runs lightly over his hardness.
“I do like a quick game….” Annie teases as she clutches him a bit and Smoke curses under his breath. Annie presses forward now, basically dragging Smoke forward as she plays her free hand down Stack’s pants.
“Ah, shit!” He girts out as Annie gently but firmly grips around the base of his shaft. The rest of Annie fingers palm around the side, on instinct her fingertips glide and tease the vein on the left. Annie hums with intrigue, like she just invented something special or discovered something unknown to the world.
“Damn. Ya’ll twins all the way down.” She tells them both, a desperate lick around her lips to hold back the need to salivate. As she holds both brothers now, Annie can’t help but feel a deep pressure in her core, a greedy yearning for the girth of both of ‘em to be in her in any way.
“We gonna play a quick game of bones. First person to 50, get to pick how this is goin’ down. Imma even be a little nice. Ya win a five ya get five. Ya win a ten, ya getta ten. Ya win a 20, ya getta 20.” Annie tells them both.
“Get 20 of what, Woman?” Smoke asks and Annie smirks.
“20 seconds to prove something.”
Both brothers stiffen at that. She may as well have told two lions that the bone yard decided whose gonna run priderock. Annie looks at both of them with side eyes and both give matching deep grunting groans as she tightens her grip on their shafts to command attention. To command the reaction she wants.
“Yes ma’am.” They both say, it sends a pulse of pleasure through Annie’s pussy.
Smoke and Stack sit across from each other now. Smoke’s look of righteous fury and possession against Stack’s looks of sly satisfaction and fascination. Annie eyes them both with determined lust and hunger. She flips their old game over and mixes the dominos with fast hands. Stack scratches the old game, Smoke lights the discarded cigarette and makes a point to blow the cloud straight over the dominos and into Stack’s face.
“Ladies’ first.” Stack says as soon as Annie finishes the mix. She bites her cheek coyly and picks five.
“Childen next.” Smoke grumbles. Stack smacks his lips as the second youngest there and takes his five.
“Poppa’s last.” Annie teases. Stack gives a dry laugh as Smoke smirks through his selection.
“Big six?” Annie asks.
No one moves.
“Double fives?” she asks again.
Stack grins as he flips it out.
“Ten.” He says aloud as he writes down the O on the paper. Annie’s shoulder hitch as she tries to hold back a chuckle at the sight of Smoke puffing like a dragon.
“That’s ten Mississppis. Smoke, count ‘em.” Annie tells them.
Stack stands up, and comes to the side of Annie. She looks up at him with her doe eyes blown wide through lusty lashes and it makes him pause with a deep swallow.
“You need me to turn?” Annie asks him before he can say anything.
“7 seconds nigga.” Smoke grumbles.
Stack’ hands are gentle as he cuffs both of her sweat-damp breasts, palming them with increasing firmness, testing the plump flesh. Liftin’ em. Letting them drop so they bounce. Teasing the nipples hard with a roll between his thumbs and pointers. Annie’s hand goes between her legs to press a thumb on her clit as the stimulation makes her pussy wet, needy to be played with. Stack makes a show of giving her a big wet kiss that is more a clash of teeth then something proper. A taste of the tongue, Stack goes to glance over at Smoke with a prideful smirk but Annie’s smack on the side of his thigh with her free hand turns his attention back to her.
“Full attention soldier.” Annie commands him. Stack gives a nod, mesmerised by her before he backs off and back to his seat when Smoke barks out the last number to him. Smoke scoff, “Tiddy baby.” he taunts and Annie smacks her lips.
“Did you forget how you sleep? Play ya hand ‘fo ya piss me off.” Annie strikes. Smoke smacks his lips but plays a throwaway hand, Annie matches it. Stack’s forced to match it, all of them are crossed legged in the pressure. Smoke tosses another hand and Annie strikes with a smirk, linking a three with the two on the opposite side of the layout.
“Five.” Annie announces, watching Stack mark it before she stands. She circles the both of them, eyes scanning for selection on who’s gonna get her little bit of time. Annie dips her head down allowing only a few millimeters of distance, damn near hovering her juicy lips from either of ‘em. Cinnamon laced breath puffing temptation onto either of the brothers’ ears but never delivering.
Smoke lets out another tobacco cloud to billow over his lips as Annie lingers around the back of Stack’s neck. The elder watches with piercing jealousy as Stack inhales Annie’s scent and tips his head back for just a chance of her lips. Annie swerves back with a smirk as she makes her way over to Smoke instead. Annie’s hand cuffs his chin and pitches it up.
“Count ‘em.” Smoke growls as Annie lips damn near eat his down as they kiss. Annie hands rub Smoke’s neck as her man grips her ass and pulls her closer. Stack rolls his lips in as he watches the way Annie’s ass jiggles, the impressions of Smoke’s fingers into that softness, the way she drags her nails down the column of Smoke’s throat.
“Five!” He grits out and Annie hums. She makes sure to smack loudly as she comes out of the kiss. Swatting Smoke’s hand down. Annie smirks before walking back to her seat.
Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The three of them play.
“Your play, baby.” Annie reminds him.
Ten seconds - Smoke fingers into Annie for all ten counts until she panting.
Five seconds - Stack has Annie swirl her wet tongue around his tip.
Twenty seconds - Annie has Stack sucking her toes while she bites and sucks bruises into Smoke’s neck.
Ten seconds - Stack leaves hickeys upon Annie left breast and damn near a bruise with his grip on her right. All while she grinds down deliciously on his lap.
Back and forth. Back and forth. Teases and preludes to something truly sinful.
“Fifty!” Annie shouts as she slams down a double two that leaves her with the last ten points to win on the table.
Both men practically sit at attention with anticipation for just what she could have in store for them. Annie leans forward, crossing her arms and leaning on one of her hands as she looks the two of them over.
Annie eyes Stack’s mouth as her hand drifts over to Smoke’s thigh. The many tales Mary shared to Annie about Stack’s gift for eating it come to mind. While Smoke wasn’t a chump of an eater, his skills were better used for drilling into her and tossing her around then just praying to pussy. She liked to make Smoke twitch, the back and forth of control was critical to her.
“Elias?” Annie asks after another minute, eyes low as her voice becomes sultry. She starts to palm and tease Smoke’s dick with her hand while commanding him. Stack hums, spitting his toothpick to the side at the sight of Annie jabbing a finger down.
“You gonna defend your reputation?” She asks him.
With a shark-like grin, Stack sinks down off his chair, crawls under the table and pulls her legs apart. Smoke blink harshly, flinching at Annie’s talented hand and the bump of her thigh now against his. He watches her gasp, head thrown back as Stack wretches her panties to the side and digs his nose straight in to get a smell of her pussy. That sensitivity Smoke has been building up all night putting her on edge. Annie places one hand on the back of Stack’s head, fucking up his waves as her fingertips push through the tamed curls. Her other beacons Smoke with a single curl of her pointer finger.
“Stand.” Annie pants before moaning and trying to buck forward in her chair as Stack starts licking into her. Stack’s arms snake around her hips, pulling a leg over his shoulder to lock her in place so he can drill his tongue in deeper. His mustache scratches against the soft skin of her inner thighs making lightning crawl all over her down there when his lips peck her pearl.
Smoke does as instructed, standing up as he frees dick from his pants, letting it bob out, hard and veiny as it taps against the side of Annie’s jaw. Smoke girts his teeth as Annie turns her head towards him and starts to lick up the side of his shaft. Smoke shakes his head with a hiss as she swirls the tip, his hand cuffing the back of her head.
“All this craziness you talked, a ‘course you want somethin’ down ya throat for it.” Smoke scolds her. Annie hums, a smile in her eyes as she gazes up at him. Annie hollows out her cheeks, and slowly bobs down him, small chokes as his dick jumps in her mouth. She slides back off of him just as slowly, ending with a wet plop and whining moan. She clutches over Stack's head while he teases the pearl of her pussy properly with his tongue until her back arches as she squirts down the mouth muscle.
“You…fuc… you gonna shut me up?” She asks Smoke though broken moans.
Smoke is swift to swing his leg over so he straddles her in a stand and slips dick down her throat.
Both moan aloud at the movement, Annie’s free hand claws at his hip and up his torso as Smoke start to fuck her face with a swift and damn near rough pace. His nails tangle into curls at the nape of her neck while he guides her head. Smoke swears at the sloppy noises the keen fromAnnie as she loses rhythm and bucks further onto Stack’s tongue. Her legs shake and threaten to damn near locking him in as she comes closer to orgasm. Stack hikes her leg up higher upon his shoulder and adds his thumb into her as well.
Smoke gets tight as Annie uncontrollably hums her moan of pleasure out onto his shaft. Smoke wipes the tears off her cheek.
“Yeah, get the nut outta her bruh. I’m tryna see her cry on my shit.” Smoke growls. Smoke deepens his pace and Annie wraps both arms around his waist, nails digging into his lower back as he fuck her mouth.
Annie cums apart as Stack spells his name inside her, pussy flowing down her chin to dribble onto his chest. He keeps lapping it up as Annie shivers and her knee presses onto the side of his face. Smoke comes with a swearing shout. Annie whimpers with leaky tears as she swallows it in the midst of her own sex high.
Stack takes a prize and crawls out from under the table, the front of him wet with Annie. He’s just in time to look up and see Smoke step out from in front of her. He takes in her heaving chest, blows out eyes, curls coming loose as she gasps with sticky lips.
“You tryna see if we taste the same too, Annie-girl? I promise I’m sweeter.” Stack flirts as he whirls her panties around on his finger. He then balls it up and starts to wipe off his beard, his dick jumps at the fucked out look on Annie’s face. Annie stands, a stagger in her step for a moment that Smoke corrects. She pats his arm with gratitude before gesturing to him to sit back down himself. Smoke obliges, sitting with a heavy sigh as he watches her walk to the doorway, she looks over her shoulder and starts to roll down the straps off her nightgown..
“Fuck.”
“Lord, Ann!”
Annie giggles as the crumbled fabric falls to her feet and she stands naked before them both.
“Round twos in the bedroom boys, I gotta lay down. First one there is first one in.”
Weapons. Trained, tested, forged in steel and fire. Failure is an inevitability that ends in death. Pain should not be felt--it should be recognized, familiar, and inconsequential
Martyrs. In the form of servants and princes, of leaders and underdogs. If blood is necessary, the martyr will lift their hands and offer it all
Shields. Like tempering a sword, but only to bear and not to lash out. Wounds are medals--not symbols of pride, but symbols of worth. A pretty shield is useless; scars mean a job well done
Experiments. Raised on the cold comfort of a lab table. Restraints are only necessary when they're not in their right mind. Is it honorable, to be twisted beyond recognition? Or is it just a necessary evil?
Monsters. Cruelty, caution, and regarding one as a creature beyond reasonable thought is tempering in its own right. But if you keep a leash at the right length, perhaps the massecre won't reach you. One can hope.
Idols. Pretty face, pretty name, pretty hands around their shoulders and throat. There to seduce, manipulate, force any feeling to come to the surface and twist it to their favor. Any genuinity stays locked behind the guilded cage that surrounds their pretty little heart
Trophies. Status and wealth and the traditions that keep someone at their heels, on their knees, to display and serve and decorate one's ballroom.
Sacrifices. Drenched in honorable clothes, prepared and adored and cleansed. The gift of hope at the cost of one's life. Is it taken with no fight? How can you escape the ropes you were born in?
Sinners Mardi Gras/Modern au (Prompt by @brownskincheyenne ! 💜)
Synopsis : Annie is taking her beloved found family to Mardi Gras and she was invited to join a parade. Be prepared for chaos and a jealous Smoke.
This most likely will be a 3-5 part story, that's the goal at the least!
Author Notes: Smoke/Annie and Stack/Mary are 24-25, Sammie and Pearline are 21 . Just fyi
Disclaimer: use of n word (I'm black raah)
Chapter 1
“Just let me try again bro, it's important to understand the phrase and say it right- you wanna be a failure around a big ass group of people?” Stack asked frantically, gripping onto Smoke’s arms, emphasizing the utter embarrassment he'd feel. Smoke let out a huff of air through his nose.
