It's a bright spring day when you decide that you wanted to get your fortune read. Just for fun, just to see what they would say. When you opened the door to their workspace, instead of seeing a beaded curtain, a creaky table and chair with a large crystal ball sat ontop, you instead see three different doors. Suddenly, the door you entered in, locked behind you, trapping you in for who knows how long. A sign on the entrance door reads: ' Choose any of these three doors to receivce what you desire. Don't worry, you can always come back for more once you're done. '
Now, please take your pick:
=>The door on the farthest left had copper plaque drilled into it. It read the words: " The library "
=>The door right in the middle had a bronze plaque drilled into it. It read the words: " Allocated specialties "
=> The door on the farthest left seemed the grandest, with a gold plaque drilled into it. It read the words:
" Regulations "
=> A small, framed piece of paper was hooked on the wall, reading:
" If needed, use these keys to help with your navigation "
To prove our sincerity, here is the amount of customers who had visited and were pleased with our works: 547
ch.7 pt 2: again &. again (platonic! yandere batfam x neglected! gn reader)
directory: read under the end for an author's note.
tw: heavy depictions of self harm, suicide, and depression.
now playing: hate yourself by tv girl.
when alfred had finally arrived back at the batcave with a full tray of hot teas and coffees in one hand, as promised, the atmosphere was almost exactly as he predicted.
tense.
heavy.
but alarmingly quiet at the same time.
like a single drop of a pin would be enough to shatter the glass-like silence blanketing the entire cave.
no one had said a word when the ding of the elevator had sounded, but the eyes all pointed at him were enough to tell a story. like they'd all been awaiting his arrival, a hungry pack of wolves desperate and in need of answers from the only man with answers to their questions about you.
just who you are. where you are. and why — despite never truly knowing you — do you matter so much to them?
answers enough to satiate that clawing grip of insanity, guilt, and collective desire to impulsively take you back from where you're hiding and find the answers through you instead.
alfred doesn't feel a sliver of goosebumps from the heavy stare of dick near the panel of computers, wrecked with swarming emotions, he tears his attention off the heavy clacking of barbara's keyboard searching for any clues about your whereabouts, he strides, slow, steady, and calm, towards tim who had been scrolling through his phone in a shared effort to stalk through your information, with duke watching over his screen from behind. he sighs when he finds stephanie, accompanied by cassandra patting her back and whispering assurances, leaning her body against a crate of artillery to find balance after another wave of nausea had overtaken her.
the butler walks forward, closer and closer to the section of computer screens, and he places the tray down with no haste. barbara pauses, hesitates — likely riddled with doubts if she even deserves to be given a chance to unwind when time was ticking in search of you — but still, she wheels herself closer, taking a cup of coffee for herself, thanking alfred with a hesitant quirk of her lips, then returns back to her place.
typing once more. quicker, like the guilt had settled into her thoughts right after.
beside him was bruce, who maintained his neutral, frowning expression. for a moment, memories of your own expressions emerged into his mind. of the day he first saw you, stone faced and neutral like your father. unresponsive, silent, and dangerously close to disappearing into the shadows, if not for your labored breathing; just like your father.
you two were always the like the sides of a coin.
he turns to see the culprit's eyes glued to the screen filled with tabs of barbara's online searches, unblinking, as if the goal of finding you would solve anything other than the questions about your location—
as if stalking you would be enough to compensate for the years he wasted turning his back on you, never knowing a single thing about who you are as a person. what your goals were. your aspirations. everything.
deep down, alfred knew how bruce had been the most troubled. had been riddled the most with guilt and regret. he knew bruce would stop at nothing until he'd done enough to earn an ounce of your forgiveness. he'd move the world, fight wars he knew would be impossible to win, twist every fabric of reality if he could, to undo the years of aching silence he'd unknowingly forced upon your life and be the father he was meant to be for you.
he knew, but doesn't speak up, only closing his wrinkled eyes and shaking his head after staring up at the man, your father's, face: glowering, solid, and lit up by the reflection of the screen. most likely thinking of all the ways to make it up to you, apologize, before he could even see you in person.
he was not surprised by anyone.
alfred doesn't even flinch from when behind him, damian's sword cluttered to the floor, its sharp clang! echoing across the room like church bells singing its last song.
photographs, diagrams, illustrations, layouts, even notes about their vigilante identity.
the bats above have flapped their wings in sudden, waking alarm. the same way the pages of your heaviest, most tattered sketchbook flattered across the cave's floor, revealing, to the eyes of many who can see the papers closest to them—
displayed to them like artworks you'd find in museums. intricate pieces of evidences, headlines, even fucking graphs that gathered data comparing the frequency and correlation of their public sightings and presence along the manor. drawings of their hero costumes, old and new, from when dick was a young robin, to even the updated suits right after tim took charge of the mantle.
dick, who had been silent throughout the ordeal after jason had ended the call, was too shaky and afraid of what knowledge the entries hold. yet he had gathered all the willpower and courage to grasp the collection of paper that had landed right near his foot. his fingers rub along the frayed edges, but even with its age can he read the blurred ink lines running meticulously across the pages.