“Fine, go on ahead, try it for the 50th time.” He grumbled, watching as his younger brother stood up from the couch.
The two of them were in Annie’s living room, the soft brown sofa lightly smelled of cocoa fabric softener. He saw her use it on the furniture many times. He loved how she took care of everything she owned. He watched as Stack somehow knocked his heel into the bottom of it, even if it was slight, it made his nose scrunch up in irritation.
“Laissez les bon temps rouler…” Stack said with much more confidence, and he quickly turned to the couch in excitement. Flexing his arms in his red Adidas-branded shirt, “Did I say it right? Do you know Smoke?”
Smoke was glad he wasn't the only one around to comment; Sammie was also there, just sitting on the love chair with his legs crossed while texting on his phone. He wore a yellow hoodie with jeans, and his foot shook gently in his sneakers. One AirPod was in his ear for him to listen to music. He looked up at his older cousins in amusement, a small smile on his face as he tuned into the conversation.
“You said it right, Stack.” His low voice was gentle and reassuring. “Laissez les bon temps rouler.” He repeated.
As the eccentric man grinned, his gold grills shone, “Well, look at us, Sammie, you think we can get some New Orleans baddies with that line?”
“Why would you want a ‘New Orleans baddie’?” Sammie used quotations with one hand.
“Damn fool… It's not even sexy.” Smoke muttered.
“Aren’t you tryna get stuff right with Mary?” The youngest of the three asked, lacking the confidence to glare at Stack as Smoke had started to.
Smoke stood up from the couch. He walked towards the TV and grabbed his cart out of his sweatpants, took a hit of it, and then put it back. He let it flow out of his nose as he coughed softly. “Is she still coming on the trip?” He asked.
A loud groan full of exhaustion echoed through the room. Stack was the cause of it as he had his hands covering his face. He was animated; he couldn't help what others would see as a dramatic display. “She ain't text me or call me yesterday, I think I fucked up y’all…” he groaned again before standing next to Smoke and yanking the vape out of his pocket and taking a hit.
Smoke softened up as he saw him truly discouraged, “She still coming on the trip though? This is for Annie; she put a lot of time into this.” His twin nodded, and he just sighed. “Maybe y'all can use this as a chance to get things straight. She can realize you ain't mean what you said.” He took the cart back from Stack as he could feel the mellowness from him. It caused his own usual sour mood to worsen.
Sammie looked uncomfortable too when Stack took a while to say anything, he filled the unusual silence with a question of his own. “...What even happened again?” His voice was a hesitant whisper, hoping not to open the wound further in the room. He was glad to see Stack at least sit up and take a breath to speak.
“She saw me kissing some girl-”
“Kissing a girl?”
“Let me finish, Sammie,” He said while putting his hands in front of himself, “I didn't mean for it to happen! She just pounced on me, but Mary holds everything in mind. She is like a goddamn folder drawer of all of my wrong doings, she brought back when I cheated on my ex in highschool! Before I even dated her! Can you believe it?” he ranted, reaching for the cart in Smoke’s hand, but he couldn't grab it since it was already in the other's mouth. He scoffed and then just crossed his arms. “As if high school me and now are even remotely the same.”
Elijah blew the smoke away from Annie’s couch; he didn't want any of it on it. It smelled too much like her to ruin like that. “Truthfully, you ain't changed too much.” That earned him a glare that he easily ignored. “You told her what happened?” He asked while stuffing the vape in his brother's hand.
“I did, but she said she needed time to process it,” Stack grumbled.
“And you're upset that she didn't text you yet? She specified that she needed time, you gotta try and relax, cuz.” Sammie said, Stack reached his arm out to wave the cart in his face. He pushed it away and shook his head, “No, I can't be high right now, I'm seeing Pearline later.”
“The fuck that's supposed to mean?” Smoke asked, usually stuff didn't fly out of his mouth but it was rare for Sammie to say no to a hit. He wasn't annoyed by it but genuinely surprised. He made him wait ‘til he was 18 to even have some from him at all, even though he knew he snuck around on his own. “Pearline don’t like it?”
“No man, it ain't like that, I just wanna be sober tonight,” Sammie said shyly, and Stack’s mouth hung open in shock when he understood what he meant.
“Oh shit!” Stack adjusted the cap on his head as he exclaimed, before rushing over to him and shaking his cousin by the shoulders. “You getting some!”
Sammie swatted his hands away, “Maybe, I just gotta stay sharp-” he paused when the door opened, everyone looked at the hinge, softly squeaking, and the keys jiggling out of the lock.
The world stopped for Annie’s entry; she was holding a brown paper bag. Surprisingly, only one, and she wore a short bright blue dress with black heels. She took a whiff of the air and hummed before locking the door behind her. “Hey y’all!” She said before walking towards her kitchen and going to the table.
She received greetings upon her return, but Elijah made his way behind her in a flash. He ignored the snickering from Elias. As he crossed into the kitchen and watched her unpack the stuff from her errand. She was holding lavender oil, and her hand lingered right near her chest. He couldn't help but stare at them both before his eyes went up to her face. She looked up just as he did.
“You ain't gotta stare at me like that, Elijah, you see me like this all the time,” Annie mumbled, already knowing what he was going to comment on.
“Stare like what?” He huffed, looking her up and down. Already feeling caught for doing something wrong, she always managed to do that to him.
“Me in a dress, god forbid I feel comfortable.” She said lightly, knowing he didn't ever see it that way, but he had an underlying issue with letting her show off her thick curves. He sputtered at her words, quick to deny it.
“No boo, that ain’t it.” He grunted, “You look good.” He put his hands on her hips. “Too good.”
“Here we go, Elijah, you are gonna have to work on this. I'm preparing for a whole parade, they invited me!” She intertwined her fingers with his, grabbed the cart, and then pushed his hands off of her. She gave him a small smile before taking a hit as she marched out of the kitchen. Smoke used that as a chance to watch her sway from the back and also recollect his emotions.
Mardi Gras was important to Annie, and he agreed to go because she finally found time to plan for the extravagant event. She had invited him, Stack, Mary, Sammie, and Pearline. Her Mississippian family, as she puts it. And he was open to seeing where she grew up; he loved every aspect of her. From her looks to the way she held her head, right.
Ever since he laid his eyes on her in their general English class freshman year in college, he knew she was the one.
As time went on, it was further set in stone, they balanced each other out perfectly. But despite that, they still faced problems; they were both jealous people. Elijah showed it with ease when it came to how people looked at her; he couldn't take it. Especially, when she shared the times she was sometimes ridiculed in her youth. But then, all of a sudden, others would act like she wasn't in a relationship when she was showing some skin.
It pissed him off. But in New Orleans, they were meant to be flashy, and he knew the people were going to be fawning over her. He took a deep breath and rubbed his temples, and slightly paced the kitchen before walking out to the living room. He saw that Annie was looking through her phone and addressing Sammie and Stack.
“Okay, so y'all checked off your packing lists?” Annie asked the group, her tone stern.
It was a couple of days before they got ready to hit the road. However, since she was from there and familiar with the chaotic next couple of weeks, she had to make sure everyone was prepared. She had been planning for this trip since last year, the only way they'd get the best hotel rooms and plan out their days accordingly. She couldn't afford to do anything last minute.
The room bustled with conversation and questions about the trip.
A few days passed in what seemed like a split second.
Stack and Mary made up just as quickly as they always did, which threw a lot of stress out the window. Yet that meant they had to be put in line every waking moment.
“But Annie, I wanna try some beignets or that gumbo stuff they got down here!” Stack yelled, even though he was walking right behind her, he had Mary close to his hip. They were the light of the party, but they were naturally always up for adventure. Opposed to how Annie and Smoke were, ones to stick to the plan.
“No, we gotta check in first, I got us rooms.” She said firmly, and Smoke nodded along as he rolled two suitcases. Annie had only her purse and phone to read over their hotel details while they moved closer towards it on foot. She made sure everything was close to her body.
“You better listen to her, Stack, we in a new place.” Smoke grumbled, not tolerating any disagreement from him.
“Oh, come on, it's still early! We are right near one too, according to Google anyway…” Mary tried to convince, and she reached the phone out towards Annie from behind.
“Mary, keep that phone close,” She pushed the phone towards the lighter woman, “Best practice now before we go to a parade. And when the time comes, I'll take y'all to the best places for such things, okay?”
Mary sighed and just decided to put her phone away. There was a short period of silence as they approached the hotel before Stack ruined it.
“I'm so hungry…” He complained, he gripped the suitcases he had as if they were keeping him upright.
The eldest twin’s eye twitched, “Boy shut your ass up, the hotel is right fucking there, get a snack there!”
“I'm so hungry I could eat a beig-”
“Utter that shit and imma make sure you eat one right up your ass.” Elijah glared back at his brother, and he only earned a devious chuckle. Great, he was doing this on purpose, and he was just getting on his nerves at this point. Falling right into his younger brother's trap as always.
“This trip is gonna be a hoot…” Pearline muttered at Sammie, the two of them were close behind, watching the interactions. The preacher's son couldn’t help but let out a low chuckle.
“Sure is,” Sammie confirmed.
Annie led them inside and went to the desk, checked them in, she motioned for everyone to follow her. It felt like a school trip; she even walked backwards and made sure all of them were paying attention before turning back to make it to the elevator.
“We are all on floor 3. Sammie and Pearline, y'all get room 2, Stack and Mary, y'all get room 5, and Smoke and I get room 9. Get comfortable, but in 2 hours we gotta go shopping. Prepare for the events starting tomorrow. I suggest a nap.” She announced as they handed each of them their key cards.
“Yes, ma’am.” Everyone said in unison.
They all split their respective ways. Annie was the one with the key card for her and Smoke’s room. She opened it and was in complete awe at the space. It had simple colors like white for the carpet, beige walls, and the furniture was set to match. She went straight to the tan couch and felt the material, “Oh nice… this is better than mine.” She muttered.
Elijah didn't agree with that, but he didn't see anything wrong with the hotel either. “You bugging.”
And that was all he said before closing the door; he swiftly locked it and continued to tow the suitcases. He glanced at the kitchen, he walked further towards the bedroom, and he squinted at the dressers and the bed as he put their suitcases against the wall.
The sun was blazing even through the curtains, so he decided to just go ahead and open them and look at the bustling city underneath them. He heard his girl walk in, and she stood right beside him, taking in the sight herself.
“How are you feeling, baby?” She cooed before kissing him on the cheek while she let her hand rub along his back, she could feel some slight nerves, but didn't wanna assume why.
He let out a deep breath, leaning into her side from the touch. The initial stress of making it to her city left him. “Fine.” He muttered.
He had been to major cities before, but NOLA held more pressure for him. This was her hometown, her family and friends from before she went to college were much closer. She spent so much money and effort to even plan the trip, and was going to keep doing so until they left. He only wanted to do good by her, not mess anything up, and keep everyone in check.
She knew that he felt obligated to make sure her trip went well. She needed him to relax, let some of the pressure fall on her shoulders as well. “You all tense, baby.” She put both of her hands on his shoulders and gave him a slight massage. He let out a soft grunt in reply. “Let's take a nap, hm?”
He couldn't sleep that easily with so much going on around him, and he looked over warily. When he looked at her brown eyes, they managed to dim the harsh sun that was beating down. His own heart felt heavy in his chest; he would do anything for her. He grabbed her hips and backed her up into the bed. he leaned forward and pulled her into a kiss as he pinned her against it. She groaned and gripped his shoulders tightly.
He gave her a chance to breathe and reached down to lift her onto the bed by her thighs. She let her back fall on the comforter, “Elijah!” She giggled, the sound making his body match the heat of the sun.
“You so cute.” He muttered, before letting her go and going to the window and shutting the curtain.
She always adored how transparent he was with her; she bit her lip as he now towered over her at the side of the bed.
“Not used to a nigga calling me cute.” She said with a big smile on her face.
He took off his pants, then his shirt, he slipped into the bed beside her. His hands grazed along her t-shirt and pants, soon just resting on her hips.
“I ain't just a nigga.” He spoke into her ear.
He started to lightly kiss her neck and pull her closer. He noted how she became more limp against him, and her breathing slowed down; she was on the edge of sleep.
“Mhm…” She agreed as she closed her eyes. “You my nigga, all mine.’
“All yours.” He said in a heartbeat.
She fell asleep soon after, and despite his fight to stay awake and keep an eye on her, he passed out himself.
Taglist: @boonoonoonus @sunshinerepublic @coolfoodrunworld-blog @bigjh (lemme know if you wanna be added!)
With respect to those of us who think that Sinners isn't for or against Christianity but about following your own path, I'd like to offer it alternative take on that.
(Disclaimer: the history of Blues music in the Black communities is complicated and as a white Christian settler who's read a couple of books I'm definitely not an expert. So, you know, take what I'm about to say with a grain of salt.)
History tells us that Black Christian communities (especially Baptist) were really the backbone of many of emancipation communities and enslaved communities as well. In a lot of places we only have records of thriving Black communities near churches. Whatever you may think about Christianity in this time and place, churches like the one in the film gave oppressed Black people a vision of liberation and equality. It is not an accident that Martin Luther King Jr. was a minister. Or that John Lewis preached to his chicken when he was a boy. The liberation offered by (what I would consider) a true understanding of the Christian gospel is deeply intertwined with Black liberation. Ryan Coogler knows this. He was very intentional about making the main character a blues guitarist with the nickname Preacher Boy.
It's not so much that blues is of Satan, it's about the way the music endangers those who make it. When you consider in history and in the film what happens to people who spend their lives as musicians, it usually doesn't end well. Within the movie our best example is Delta Slim, who's a glorious master musician, but also an alcoholic with no family. Ryan Coogler shows us that he lives his life in deep despair. We see this when he encounters the Chain Gang. His best friend was lynched. His only goal in life is to make enough money to get corn liquor on a consistent basis until he drinks himself to death. That's not a liberating vision of the future.
And I think Ryan Coogler is very intentional about having a character like that to show us that we can romanticize the lives of musicians and Poets and griots but in that place and time in America, Black musicians are not thriving, even the famous ones. More likely than not they're following prey to addiction, they're falling prey to exploitative business practices, they're not making enough money to survive and thrive. It's hard for them to have family. It's hard for them to have Community. They're traveling all the time and it's an isolating stressful lifestyle.
(Even today it's not as stressful as it used to be and we still see our musicians and artists fall victim to addictions and other problems that prevent them from living a full life!)
So to say that this movie was about Sammy making the best choice, the choice to be a blues musician, seems a little reductive. I mean maybe it is the best choice for him! But I think he also would have lived a good life if he had stayed in his community.
I think the film gives us that ambiguity, especially when you look at the two older brothers. There's a big difference between Preacher Boy's dad and the twins' dad. Preacher Boy's dad is hard but he's not an abuser. They have a whole conversation in the movie just to let you know that! We don't know what the twins's father did for a living but the fact that the twins came up as criminals doesn't suggest that he had anything positive to pass down and teach them.
I think that there were more options for Sammie. He could have lived his whole life in that Community, singing in that church and giving his gifts to God. He could have lived a good life. And yeah, he lived a great life as a bluesman but that was very very lucky. He was able to overcome all kinds of institutional barriers and addictions to survive. He's able to be an older man playing the Blues, he's celebrated, he's feted, but surviving literal vampires was only the first step. He sees Stack and Mary way in the future and he tells them that day, the day they were turned into monsters, was the greatest day of his life. Playing the blues is a wonderful dream come true but it also suggests to me that if that day was the peak, he could have dropped the guitar and still lived a good life.
I don't think the movie is really about "Christianity is good" or "Christianity is bad" or "Blues is good" or "Blues is bad." I think it's just about how difficult the choices are sometimes if you're Black and you are touched by God. Being a genius griot doesn't save you from the Klan. Some Delta blues guitarists only lived healthy lives when they gave up blues and went back to other kinds of work. Sometimes that (to us false) dichotomy of blues vs. God was the only thing that gave them respite from addictions. It's complicated.
I had like 3 breakdowns Arcane and Timebomb twitter were pissing me off and I barely slept but I’m proud to present to you Day 4 of Timebombweek: Domestic/Home life!
Featuring some designs from my Modern Au in which Jinx and Ekko are 'just friends', and close to finishing high school!
not everything bad that happens in the world is because of an oppressive conspiracy actually
“the 40 hour work-week is deliberately designed to keep workers exhausted and downtrodden –” no the forty hour workweek was negotiated by labor power to block the eighty hour workweek. “american food is full of corn syrup in order to make people obese and sick and weak and unable to revolt against the government –” there are a lot of reasons why Corn is the way it is in the US and this is not any of them. “the concept of ‘coming out’ is a straight conspiracy designed to murder queer people –” please stop
stop assuming that every bad thing that exists is the result of active malice. there is so much in the world that’s bad just by accident, or as an unintended consequence of something else – maybe even something with good intentions. please don’t turn yourself into a conspiracy thinker just with shinier woker labels
also it doesn’t NEED to be a conspiracy for you to make your point. you can still say the 40 hour work week keeps people exhausted and makes political participation harder, and that corporate interests like it that way!
there doesn’t need to be a conspiracy of the evil 100 richest people on the planet (I see that idea way too much btw) to make this happen. In fact if you are a communist you SHOULD believe that the current conditions are the consequences of the historical forces shaped by material interest. believing in an evil conspiracy is the precise opposite of Marxism and actually what fascists love to do. so maybe consider stopping
Yeah, like, the whole point or historical materialism is to show that these things happen without needing conscious decision making. That’s why it’s materialism.
Sometime back in the middle of the first decade of the AIDS epidemic, I was picking the brains of a friend of mine, the activist scholar Cindy Patton, about the probable natural history of HIV. This was at a time when speculation was ubiquitous about whether the virus had been deliberately engineered, or spread; whether HIV represented a plot or experiment by the U. S. military that had gotten out of control, or perhaps that was behaving exactly as it was meant to. After hearing a lot from her about the geography and economics of the global traffic in blood products, I finally, with some eagerness, asked Patton what she thought of these sinister rumors about the virus’s origin. “Any of the early steps in its spread could have been either accidental or deliberate,” she said. “But I just have trouble getting interested in that. I mean, even suppose we were sure of every element of a conspiracy: that the lives of Africans and African Americans are worthless in the eyes ofthe United States; that gay men and drug users are held cheap where they aren’t actively hated; that the military deliberately researches ways to kill noncombatants whom it sees as enemies; that people in power look calmly on the likelihood of catastrophic environmental and population changes. Supposing we were ever so sure of all those things—what would we know then that we don’t already know?”
Eve Sedgwick, “Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading, or, You’re so Paranoid You Probably Think This Introduction Is about You” (1997)
Honestly I suspect a lot of the desire to Believe In Deliberateness is because if it’s all deliberate then all we need to do to fix it is make the bad people stop deliberately fucking it up.
That’s a very, very attractive proposition, and is much, much more comforting than the idea that actually a hell of a lot of what we’re dealing with is a lot of people trying very hard to do what they thought was The Best Thing, and ending up working at cross-purposes with a lot of mistakes and unintended consequences and basically that it’s just that hard to get humans together to make a world that’s better for all of us.
Now studying fucking history for ten fucking minutes will show how the latter is infinitely more plausible, and also make you weep for the good intentions of Prohibition - and they were such good intentions, and they were grass roots, feminist and minority-participant good intentions!!! it was meant to solve the abuse and oppression of the vulnerable! at the hands of the evil rich Alcohol Companies!! - that turned out to materially contribute to cratering economies and creating the mechanisms by which any number of vulnerable populations would get shit on for decades and continue to do so.
(Never forget: only alcohol was removed from Prohibition. The rest of the substances prohibited by the same movements remained so.)
For just one single example.
Because you can do your best and make choices based on the best information you have and best intentions and understanding that’s even available to you and still be dead wrong, and do horrible harm, because you didn’t know enough, because you didn’t consider a contingency there’s no way you could have known about, because you drew the wrong conclusion.
Because it turns out making a better world full of seven billion plus people with competing needs and beliefs and intensions and circumstances is hard and it would be so, so much easier if it were just 100 of the world’s richest people who we could get rid of and then magically, naturally, everything would be great.
Also, once you buy into one conspiracy, a lot of other conspiracies seem to fall into place as well. If the government could pull the wool over our eyes about this thing, what else might they be hiding and all the sheeple are just blindly going along with it???
Conspiracy theorists want the world to make sense, and there’s still a certain logic to the way they reason through the dilemmas we all face. When confronted with something disturbing or scary - like 9/11 or a pandemic - their conspiracies are in some sense comforting, even if they don’t see it that way. “It all makes sense! Those evil people are at it again. At least I wasn’t taken in.”
The only problem is that, most of the time, conspiracy theorists are just wrong about some of their presuppositions or their conclusions are faulty - often because they’re not considering just how complicated and messy life is, and how good intentions can lead to pain and suffering just like bad intentions can.
Ideologies that claim they’re the One Single Truth™ and the Solution to All Problems™ inevitably run into problems when they fail to deliver. They have a few options at that point:
1) They can examine the circumstances, figure out what they did wrong, and adapt. This involves admitting you were wrong, so it’s much less popular than Option 2:
2) They can blame it all on some shadowy group of Bad People (and usually they’re (((Bad People))) regardless of the ideology) who are blocking the Glorious Revolution™/Triumph of Good™ for their own reasons, and everything will go perfectly once we get rid of the (((Bad People))).
Pairing: Steven Grant x female reader (hints of Marc Spector x female reader)
Summary: Sweet as he is, dating Steven means you have to be willing to ignore a few red flags along the way.
Or alternatively: You get to use that ankle restraint on Steven and sit on his beautiful face.
Rating: really fucking explicit
Warning/content: will cause unrealistic sex expectations, bondage/restraints, cunnilingus (face sitting), safe sex; unsafe relationship choices.
Word Count: 9.2k (ahahahah please don't look at me)
[Tag List and Masterlist]
The warning signs were written all over him like a marquee outside a theatre, lit up in gold and bright flashing red neon.
On the first date you were supposed to have, he stood you up, only to call you four days later on a Wednesday night. Closer to midnight than dinnertime, oblivious and confused and asking where you were with a slight panic in his voice.
“Date’s tonight, yeah? Saturday at seven?”
Un-fucking-believable.
That was the first red flag. The point at which you should have done the sensible thing and told him to piss off and lose your number.
He’d clearly lost the plot, and you’ve never been the forgiving type. You have a tendency to nurse your grudges like little houseplants by your windowsill, feeding them with pettiness that always simmers in your chest aplenty.
But there’s something about Steven. Something you can’t quite put your finger on that won’t let you leave well enough alone. The friend who was with you when you’d approached him and asked for his number, had laughed and rolled their eyes.
“Of course, you’d be into him, he looks like the saddest stray dog at the shelter. The one nobody wants.”
Which is true you suppose. But he’s also charming in a geeky, unconventional sort of way. Surprisingly handsome, even if it’s hidden underneath dishevelled hair better suited to a mad scientist and sleep-deprived black circles under his eyes. He’s got the sort of beautifully defined jaw that belongs on a marble sculpture and gorgeous brown eyes that you want to drown in.
Besides, dating prospects in London can be grim. Even with this colossal fuck up, Steven was still the preferable option when compared with Ben on Tinder, whose profile photo showed him in a tux with his (hopefully ex-)wife standing next to him in a wedding gown. Or unsolicited dick pic numbers 1-3 and 5-12 (you were saving the possibility of number 4 for a rainy day). Or another dreary night home alone in your tiny flat.
So despite your better judgement, you take the tube to Leicester Square, slipping down the crowded alleys of Chinatown and into a tucked away dim sum diner with dimly lit walls washed in cracked red paint.
He’s waiting for you at a cramped table in the corner, still looking like he hasn’t had a good night’s sleep in years. Hair unkempt and frazzled, much like the man himself. His entire body is bowed and hunching in on itself like he’s afraid of taking up too much space—the whole of him one big apology for even existing. He’s nothing much to look at, not until he looks up and sees you, and then his whole face lights up with amazed delight.
There’s something about his hopeful, nervous smile that tells you this isn’t a ploy or misguided attempt at negging. Not some weird power game to show you that he’s just not that into you. Something about those big round puppy-dog eyes, filled with awe and gratitude for your presence, tells an entirely different story: he’s the one who thought he was being stood up tonight. For whatever reason, this man genuinely seems to believe it’s Saturday.
Those eyes are the reason you don’t bother to act indignant or inform him tartly that today is not Saturday. Instead, you let it go with a polite smile as you sit down across from him.
High cheekbones flushed pink, he seems discombobulated that you’re actually here, reduced to a cluster of wrecked nerves and completely unable to hold down a conversation. And God, it would be cute if it weren’t so fucking awkward. You fiddle with your cheap wristwatch, pulling at the band until it comes loose the way it always does just so you have an excuse to put it back together. The silence between you echoes so loudly that you can practically hear the seconds tik-toking away.
“How’s work at the gift shop?” you ask finally, straining to keep the pleasant smile on your face.
“Not too bad.” He opens his mouth as if to say more, but his fragile nerves are etched on every line of his face, and instead his mouth clamps down tight.
Three words. Apparently you get three words only. Then it’s back to silence, and you want to bang your head against the surface of the table. Maybe you should have gone with Ben from Tinder after all?
God, you just need to find a topic of conversation. Any topic. You can’t do this deafening awkward silence anymore.
So you open your mouth and wind up nattering on about the banal details of your day: the delay on the tube that almost made you late; your coworker’s birthday celebration; your failed eBay auction attempts for a particular edition of The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain.
“It was a limited release, sold out at every book store in town, seems like.” It’s a topic that you regret embarking on as soon as you open your mouth. Still, you keep prattling on, sure that you must be boring him to death, because you don’t know what else to talk to him about.
Miraculously, he shows no signs of boredom. Instead, he follows along, taking in your every word with rapt attention. He even manages to stutter out a question or two. Intelligent ones, at that. And he actually seems to care about your responses. You can’t remember the last time any man had listened to you so attentively. It’s flattering and leaves you feeling flustered and flushed.
By the time the date ends an hour later, you’re feeling marginally warmer towards him, though he’s barely managed two dozen words of his own.
It’s absolutely pouring when you exit the diner, and you realise with dismay that you’d not thought to bring an umbrella.
“I’ll walk you to the tube, yeah?” he offers, popping open his own umbrella, and holding it out for you to step under. Carefully keeping it slanted your way when he joins you a moment later.
You're both quiet on the walk, but the silence feels less awkward than it had in the restaurant, a bit friendlier. He’s still nervous and ill at ease and watches you surreptitiously the whole time, his eyes darting furtively in your direction when he thinks you aren’t looking.
It’s not until you reach your station that he finally speaks.
“Can I see you again?”
You hesitate, thinking of the miserable hour you spent sitting in the diner alone on Saturday—the real Saturday. Of the awkwardness tonight. The way you were there together for over an hour, but you still know next to nothing about him.
You shouldn’t. You know you shouldn’t, but your eyes are drawn to the soaked patch on the right shoulder and arm of his jacket where the coverage of the umbrella missed him entirely. Your own coat is dry, not a drop of water on you.
For the life of you, you can’t explain why you say yes, but you do.
You make plans to meet up again the next weekend, and this time, he actually makes it to the restaurant venue at the proper date and time. You spot him from outside when you arrive. He’s wearing an outdated, ill-fitting suit, and you watch through the front window as he fiddles nervously with his tie.
When he sees you, he lights up just the way he did on the first date. Pure unbridled excitement, as if he can’t believe you actually showed.
This time, when you ask about the museum, he proceeds to word-vomit an encyclopaedia’s worth of knowledge about ancient Egyptian history. His passion and zeal for the subject are incapable of being contained until it spreads and lights up the entire restaurant with it. And even though the extent of your interest and knowledge of ancient Egyptian history had started and ended with watching Brendan Fraser in the Mummy, you find yourself captivated by the conversation.
Once he relaxes a bit, you find him to be disarmingly sweet and harmless, things the men in your past have not been. It’s why you find yourself letting down your guard, and despite the poor first impression, you genuinely enjoy yourself as you work your way through an otherwise unimpressive meal.
It’s also why you end up saying yes to a third date.
He beats you to the appointed location again, and when you show up, there’s a black shopping bag in his lap. He holds it out to you as an offering when you approach the table, watching you like an eager puppy waiting for approval as you unwrap the content. At the sight of the gold-gilded purple hardcover, the limited edition of ‘The Prince and the Pauper’, your stomach flutters, and it’s like being a child at Christmas all over again.
“How on earth did you get a hold of this? It’s sold out everywhere.”
“There was a store in Peterborough that still had one,” he answers, sounding quietly chuffed with himself.
“Steven, that's hours by train. Did you go all the way up there just for this?”
“Nono— I was passing by for a work thing.”
It’s a transparent lie.
You almost ask him why on earth a gift shop vendor for a museum would need to go all the way to Peterborough for work, but you don’t.
“I’m just really happy I gathered up the courage to ask you on a date that first time,” he confesses with an open-mouthed smile, his joy so contagious that it almost makes you miss what he said.
Then you stop and consider it, and your smile turns wooden.
Because that’s not right.
He didn’t ask you out. You were the one who approached him and initiated things.
That’s the second red flag. But you ignore it despite every dating rule in the book that has been ingrained into your skull since you were a little girl.
Instead, your mind turns to Peterborough and what a miserable journey that must have been on National Rail. You can’t help but google it. Two hours on crowded trains, at least half an hour walk to get to the bookstore, plus the return journey.
Who goes to such lengths for a throwaway comment on a first date? You only mentioned it to begin with as a way to fill the unbearable awkward silence.
The gesture is so sweet it warms you from inside out, making your cheeks tingle with heat, even against the February cold.
Later, with the benefit of hindsight, it will be easy to see the idiocy of your actions. But as you sit here now in front of this sweet, eager man, it’s simpler to turn a blind eye to the things that don’t quite add up. What’s that thing your friend always says?
When you’re looking at someone through rose-tinted glasses, all the red flags are just going to look like flags.
After that, it’s lunch dates at the Great Court under the Museum rooftop and breakfast at Cafe Babka before work almost every day of the week. Steven dates you like he is trying to court you, flowers and chocolates and wide adoring eyes.
It’s not a perfect relationship by any means. Steven has quirks. And not just the, oh he’s cute and clumsy and says awkward things when he’s nervous sort of quirks. Sometimes he misses dates without warning. Sometimes, like that first time, he’ll be gone for days. When he returns, he’ll act like he’s just seen you the day before, cocking his head like a confused puppy when you try to ask where he’s been.
On one occasion he disappears for weeks. No contact save for a few brusque texts that sound uncharacteristically professional and put together. Your calls go unanswered. That is until they don’t, and then he’s back. Your sweet Steven with the same shy smile, tired eyes and non-explanation as ever, apparently oblivious to the missing window of time.
It’s nothing serious between you—not to the point that he owes you an account of his time. And yet… If you’re entirely honest with yourself, it bothers you. Of course it does. Because you care, despite the fact that you shouldn’t.
The inconsistencies (red flags) continue to mount: The two of you always meet outside. He never invites you to his place, and he never stays the night at yours. The excuse is insomnia. Always the same line about how he doesn’t want to keep you up and rob you of a good night's sleep murmured on his way out the door. He’s good at deflecting and prevaricating. It’s not until you ask to meet at his, that he refuses point-blank.
“No!”
He says it with his whole chest. Bitten off like a curse, leaving no room for discussion. It’s so forceful and unlike him that it shocks you.
It hits you all at once like a painful blow. A man who can’t be reached for days at a time. Never introduces you to any of his friends. Won’t let you visit his home. It’s a fucking bouquet of red flags if you’ve ever seen one.
The realisation rolls in hard and fast, punching the air out of your lungs.
“Oh, God. You’re married.”
Of course he is. Probably has a family that he’s hiding from you too. You’re his weekend fun. Meanwhile, he has kids and a dog waiting for him at home. It all makes so much sense now. Every little oddity. All the things that didn’t add up. The disappearances. The gaslighting. The Wednesday that was supposedly Saturday.
Red-hot anger rises to your cheeks, and your ears burn as it claws at the walls of your throat. Fucking hell, you can’t believe you didn’t see it until now.
“No! What? No,” he insists, his hands scrambling to grab hold of yours. “I’m not married!!”
In front of you, those charcoal pupils blow wider than you’ve ever seen them, black eating into the dark brown ring with his panic. But you’re not moved by it this time.
“Don’t give me that crap, Steven. Why else do you never stay the night at mine? Why have you never invited me to yours? Why else would you disappear for days and pretend you don’t remember anything?”
“Sorry, sorry. I can see that I’ve upset you, and I’m sorry. But I’m not married, alright? You can come over. It’s fine. You can come over to my place.”
Crossing your arms, you lean back in your seat, trying your hardest to ignore the onlookers at the cafe whose interest you have peaked with your lovers’ quarrel.
“When?” you ask.
“I don’t know. Tomorrow? No, no. Saturday!”
Like hell you’re going to give him the opportunity to choose a day when the wife and kids are conveniently out of town so he can sneak you in like a dirty mistress.
“Now,” you insist.
“Now? As in today?”
“What’s wrong with today?”
“I need to clean first.”
You’re not doing this.
“Goodbye, Steven.” You rise from your seat, but his hand shoots out, grabbing hold of yours to stop you before you’ve even so much as taken a step.
“Today,” he relents.
“Now.”
He nods, shoulders slumping in defeat as his eyes flicker away from your scathing glare. “Now,” he promises.
“Just a sec.”
The moment his front door is unlocked, Steven shimmies through the opening, blocking your view, then runs forward into the flat. It’s suspicious, to say the least.
He’s running zig-zag through the flat, moving as fast as you’ve ever seen him. Knocking over everything in his path and causing a loud commotion left and right as he shovels armfuls of books, boxes of crumpled up tape and old maps out of sight. It takes you a few seconds before you realise what he is doing. He’s tidying.
Steven wasn’t lying. Not about this at least. Despite what you thought was damning evidence, there is no wife. No kids. Hell, the only pet he has is a sad-looking goldfish with one fin that he’s named Gus (when the much more apt name, Nemo is available).
Also, he definitely did need to clean the place up.
You can understand why he was self-conscious. Now that you see it, you almost feel bad for imposing on him. Almost.
Without waiting for an invitation, you walk into the middle of the flat, looking around.
While the place is a dump, it’s also ridiculously spacious, tucked up under the eaves, with lots of windows and a wide open floor plan. You could probably fit three of your flat in here. And it’s located by Temple, smack in the centre of London. You've clearly chosen the wrong career. Museum gift shops must be where the money's at if Steven can afford a place like this.
The noise around you has ceased, and you realise that Steven has stopped moving. You can feel his gaze following you in the room, eyes darting nervously as he pretends not to be observing your every reaction to his home, looking for approval.
“Sorry for the mess. I don’t get many guests.” He offers the apology meekly, then resumes tidying as you walk around the flat.
There are books everywhere, not just on the bookshelves. They’re on the desk and on the table and on the floor. Dusty hardcovers and paperbacks are crammed into every nook and corner of the flat, stacked in piles and piles on top of each other.
Occupied as you are in taking in the… eccentric decor aesthetic of your surroundings—the oversized fishtank in the middle of the flat; the maps, pictures, and copious notes tacked onto cork boards; the hieroglyphics hanging all over the walls—you fail to watch your step. Your boot connects with something solid, and you stumble, nearly losing your footing. The thing goes skittering off with the sound of metal scraping against the wooden flooring.
Bending down, you peek under the edge of the bed. It takes you a moment to figure out what you're seeing, then a wash of heat prickles in your cheeks. You’re not sure what you were expecting to find, but it sure as hell wasn’t... this.
There’s a padded cuff under his bed. Your eyes follow the long cable that connects it to one of the wooden beams nearby.
It’s always the quiet ones.
Restraints by the bed in a dilapidated attic flat that looks like it is straight out of The Silence of the Lambs is a bright red flag flashing in screaming neon. Yet, there’s no trepidation. No spike of fear. It’s like you have no survival skills to speak of. Instead, you’re more amused than anything else. Intrigued, even. So this is what he was trying to hide: a messy home and a sex kink. You can work with that. In light of the possible alternatives, you’re almost relieved.
“Steven,” you call out, holding out the incriminating restraints for him to see.
His eyes flicker downwards, then widen in alarm. The moment he spots what you’re holding, blood rushes to his cheeks, colour flooding his face until that pale pallor on his cheekbones turns dark crimson.
“It– It’s not what you think.” He’s mortified, and it’s adorable.
“No?” Your lips quirk into a smile. You never can help but tease when he makes it so easy. “You don’t want to tie me up, Steven?”
"What? I mean, no! I mean– Those are for me.”
You quirk an inquisitive eyebrow. “For... you?”
And uhm… Wow. You had not expected that. Though, well, maybe you should have. With his timidness and nervous disposition, you’re not surprised to discover he prefers for someone else to be in control.
“I– Sorry. Not that I– I mean– " He’s stuttering, wringing his hands, completely at loss for how to dig himself out of this latest accidental confession, and there must be something wrong with you, because you find him incredibly appealing like this.
His high cheekbones are flushed a deep red, eyes impossibly large as he bites down on his full bottom lip.
The sadist in you thinks he looks gorgeous.
You walk towards him, and with every step of your advance, he retreats backwards, step by step, inching ever closer to the unmade bed behind him.
“Show me.”
He’s so taken by your request, he seems to have completely lost awareness of his surroundings. Despite this being his flat, he startles when the back of his knees hit the edge of the mattress, awkwardly fumbling his way into a sitting position on the edge of bed.
Still standing, you slot yourself between his thighs. Unsurprisingly, this doesn’t help his attempts to form a coherent sentence at all.
“Show you? Sorry, I don’t—”
You grip his chin between your fingers, interrupting him mid-sentence, and tilt him up to meet your eyes. This close up, you marvel at how ridiculously sharp his jaw truly is, the edge of it so honed you bet it could cut through steak.
“Yes. Show me. Show me how it’s for you. Show me how you use it on yourself.”
He swallows convulsively, Adam's apple bobbing, unable to control the nervous physical reaction to you. But then he nods obediently, and takes the cuff from your hands. He stares down at it for a moment before inhaling deeply, as if to gather his courage, then leans down, and you take a step back to watch him fasten it on.
Fitting the leather around his ankle, he threads the end of it through the buckle, pulling until it’s a tight fit then inserting the prong through the hole to secure it. There’s no fumbling. No shaky hands, even as you stare at him with rapt attention. He does it all with the practised ease of a man who does this routinely.
It has your stomach tied in excited knots to see him in his element for once.
As if by habit, he gives the cable tethering his foot to the wooden beam a firm tug. It rattles against the wood, sending a spike of excitement up your spine, simmering along every nerve ending until it’s enough to make your fingers twitch. You become keenly aware of how your neck prickles with heat.
Then he stops and straightens up, looking up at you expectantly as if to signal the end of the show.
“Where’s the rest of the set?” you ask. When his brows draw together in confusion, you clarify, “For your wrists and the other leg?”
“Uhm, it’s just the one… Sorry.”
Oh for God’s sake. Who on earth only has one ankle restraint to be tied up for sex? It’s truly a ‘one sandwich short of a picnic’ deal going on here, isn’t it? Adorable as he is, you can never make heads or tails of Steven.
You shake your head with a sigh, trying to gather your wits. It’s the intention that counts, you suppose.
You step in close again, and Steven draws in a sharp breath when your leg makes contact with the inside of his thigh.
Maybe you don’t even need to tie down the rest of him to get him excited.
You nudge your thigh forward where it brushes against his, a slow press, testing the waters, and you’re rewarded with his immediate rapt attention. His eyes dart between his legs, gaze fixed on your encroaching knee; his hands hover uselessly in the air around you, not quite daring to touch; and his chest heaves as you continue your slow advance, not stopping until your thigh meets the visible bulge that is starting to strain against the denim.
His mouth parts, the pressure eliciting a sharp gasp, and he stares up at you with wide, dark eyes. Your whole back tingles with excitement. Fuck, he’s pretty.
You let your bag drop to the ground with a muffled thump, wanting your hands free to touch without impediment.
Steven jumps at the sound. He looks from you to your bag on the ground and back again, then shudders and slumps forward like he’s unable to keep himself upright. He presses his face into your stomach, and the warmth of his breath seeps into the fabric of your jumper. It seems to spread from there, stretching down your thighs to the curl of your toes.
It has you wrapping your fingers around the thick column of his neck to turn his face up to yours. You’re not at all prepared for the sight of him, eyes rolling back and those gorgeous long lashes fluttering. His pulse jumps excitedly against your fingers as if it’s trying to meet your touch. It ratchets up another notch when your hands come to his collar and you pop the top button open, easing the tight constraint against that long, graceful throat.
Then you work open the rest of the buttons, dragging down his oversized shirt. You barely have time to admire his naked form, before you stumble across a much more worrying revelation. Black-blue bruises marring his smooth golden skin in large patches across his shoulder. There are barely healed cuts, running parallel down his chest. You trace the lines with your fingers with a frown, and Steven turns his gaze downward, shame-faced.
“How on earth did you get these?”
“I—I dunno.”
“You don’t know?”
“I have a sleeping disorder. It’s what the restraints are for.”
And that’s another red flag, isn’t it? Practically waving right in front of your nose. But… You let your eyes roam over Steven’s chest. There are other things that you want to focus on right now. Things like the friendlier revelation of just how in-shape Steven is.
He never seemed like the type to go to the gym, more like the type to get winded running after the bus. Your first (apparently incorrect) impression was that a gust of wind could probably knock him off his feet.
But his form tells a different story. Running your hand over the well-developed muscles of his shoulder and down his toned bicep, you find that he’s much bulkier than you had expected, given how small he holds himself to be. Underneath the unsightly button-down, Steven is cut like a marble statue, all firm muscles and smooth flesh. Always full of surprises, this one.
Dipping knee-first onto the mattress, you move to straddle him, one knee on each side of his hips. When you settle your weight onto Steven’s lap, his pink tongue darts out nervously, wetting his lush bottom lip until it glistens with saliva. The sight sends a thrill up your spine.
Flattening your hand against his solid chest, you apply firm pressure, and Steven lets himself be guided by you easily enough, as if he truly believes your strength is a match to his. Allowing you to push him backwards until his back is flat against the mattress.
“Is this–?” Steven starts nervously, “Sorry, are you sure that you–?” His voice cuts off when you lace your fingers with his and show him just how sure you are.
You drag your interlocked hands down your sternum and further to slip up under the hem of your skirt. You watch his face as you press his hand against you, letting him feel how wet you are for him, soaked even through the double layer of your underwear and tights.
He groans when his fingertips find the proof of your arousal, and he stares up at you, awestruck, dark eyes wide and dazed, almost disbelieving.
“Oh. You're...? Oh, fuck.” Then he’s pulling his hand away from yours, scrambling to get it under the waistband of your tights.
You gasp at the feeling of his fingers wiggling into your knickers, and your body jolts forward with a shock of pleasure as they slide down over your clit. Moving down to press deeper, those thick fingers tease at your slick, sensitive entrance, and you can hear how wet you are.
Steven must hear it too, because he groans again, a desperate needy sound. His touch trails back up and over your clit again before withdrawing entirely, and you moan at the loss. You expect him to try to pull your tights off, maybe go for the zip of your skirt, but he doesn’t.
What is he...? Oh.
You watch slack-jawed and burning with arousal as he shoves his slick fingers into his mouth, tongue and throat and jaw working clumsily as he sucks them clean. Moaning with something like desperation as he swallows you down like a starving man.
“Sorry, sorry. Had to taste you,” he slurs out around his fingers. The words are distorted and hard to understand, and it should be ridiculous, but instead, it’s just hot. “Can I–”
“Yes,” you answer, not even waiting for him to finish the question, and his eyes light up the same way they always do when he first sees you, like he can't quite believe you're real.
He pulls his fingers out of his mouth, leaving you staring at the way his lips are pinker than before, shiny with a mix of his saliva and your slick.
“Can I– can you just—” He doesn’t finish the request, but his hands move to your hip and thigh, tugging gently, urging you to scoot up his body.
You nod and start to shift yourself to help him, but his hands wrap around you, fingers digging in, then you’re moving.
He drags you forward with surprising strength, your tight-covered knees scraping against the bedding. As he pulls you up his torso, you realise you’re still wearing your boots.
“Wait, my shoes!”
“S’fine.” Steven doesn’t even pause, dragging you the rest of the way up to straddle his chest. Then his hands move to the underside of your thighs, and you yelp as he lifts you up.
You nearly toppling forward before you brace yourself with a hand on his shoulder, but Steven doesn’t waver, holding you steady, supporting you without apparent effort until he can settle you with your bum on his chest, your knees framing his head.
You stare down at him, more than a little affected by that impressive display of strength, but Steven isn’t even looking at you. Instead his eyes are heavy-lidded, a blissful expression on his face as he turns to the side, craning his neck until his lips can press a kiss onto your inner thigh.
When you don’t pull away, he mouths at you through the material of your tights, biting down and gently worrying the sensitive flesh between his teeth until you’re sure it will leave a mark. You hope it does.
He pauses, then. Unlatches his teeth, and just stays there for a moment. His fast, panting breaths are warm against your thigh, but cold where they ghost over the wet spot he’s left on your tights. The contrast makes you shiver. His hand skates slowly up the back of your thigh, hesitant, like he expects you to scold or stop him. When you don’t, he curls his arm around your leg, pressing it greedily to his mouth so he can leave an identical mark right next to the first one. The action is hungry but somehow still reverent, almost worshipful. The only descriptor that comes to mind is touch-starved.
For a moment you wonder how long it’s been for him, this man who seems to have no family or friends to speak of, alone in a city of nine million inhabitants, and how lonely he must be, lost in the clustered sea of anonymity. Because he touches you like you’re the first sign of life on an abandoned planet and wants to reassure himself you’re real. Devoted fingers fan over your ribs, palming over every inch of skin he can reach, kneading and grasping.
You don’t get a chance to revel in the thought, before he drags his nose upwards against the ticklish inside of your thighs, tongue trailing a wet streak across your tights as he goes. You claw your skirt up around your waist and out the way so you can keep watching him, and you can’t help the blissful sigh that parts your lips when he gets to his destination.
He noses at the damp crotch of your tights, but it’s not enough to actually give you any friction. You can hear him suck a long breath in, his chest rising under you with the extended inhale, and then the warmth of his breath gusts over you as he releases it. He does it again, another deep inhale, and a wash of heat rolls through you at the realisation that he’s smelling you. That’s… that’s just…
You spear your fingers into that messy hair, and drag his head forward, pressing yourself against him. You groan at the contact, and he groans with you, mouthing at you desperately.
“Can you– Can these come off?” he says into you, the words barely intelligible between biting kisses and half-licks. His hands grip your thighs, lifting you forward, helping you to ride his face. “Oh, fuck. Can I taste you without these? Please?”
“Rip them,” you say without conscious thought, and he does.
He leans back marginally, chin tilting down at a sharp angle to see what he’s doing, and his hands sneak up under your thighs to grip the fabric of your tights on either side of the crotch, fingers digging in, pulling until the material gives way with barely a whisper of sound. His fingers fumble at you again, and there’s a moment of unexpected pressure. Your knickers dig into your hip almost painfully before there’s a much louder rip, and you realise he’s torn them too. You have half a second to be glad they weren’t your best pair, then his mouth is on you.
You expect him to be tentative, the way he is in so many other parts of life, clumsy even. Instead, Steven is all enthusiasm and hunger. There’s nothing shy about the way he works you open with his mouth.
It starts with a long slick drag of the flat of his tongue down the seam of your cunt. Leaning back slightly, you brace a hand on his firm chest and roll your hips forward into his waiting mouth. He meets your invitation with a groan that makes his whole chest shudder underneath you, lapping at you with a fervour that you would never have expected from him.
A slow, sweet ache unfurls from between your thighs, spreading and twining steadily outward, until the pleasant warmth climbs its way up your chest, and you smile down at him indulgently.
He’s greedy for you, shifting underneath you and dragging his mouth against your cunt, his hungry moan muffled into your thighs. The bump of his nose nudges against your clit, and white-hot pleasure streaks down your limbs as his tongue curls, licking into you.
The familiar rasp of a zipper fills the room. It’s followed by a slick wet sound attracting your attention that makes you turn your head, twisting awkwardly to look over your own shoulder. And fuck, are you glad that you did. His fingers are wrapped around the girth of his cock, slowly stroking himself up and down, slick and shiny with copious precome dripping down his painfully-erect-looking cock.
"Touching yourself, Steven?"
His hand abruptly stops, whole body freezing in alarm at being caught. He drags his mouth just far enough to resurface with an apologetic murmur. "Sorry. I'm sorry, I'm—" it’s slurred and drunk, a thickness caught in his throat from your slick.
“Don’t be sorry.” With the way his mouth is working you, he has nothing to apologise for, and you press your hips down flush against his face, shutting him up quite handily. “You look so fucking good like this, keep touching yourself, fuck, keep going. You’re doing so good,” you encourage as your fingers brush away the errant locks that stick to his forehead with perspiration.
The deep groan rumbling from his chest is nothing short of grateful as he grabs a firm hold of you with his free hand. There’s nothing tentative about his touch anymore. His fingers dig into the plump flesh of your hips with a surprising force, holding you down against his mouth, forcing you to grind down on his tongue much harder than you would have on your own out of fear of hurting him.
The strength of his hold is entirely unyielding. It’s depraved with how you’re grinding down on his mouth. Debauched in how he lets you fuck yourself on his tongue. It has you bucking and writhing, the pleasure of it so overwhelming that you lose orientation.
You need to anchor yourself because fuck, your legs are burning from the exertion, giving under and you’re not sure you can keep yourself upright. Your hands grip the nearest surface, clamping down against the wooden shelf above the bed hard enough that your knuckles ache.
And oh crap, you should not have done that.
The books start to slump sideways, collapsing against one another like dominoes. Dazed as you are by the pleasure of his mouth on you, it doesn’t occur to you to try and catch them until a whole mess of books and papers and other clutter tumbles down, spilling across the corner of the bed and onto the floor.
“Fuck! Steven, your books!” You belatedly lurch forward, but you don’t get far. Steven groans into you, a feral snarl of sound, and his arms curl tight around your thighs, locking you in place.
Yeah, okay, the books can wait.
You thread your fingers into his hair, gripping the heated, sweat-damped curls until you’re sure that it must hurt. But the only response you get is an enthusiastic groan, as his mouth moves more eagerly than before.
And God, it’s good. Heat spreads down your trembling thighs, shivering under your skin. The sweet ache of it builds with each press of Steven’s tongue until it feels almost too big for your body. There’s nowhere else for it to go, and for a moment you are almost worried that you are going to burst open with it— And God, you’re nearly there— almost, just a little bit more.
Steven must be able to feel it because he makes a muffled noise of satisfaction against your cunt. His fingers dig into your thighs even harder, his nose sliding against your clit as he holds you flush to his mouth, and that’s all it takes to shove you over the edge.
You come hard, grinding down harshly against Steven’s face as waves of fierce pleasure ripple through you, searing and endless. He doesn’t protest, just holds you even more solidly against his hungry mouth.
His tongue slows but doesn’t still. A soft, lazy drag, working you through it as he fastens his mouth around you, swallowing like he can’t bear to let a single drop of your slick go to waste. And... and... fuckohfuck—he’s not stopping.
Your first orgasm doesn’t even have the chance to fade away before he is somehow, unbelievably, building you up to a second. The piercing sharp pleasure rides on the fine line of too much. He is mouthing and licking every inch that his tongue can reach, even as you’re trembling and convulsing on top of him, not sure if you want to get away or press yourself closer to the overwhelming touch.
You can’t make sense of the space around you, everything narrowing inwards, until the concept of sound and colours no longer make sense to you, your vision blurring. It is all heat and sparks that steals your breath with it. Every muscle in you locks tight, the tension streaking out along your limbs to the curl of your toes until you are sure you are going to snap from it—
And then you do.
You come with a hoarse shout, eyes slamming shut from overstimulation as your world crumbles around you and everything fades into nothingness until your mind is blank with it.
It’s all a blur and you barely register the lazy, soft licks of Steven’s tongue as he’s drawing out your pleasure. Barely able to catch oxygen into your lungs, before you realise he’s still going. And oh fuck, he can’t be serious— “Stop, Steven stop—wait! too much—”
You lurch up, trying to get away, even the gentle touch of his tongue suddenly too much. Grabbing his locks tightly, you use one hand to try to pry him away from you, slapping your other hand down hard against the muscled arm that’s keeping you pressed against his face.
That, finally, is enough to make Steven loosen his hold, and he lets himself be pulled away from you as you raise yourself on trembling thighs, barely managing to scoot yourself back to sit back on his chest.
For a moment you worry that you are resting your weight on him and how uncomfortable it must be for him, but there’s not a trace of discomfort in his features. His face is one of bliss. A sweat-soaked curl falls across his forehead and it makes him impossibly beautiful. Your eyes meet, but his are glazed and distant, entirely lost and still on a different planet.
You move down his body, until your chest is pressed up against his and the drum of his heartbeat is pounding against your skin. You’re sated and exhausted, and grinning from ear to ear as you press your lips against his. He tastes of you, sweet and tart on his tongue as you kiss him, and he kisses back, moaning desperately into your mouth.
He’s still hard. His straining erection pressing against your stomach with nowhere to go. Hot and aching, as it jerks against you, slick and dripping from the precome leaking from him. Fuck, you want him inside of you.
“Get my bag,” you instruct him breathlessly, still coming down from your high, and he looks at you but makes no sign of moving out from under you. “I have condoms in my handbag,” you clarify. “Get one.”
That seems to do the trick, snapping him out of his trance. Within a fraction of a second his eyes have refocused and he’s scrambling towards the end of the bed to grab your bag from where you had haphazardly dropped it. There’s a moment of silent hesitation, then the rattling of keys and lipsticks being pushed to the side as he searches frantically for his prize.
While he’s busy with that, you take the opportunity to finally undress. Two orgasms in and you haven’t so much as removed your boots. Unbelievable.
You make quick work of them along with the rest of your clothes, dragging off the tattered remains of your stockings and knickers just as Steven makes a small triumphant noise.
You hear the rip of the metal foil, and press your knees together at the ache between your thighs to stave off your own excitement. But then it’s followed by silence. You crane your head to see what the hold up is. Steven is holding the condom up to the bedside lamp, flipping it over then over again, apparently unable to determine which direction is up. God, you do not have time for this, not when you want him inside you this badly.
Impatience brings out the worst in you. You know you’re being unfair, not even giving him the benefit of a few seconds in this dimly lit space, before you snatch the condom from him.
“Trousers off,” you order, and he scrambles to comply.
Turning your attention to the slippery rubber in your hand, to the sting of your pride, you’re struggling with it much in the same way that Steven had. It’s too dark in this bloody room, and you can’t see if you’re holding it up or down. It’s truly a humbling moment when you find yourself scooting closer to the nightlight and holding it up for a brighter view until you finally make sense of the thing.
Next to you, Steven is struggling with his one single item of clothing. It’s clumsy to say the least, not helped by the trousers being tangled by the ankle restraint no matter how much he tugs at it. Until he finally gives up and turns back around to stand in front of you and wow— beautiful doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Hidden underneath mismatched clothes, and an inability to comb his hair, it was always obvious he was a looker. It’s the moment of reveal in a rom-com where the girl loses her glasses and the most beautiful person you’ve ever seen graces your screen. Right now, he’s all tousled curls, flushed cheeks and kiss-swollen lips. You can’t remember the man with the gangly gait, looking like he’s a kid wearing his father’s oversized clothes. Gone is the pale face that hadn’t touched the sun for years.
You beckon him forward with the curl of your finger and he follows obediently, climbing back into the bed until he’s kneeling in front of you. Your fingers curl around the thick girth of him and it twitches and jerks in your grasp. From the way he stiffens, and stills, you swear that he stops breathing entirely as you easily roll the condom down his length.
Raising your knees, you seat yourself into his lap as you’re aligning him against your slick and aching cunt, until the fat tip is resting inside you.
Then you take your time as you ease down on him, inch by slow, sweet and aching inch as he fills you for the first time. Every nerve ending in you is thrumming with electricity. You can’t remember who was supposed to be in control anymore when you feel him, thick and warm, seated inside you to the root of him.
It’s a struggle to move, every nerve in you alight. He feels so good inside you, incendiary, and you have half a mind to stay just like this.
You start a slow grind of a pace that has him groaning in response to you. Tilting your hips up to drag your slick cunt over the length of him before squeezing down on him again.
Lunging forward, Steven’s mouth latches onto your throat, kissing fervently. Tongue lapping against the salty perspiration, teeth nibbling down your collarbone and downwards until he’s mouthing at your breast, sucking at the pillowy flesh. Touch-starved, you think to yourself again.
You try to raise yourself again to keep the momentum you have started but, God as good as he feels inside you, despite the sweet gorgeous ache of the slide of his cock, your legs are numb. The muscles in your calves are screaming out in exhaustion still wrought from the earlier exertion and the torrent of overwhelming pleasure that you can’t quite seem to climb down from. Not when you can barely find the strength in you to sit upright. And as much as you want to keep riding him, you can’t—
"Fuck, I can't-- God, Steven, help me."
It’s all you need to say before his hands are already moving to grip the underside of your bare thighs. He lifts you up and off his cock before bearing you down on him until you are grinding down on his cock. Again and again. He moves you like it’s an easy feat, and you are reminded once again of his deceptive strength.
It doesn’t take long at all before that too familiar heat is simmering deep in the pit of your stomach. Slow at first but insistent all the same as the aching pleasure spreads and blooms along every fibre and nerve of you.
You can’t hide from it, don’t have the strength to chase after it on your own. All you can do is surrender yourself to it, to the pace that Steven has set for you both as he holds you down and rolls his hips up and into you. The sensations course through you, God it won’t stop— he won’t stop. God, please you don’t want him to stop.
And he doesn’t, he plants one foot on the mattress for leverage, lifting you off of him, making you whine at the loss, before he thrusts into you deep and hard, and God—fuckshit, you’re coming for him again.
This time your climax slams into you all at once. The pleasure of it is blinding, until all you can see are glimmers of white sparks in the darkness as if you are staring up into a vast night sky. The world around you slows to a crawl as the only thought you’re capable of is how the blissful high pushes through every single one of your cells, blanking your consciousness until you lose sense of time itself.
Except, there are soft moans close to your ear that send shivers down your back. A firm grip on your hips that tethers your consciousness to this world. A sturdy weight pressed along your thighs. When you come to you find yourself with your back on the mattress. Steven pressed alongside every inch of you.
You don’t know when he took command like this, controlling the momentum. Or when he flipped you over to your back, until your legs were wrapped around his waist, your body still clenching around him as you ride out the aftershocks of your climax.
He looms above you, supporting himself on his forearms as he stares down at you, sweat-slick curls bouncing across his forehead with the force of his body driving into yours. Strong, deep thrusts, unmeasured and almost wild, as he bucks into you.
You can see that he's getting close by the way his jaw works then goes slack, but his gaze never falters. Even as his hips stutter, losing their rhythm, his eyes, dazed and feverish, never leave your face, taking you in like he’s worried you might disappear if he looks away for even a second.
Steven gasps out your name, then stills, buried deep inside you, and fuck, you can feel him come. You always thought that was just a thing made up by romance novelists who seem to get paid by how ridiculous and unattainable their sex scenes are, but you swear you can actually feel his cock pulsing inside you.
Watching the pleasure break across his face is a revelation. You’ve always known Steven was handsome. Had thought you recognised the depths of his attractiveness seeing him naked and aroused in the low light, but this is something different. This is Steven transcendent. The desperate need and constant pinched nervousness have been washed away by pure pleasure, and you realise that Steven might just be the most attractive man you’ve ever seen.
You’re still recovering from this revelation when he goes limp, collapsing onto your chest, and burying his face in the crook of your neck. He slurs out a “Sorry, sorry. I hope that was alright, yeah?” and you have to laugh a little to yourself as you shush him, running a soothing hand through his hair, overcome with tenderness because yeah, that’s still your Steven. And you wouldn’t have him any other way.
After a long moment, he shifts, reaching between you to hold the base of the condom, and you both gasp as he pulls out. He pauses there, hovering over you, and you grin happily at each other. You feel giddy and lightheaded, your whole body buzzing with endorphins. God. Shy, meek little Steven who could barely manage more than a handful of words on your first date somehow just made you come three times in one night.
He rolls to the side, and you marvel all over again at the solid strength of him. The muscles of his arms flex and stretch under the skin as he knots the condom, tossing it into a bin across the room in an impressive display of skilful accuracy, before flopping over and nuzzling back into your neck.
The cable on the ankle restraint jingles with the movement, bringing it back to your awareness, and you start to reach for it, but Steven makes a noise of protest, hugging you tighter to him.
“The cuff...,” you remind him.
“Keep it on, yeah?” he murmurs, sleep thick and heavy in his voice. “I don’t want to go anywhere.”
Maybe it’s because you’re spent and exhausted. Maybe it’s because, with Steven, you have permanent blinders on, but you ignore the statement for the red flag it is and let it go. Instead, you curl into his pleasant warmth, tucking in your legs between his firm thighs and fit yourself into his welcoming arms as you let yourself drift to sleep.
When you wake, it's pitch black. There's no light at all, and you can't see anything in the total darkness blanketing the room.
Reaching out your hand, the spot next to you is cold and empty, any residual heat long gone from the sheets. You're alone in the bed.
"Steven?" you whisper.
There's no immediate answer, and your heart thrums painfully in your chest.
You sit up, wrapping the quilt around your naked torso and carefully adjusting it to make sure all the important bits are covered. Perhaps it's silly to worry about your modesty after the events of last night, but the back of your neck prickles uneasily in the silence, and you keep it on regardless.
"Steven?" you call out, louder this time, your voice echoing through the emptiness of the flat.
“I’m right here, sweetheart,” comes the response from the dark.
The endearment rings false in your ears. Steven’s never called you that before, and while tonight might be the perfect occasion to extend the list of firsts between you, there’s something not quite right about his voice too. His pronunciation is off somehow— like an imitation of an imitation.
Another red flag, and for the first time since you met Steven, it has alarm bells ringing loud and clear in your brain.
Keeping your face pointed in the direction the voice came from, you reach over to the end table and flick on the nightlight.
The amber hue illuminates his form as he emerges from the shadow into sight. Black curls fall across his forehead as those familiar pitch-dark eyes gaze back at you, framed by the hollowed cheeks you know so well.
But something’s still not right.
You can’t put your finger on it at first, but it comes to you slowly as you keep your eyes locked on him, heart beating in your throat. His stance is different. His whole demeanour is different. Shoulders straight, chest puffed out with confidence and pride like it’s second nature to him. This is no puppy dog, this is a wolf. In the dark empty space of the flat, his presence looms instead of cowers.
As you look up at him, the alarm echoes through your head louder than ever, pounding at your eardrums until you are nauseous with the clang of it. You can clearly see all the red flags you’ve ignored up until now, easily visible where they were dotted along the path that led you to this moment.
The person standing in front of you might carry Steven's face, but this isn't him. This man is a stranger to you. Your Steven has left the room.
Dedication & Credits:
So after seeing the first episode of Moon Knight, I passed out and entered into a horny fugue of a state that I have yet to recover from. I started writing this on Saturday with my most beloved @thirstworldproblemss and just— I'm unwell.
Ok Christ, the dedications for this one is going to be a doozy. Apologies beforehand to those that make it a habit of reading these.
----
First and always foremost in my heart and soul (and you can quote me on that no matter what my husband says to the contrary) to @thirstworldproblemss who co-wrote this and made this one of the most fun writing experiences I’ve had in a long long time. There is nothing like hanging out in a google doc together writing with a friend who is like an extension of your own brain— not knowing the scene and then having them go “what about this” and that is exactly what you wanted. There is nothing like waking up in the morning and seeing them staying awake (way past sleepy bussy time) still in the doc, and going to sleep with them still in the google doc. There is nothing like you, and I’m so happy I have you, for everyday the last year (and then some).
To @frannyzooey for her time. You always give so much of yourself to others and you are one of the kindest and bestest people I know. Thank you for being so supportive and keeping me company and talking me through the weirdest and some of the scariest life changes I’ve had in the past few months.
To @jazzelsaur for being such a whore. That’s it, that’s the dedication. WHORE. I love you don’t tell anyone.
To my beautiful comic geek @radiowallet for reassuring me that I wasn't going to fuck it up but also for being one of the sweetest, kindest and best people on earth. Always there with a kind and supporting word, and virtual hugs and being the absolute best person alive, always.
To @songsformonkeys because she was the one who kept whispering like the snake of Eden about how I should be writing Moon Knight fics.
To @the-ginger-hedge-witch for being an absolute rock in listening to me having constant meltdowns about how I’m so horny for this man. But also for being a fucking riot and one of the funniest human beings that has graced this blue planet that we call earth. I will never stop giggling about "yes girl he's married kill him".
To @yespolkadotkitty who after watching the first episode of Moon Knight texted me that “I was thinking CiCi had already written 55 smut fics in her head” and she was RIGHT. But also for her invaluable advice and precious time to make sure I didn’t fuck up the Britishism too much (despite having lived on and off in England for the last oh Idk 14 years of my life (I’m mess what can I say).
He had shawty cumming twice WITH THE BOOTS ON 😩🥵😤😩😤🥵
This had me screaming, curssin, and cackling yo. HAD ME FLABBERGASTED
Sista wives wake up and pack spendanight bags we moving into my Moonknight Thirst Era 😌😌😌 because both us and Oscar Issac deserve it @kdoxkeic @blowmymbackout @uhlxis
Pairing: Marc Spector x female reader x Steven Grant
Summary: Marc decides to teach you a lesson when you mistake him for Steven.
Rating: really fucking explicit
Warning/content: Marc's dirty filthy mouth, Steven's over-eager mouth, Marc is wee bit jealous, cunnilingus, overstimulation, refraction period? — we don't know her, established relationship.
Word Count: 3.5k (I have no excuse, pure self-indulgent filth)
[Tag List and Masterlist]
“Does that feel good, love? Think you can come for me again?”
You don't know how many orgasms he's pulled from you already. Everything sounds like it’s underwater. You can't tell if it’s Marc or Steven fronting right now. If it's Marc who is talking to you, or Steven, taking you apart inch by inch, one devastating orgasm at a time.
Love. He called you love. Steven calls you love. This must be Steven.
Steven’s lips come to the inside of your thigh, pressing gentle kisses meant to soothe, but the sandpaper brush of his stubble makes everything inside you that more wound up, your nerves raw like everything is going to splinter.
“You taste so fuckin’ good,” he murmurs, and the soft caress of his breath is searing against your skin, wreaking havoc on you. The low rumbling of his voice, so uncharacteristic of him, is dipped in hunger and greed, and it skitters up and down your spine until it's difficult to breathe. It's a perfect counterpoint to his surprisingly skilled mouth and fingers on you, to the heat spreading under your skin and building to an explosive pitch between your legs.
“Want you to come all over my mouth, yeah?” he says, with none of his trademark shyness, before he dives back in, tongue laving at your slick folds.
You can’t help but give him what he wants.
You come, your cunt clenches down, spasming around the thick girth of his fingers where he has you stretched open. Everything else disappears for a moment, your body weightless with pure unadulterated bliss. You are so disorientated that you are almost certain you are floating in zero gravity. You can’t even hear your heartbeat anymore. Can’t feel it thump against the cage of your chest. For all you know it might have stopped entirely. All you’re capable of feeling is an abstract tingling sensation that buzzes pleasantly in your veins.
Then you hear his voice, soft and adoring, from somewhere above. His fingers slip out of you, and you whine--even overwrought as you are, you feel empty at the loss.
There’s a gentle palm with soft-worn calluses stroking down the side of your ribs. Comforting kisses press your thighs, as he murmurs quiet praises about how good you are for him and how pretty you look like this.
You can’t help but snort a laugh at that last bit, not sure what he’s on about because you’re sure you look anything but right now. Your hair is soaked with sweat and clinging to your temple; your face, sticky and clammy. You’re certain you must look a complete mess as you lie here in a shambled heap on your bed. Your vision is so blurred you can barely see the white of your ceiling, but you're still able to make out the man above you, gazing down at you like you’ve hung the moon in the sky.
“Think you can give me another one, love? Jus' one more, yeah?”
Fucking hell. This man…
He doesn’t even give you a moment to gather yourself. You barely have a chance to nod before the saliva-slicked thumb gently presses down on your clit again. For all his sweet cooing and gentle touch and care, he is always merciless in his pursuit to make you come like there’s a prize for him at the end of it.
"Fucking finally," he huffs under his breath, and if you weren't so completely out of it, you'd tell him it's his own fault for dragging that last orgasm out so long.
As cliche as it sounds, you’re so blissed out of your mind you can’t tell anymore, where the pleasure begins and ends. All you feel is clever fingers already curling inside you again; a greedy hand cupping your breast; a hungry mouth nipping at the hollow of your throat. He’s everywhere, and you spread your legs wider, open yourself up, so he can have every single inch of you.
The bed shifts, and you blink rapidly, trying to clear the watery edges of your vision. After a moment, your eyes finally refocus on the man in front of you.
He’s kneeling above you, cock in hand, as he gives it a slow lazy stroke that makes your mouth water. A slick sheen of sweat graces the muscular line of his shoulder, bathed in amber gold of your bedroom light.
“You alright, baby? Want me to keep going?” The look in his eyes is as gentle as ever he checks in on you to make sure you’re okay. Makes you feel precious and cared for.
The only thing you can do is nod.
“You say stop if it gets to be too much,” he rasps out as lines himself up against you.
The first thrust is deep and consuming, and you cry out as the perfect stretch of him has white sparks burning behind your eyelids. You’re so worked up, everything makes a little bit less sense; mind almost a little bit numb. You can barely think straight and you think to yourself ironically, this is probably why they call it being cockdumb.
And it's not being made better by the way that he’s running his fucking mouth.
"So fucking perfect,” he murmurs into your ear, rasped and breathless as he nips on your ear. “You feel so good wrapped around my cock. So wet and warm. Fuck, you're so tight right now. Always so tight after you come for us."
He stays there, buried inside you to the hilt to allow you some reprieve and to accommodate around him. You can feel his eagerness to move in the way his cock twitches excitedly inside of you. Can tell he’s resisting that very urge when he grips the bedsheets tightly with his fingers until they go bone-knuckled. It strikes heat and pleasure all at once into the pit of your stomach. It’s so good; too much; and it teethers on the edge of the overwhelming.
A warm hand comes to cup your cheeks. He’s consoling you, brushing away the hair in your eyes, and the touch of it grounds you. “Does that feel good, baby?”
His eyes are ridiculously gorgeous, deep and rich, you find yourself easily lost in him. All you can see is his sweet half-smile, one corner of his mouth curling upward just for you. All you want to do in your overwrought state of mind is to please him, to praise him on how good he always makes you feel, so you do.
"So good. Feel so full. No one fucks me like you do, Steven."
He stills.
From above, you see it, the moment his expression changes. Gone is the indulgent softness. The curl of his full lips turned into a scowl. Those deep rich eyes bleed into sternness fixed with a dark glower. You realise a bit too late that Marc is the one inside you now, not sweet Steven.
You try to think back. When did his voice change? His accent? His eyes are narrowed instead of wide adoring affection. Everything about his body language is different, must have changed before this, and how stupid is it that you didn’t notice until now? As much as you hate to admit it, you're just a little bit out of it; a little bit come dumb from how the two of them have made you come again and again.
The next thing you register is the emptiness inside you as he slips almost entirely out of you; until only the blunt tip rests inside you. There’s a look in his eyes, a flash of something determined and almost dangerous, as he adjusts his hips against you.
There’s no warning as he thrusts all the way back inside, in one long and slick stroke back inside you. Deep and hard. It strikes something absolutely fucking devastating in you until it steals away your breath and makes you cry out.
“Fuckohfuck, Marc!”
“That's right, baby.” He leans over with his lips to your ear, voice low and dark and demanding as he rolls his hips, and then grinds deep within you. “Say it again. Who fucks you like this?”
Everything’s sharp and bright inside you; the rush of pleasure that comes with every thrust mind-numbing. You don’t know how Marc expects you to give him an answer; can’t even stutter out the ‘you’ that’s right on the tip of your tongue. Instead all that comes out is a pitiful sob.
"No? Still not good enough for you?” Marc demands.
You thought at first, with what little brain power was available to you, that he was jealous, and maybe there’s some of that in there too, but there’s something else. Something almost teasing that makes you think he’s not even all that upset about your mistake. The bastard that he is, he just wants to capitalise on the opportunity to push you to your limit.
“Our girl is so greedy, isn’t she?” he continues mercilessly, ”Always wanting more. How about—" two hands come to rest on the inside of your thighs, lifting you off the mattress until your legs are hooked over his shoulders as he presses the delicious weight of his body on top of yours, folding you nearly in half. "How about this?"
His voice is pure savage glee, a kid that gets to play and pull apart his toy in whatever manner he wants. Your fingers twist into the sheets, trying to grab on tight because it feels like you are falling off the edge of the very world. Then Marc rolls his hips into you at the devastating new angle and it knocks the breath out of your lungs, tipping you past that very edge.
It doesn't matter that you're ready to repent. Doesn’t matter that you’re trying to moan your explanation in between insistent, merciless strokes. "That's not— fuck, ooooh shit, Marc, I didn’t mean—"
That man is not letting up, and with how hard you came just mere minutes ago, he's already got you so keyed up that you can feel that all familiar pressure and heat settle against the line of your spine with an alarming speed.
There’s a brief hesitation in his rhythm, like his concentration was broken for a moment, and you catch him glancing at the mirror. You wonder if Steven's there telling Marc to stop. Steven’s always looking out for you; would do anything for you, and that includes taking care of you in bed. But when you turn your head sideways, the mirror shows you the same perfect reflection of reality it always does.
If Steven's there, you can't see him. Instead, all you can see is the image of yourself being split open by Marc. How Marc towers over you, with his lean stature. The firm muscles on his back sloping down to the generous curves of his ass like he was a carved marble statue meant to depict the ancient Greek deities themselves. Those thick raven curls furl with heat and sweat against his forehead. He’s so fucking beautiful it’s unfair.
“You looking for Steven to save you?” Firm fingers grip the edge of your jaw, forcing your gaze back towards Marc. “Well too fucking bad. Steven’s not here. You’re stuck with me.”
Alright, nevermind. Definitely jealous then.
Marc’s next thrust drives a strange squeaking noise from your lungs, and you’d probably be embarrassed if you weren't so far gone.
"What was that,—” Marc taunts, huffing out a dark laugh between thrusts, “—did you want me—to stop?"
His voice is unbearably smug, and you almost want to tell him to stop just on principle, but fuck that. You don’t want him to stop. Even though it's so fucking much that it borders on the unbearable. You shake your head frantically. You never want him to stop.
“That’s what I… thought,” Marc grits out, thrusting hard on the last word.
He’s driving up against something perfect and molten inside of you, and heat rises up in you like a tide, seething under your skin. You think you might actually be going to come again, but the sensation is immense, nearly unbearable, and you clutch at Marc, whimpering as it threatens to swamp your already overwhelmed and overstimulated system.
“It’s alright. You’re alright, baby,” he rasps out, not even slowing down. “You can take it, can’t you? Take it for me like a good girl.” Then he tilts your hips up even farther, and that’s it. You’re done.
Fierce, electric heat explodes outwards, crackling rapturously through your limbs, submerging you entirely until you lose track of reality for a minute.
When you come back to yourself, Marc is still thrusting into you. The rhythm of it is soothing, drawing out your pleasure in a way you’ve never known before, like you've hit a plateau rather than travelling up and down a mountain. Distantly you note that everything is a slick mess. That you are soaking Marc’s cock with how wet your cunt is for him. You can feel it leaking out of you with every press and retreat of him inside you, dripping down over the curve of your ass onto the bed sheets.
Then, out of nowhere, Marc does stop.
The sound you make is damn near inhuman. Fuck, why?? Why is he stopping when all you need is more of him?
Your eyes flutter open to see Marc staring at the mirror, his full attention focused on his reflection. On Steven.
You don’t know what Steven is saying to him, but whatever it is, has Marc chuckling.
He turns away from the mirror with a toothy grin full of mischief, and he leans back down towards you, pressing his mouth close so he can whisper in your ear like it's a secret; like Steven can't always hear him no matter how quiet he's being.
“He wants me to fuck you harder. Stretch you all the way open on our cock. Make you come again.”
You have no way of knowing if that’s true or if Marc is just saying that to get a rise out of Steven. You can’t exactly hear Steven’s end of the conversation. But it doesn’t matter, because Marc’s doing it.
You don’t know if you want to escape the sensation or demand more of it. But you can’t do either. In fact, you seem to have lost control of your body completely. All you can do is shudder and whine under him as Marc follows Steven’s alleged request and pushes himself hard and deep inside of you—oh God, just like that—again and again.
The pleasure twines and spreads slowly though your heavy limbs until you're completely drunk on the sensation of Marc's cock driving into you. He’s reduced you to a heap of bones, flesh and skin without any sentient thought left in your brain. Until you have lost all other sensation to the point where you almost miss the way that Marc is murmuring a string of filth into your ear.
“That’s right, baby. You’re not done yet.”
You can’t look away from him, the way that sweat is dripping down his collarbone, the mesmerising rise and fall of his chest as his breath is rasping in and out of his lungs.
“Gimme one more,” he says. “You come on my cock one more time, then I’ll fill you up. Make a mess of you, and Steven can clean you up with his tongue.”
This man is the devil.
You don’t know what that makes you when you’re so aroused by the picture he’s painting for you.
You’re exhausted. Every inch of you feels tender. You have been strummed and plucked and pushed over the edge again and again until all of you has become one single raw overwrought nerve. At this point you’re not even sure you’re physically capable of coming again. But still, white heat sparks and cracks and invades your numb limbs until you’re thrumming with it.
He's rutting into you, hips in an uneven jerking place, grinding as if he needs to get deeper, as deep inside you as he can to stake his claim and never leave. And fuck, you wish he could. You want him to fuck you like this forever and never stop.
Your cunt flutters around the thick girth of him involuntarily, and it does something to Marc too. He gasps and swears, hips stuttering forward into you, and it's almost enough.... almost... almost...
"Marc..." your voice breathy, pleading, barely recognizable to your own ears.
"Fuck," Marc huffs out. His hips stutter in its pace. If you didn’t know any better, from the way he closes his eyes for a brief moment, as if to gather himself, you’d think his trademark control is slipping. But then he seems to rally himself and pulls back, almost all the way out.
You clutch at him. If he stops now, if he dares to deny you, you swear to god, you will actually kill this man, or failing that, die on the spot in protest. Your fingers digging into the firm meat of his shoulders, sobbing his name. You need—more, need everything, need him, need to—
“Shh,” he hushes you with a soothing coo, comforting fingers brushing back the sweat-slicked hair clinging to your forehead. “I'm right here, baby. Let go, I've got you.”
His tone doesn’t match his actions. Marc thrusts back in, driving so deep you can fucking taste it, and you dimly realize that you're screaming as the pleasure streaks outward, tearing your world apart.
It’s a flickering light that is dimming and finally dies out from the surge of electricity. Your brain completely loses all higher functions and all that is left is the rush of heat that spreads all over you. It pours and pours until you’re lightheaded and the whole room spins with it. Everything feels blissfully tight; too much and just enough. Then you come.
When you open your eyes, you see those gorgeous dark eyes rolling back, baring the long line of his throat and it’s a beautiful fucking sight. The sharp edge of his jaw, pink pouty lips all shiny and slick from you. You swear those thick sweat soaked curls glisten in the dim light. He’s so ridiculously gorgeous, you can hardly believe he is real.
Marc isn’t far behind you. His cock pulses, spilling warm heat inside of you with a strained moan. Every muscle in him goes rigid against you.
Then Marc collapses onto you, arms wrapped all around you as he lands on top of you on the bed, his firm weight resting on top of you. Both of you are a boneless and sweaty tangled heap against the mattress. His firm chest is pressed against you, so close the beat of his heart is hammering against your skin.
In the silence of your bedroom, your harsh, panting breaths echo as if you just finished the most harrowing marathon of your lives. There’s a gentle hand stroking the plane of your back. It’s so gentle, the touch of it so adoring that you’re not sure if it’s Marc or Steven, but you don’t think it matters much at all.
As you come down, your senses slowly flicker awake. You can feel the soft gentle comfort of a reassuring touch running along your thighs. A warm hand petting you over the wideness of your hip bones, soft stroking caresses to coax you back down from your high.
Eventually, your breaths slow, and he pushes himself up, and away from your chest with shaky arms, until you can see his soft gorgeous face that is practically glowing as he smiles down at you. Utterly boyish, utterly charming.
Steven, you realise. Steven’s back…
“You alright there, love? Was Marc too rough?” His thick brows knit together in worry. An expression of guilt bleeding into his handsome face.
In your exhaustion, you find yourself still breathless as you try to answer him, “Yeah. No, I’m alright,” you pause, and lower your voice, feeling suddenly, inexplicably shy. “I… I liked it."
At your response, that worried expression breaks out into a beaming grin that makes your heart leap and skip several beats with unadulterated fondness.
“Good. That’s good, yeah.”
Steven is a fucking sight onto himself. Your eyes trail downwards, from his chest, that’s glistening with sweat down to his torso and— bloody fucking hell. Your eyes widen at the sight. You don’t even know how, but Steven’s already hard again or maybe he just never went down for the count at all. His other hand is fisting his cock, a slick mess of white lines of cum that’s dripping down the aching length of him as it twitches and jumps with undeterred eagerness.
“Then, um…. Sorry to ask, but do you think…” It’s Steven’s turn to look down bashfully, then back up at you. His cheeks are flushed with a deep pink; hair, a tousled mess with a pleading expression in his eyes, that you cannot possibly turn down.
“Do you think we could go again? …please?”
Dear fucking God, these men. Steven may be all sweet and polite about it, but deep down he’s just as greedy and demanding as Marc. Maybe worse.
You’re not sure how you’re going to survive these two, but you’re going to enjoy the ride.
Dedication and Credits:
@krissology for chasing her dreams with such boundless courage and gumption, I'm forever proud to have a friend like her who is so absolutely fucking fierce and fearless. She's one of the most talented writers I've come across and she is publishing her debut novel Forget Me Now, available for pre-order here. Go support this brilliant human being, you won't regret it.
@thirstworldproblemss to my most beloved and brilliant co-writer, who stays up with me all night and all day to prawn like no one has prawn ever before. I never have more fun than when I am in a google doc with you, screaming about the beauty of this man and writing out the exact same suggestions to each other at the same time.
@frannyzooey for succeeding to make me cry on a Tuesday afternoon in the office with her kind words and support. You're someone that I'm endlessly proud to call a friend, for your humour, your kindness and your warmth. You are just one of the best humans and I hope you wake up everyday and know that and if you don't, I will remind you everyday.
it absolutely kills me that we never see louis' or lestat's reaction to claudia self harming in s1. with both of their backgrounds, it was likely horribly handled but so important.
WHY HAVE I BEEN DENIED.
tbh, I just be here @justhhere - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