(yet his panicked eyes also run over the splotches of dried blood carelessly painting the papers. it wasn't just a tiny amount too. it was everywhere. like paint thrown across a canvas, it's smeared over some texts, blotched the sides and the bottom and— why was there blood? why was there so much? whose blood was it? the questions flood endlessly in his brain, and he's afraid even the answers would devastate him to the point of no return if he ever discovered it was yours.)
despite his disbelief, he skims over some paragraphs, takes in every bitter word, every spiteful phrase that had filled every blood-stained page.
the first thought that came to dick's mind was... well, it was impressive. any child of bruce, adopted or not, was destined for great things. yet even outside of bruce, dick knew his baby bird was always capable. but he never knew the extent of how great those things were.
it was another failure on his part.
it was another failure as your eldest brother.
he never really knew you, had only seen a part of you in his memories, but never the true you—
before he even discovered countless of your sketchbooks, journals, even the medals alfred had forgotten to store away, all hidden within your room; to dick, you were just the kid with shining, bright eyes in the face of your mother's tragedies. hopeful, naive, one of the youths dick had promised to protect as long as he lived. but he never had put an effort to know about your hobbies, your interests, your goals or your true thoughts.
not until now...
where even then he's hesitant to know, in fear that your hope for him had rotten and all that remained was rightful hatred.
so much so that when he flipped the paper to its back, his worst nightmares had begun to fester into reality.
he feels as if his heart had begun traversing its way up his throat, ceased, and then refused to move.
"journal entry #15: dick grayson and nightwing." it starts, followed with printed pictures of him swinging around the city, captured by cameras on standby. colored illustrations of his suits had a timeline plastered to its bottom, ranging from him as robin, to his transitions as nightwing.
you long knew about his identity of nightwing; your entries dated from nearly six years ago, when you were about to hit your thirteenth birthday mark—
then he vaguely recalls back-reading through one of your messages, and remembers your invitation to have him come to your small celebration.
"my bday's coming soon!" his phone screen had never looked so blurry until the time he'd scroll through the far dates of your texts, noticing how by every new message, your enthusiasm slowly dwindled. yet your first ones were once so full of life — and he realized he should've never dismissed your message as just some trick towards him; maybe then things would've been different. maybe you would be here, with him, laughing and painting the manor with your shining presence — he never realized you'd even went through great effort to ask for his number through alfred.
"you don't have to buy me a gift or anything, your presence is enough of one already!" you invited him alone. it should've done a great deal of pride to him, and yet all he ever did was make mistake after mistake, restricting your phone number to limit the spam.
you also said you planned cupcakes instead of a cake, said it was too much for you to finish. it was unusual at first— but then, sitting in your creaking room with the humid air of your tiny room clogging his brain, it took a little thinking to realize you'd been celebrating all your birthdays alone.
when your mother had died, when jason had already been dead, everyone, even alfred, was too wrapped up mourning and grieving. dick had spiraled enough with every argument towards bruce, then tim came into the fray— without your mother, it had just been you and alfred. you were never close to tim.
you've been reaching milestones alone.
another failure as your older brother.
he wants to vomit, crumple on the floor and dry heave— he wants to die thinking some more.
you were so desperate to even have one guest to your birthday party. was it even a party in the first place?
you were so fucking desperate you'd even told dick you'll do whatever flavor of frosting he'd prefer. you never thought of yourself at that moment, you only thought about dick coming to your celebration, of anyone coming.
then all of a sudden, dick realized that during the date of your birthday, he had actually been in the manor.
and worse? he'd spent it with alfred by his side the entire time.
he spent your birthday with alfred.
fuck...!
he could've spent it with you!
it was only after the late hours of the night did the butler dismiss himself with a worried furrow of his brows, seeming more insistent in leaving early rather than staying with the athlete. dick before didn't understand why for the first time in a while, alfred had other matters to attend to when tim was at a sleepover and bruce was in the middle of press conference. dinner would come later that night, dick was about to ask alfred why if he hadn't left his side already.
at that, he shrugged his shoulders, returning to his room, opting to sleep the night instead and waking up at midnight where he'd follow up with bruce over patrols, see if they could talk things out.
he should've known.
alfred's hasty footsteps echoing across the hallways should've been a sign of suspicion, but dick had been far too consumed with other worries. about his team, about his argument with bruce, about bludhaven and everything else weighing his mind.
worries that he shouldn't have to prioritize when he'd done nothing that day except converse with alfred, ranting to the manor's butler about mundane things to distract himself with that clawing feeling that something felt wrong amidst the silence—
because then he wouldn't have to imagine his baby bird, standing there all alone in the kitchen, ingredients at stand by, looking around to find every hallway, with no one coming to their little celebration.
how many times has that happened?
how many times have you been left to your own device, hopelessly waiting for a miracle?
how many birthdays of yours had he rejected without knowing, in favor of prioritizing something else, someone else?
how many birthdays, milestones, celebrations did you have while the entire family spent nights separate from each other— or spending with each other, whilst without you, instead?
dick completely understands if you've fucking despised every bit of him after always ditching your invitations—
because now, you've written your personal notes about him beside all the drawings. even a single skim of the paragraphs of text was enough for dick to know this was written not out of awe. the more he reads under his breath, the faster the pace in his heavy heart quickens.
"dick is- is nightwing." he stutters, ignoring the squeak of barbara's wheelchair nearing him, too engrossed to even notice her grabbing some of the pages from his hands.
he continues to read, as if under an unwilling trance, mind fogged with every word that shifts into vivid imaginations of your self writing these entries in your too-small bedroom.
"it's- it's obvious from the way they share the same acrobatic moves that... that he does in secret in rooms where he thinks i'm not looking.
his eyes flip to another carelessly erased line, making out every letter through blurry eyes — a reflection to what you truly think, but still ashamed to admit — lips quivering as he whispers, "he- he does it in front of everyone but, but me. like he's ashamed of even acting like himself, like i'm undeserving of even seeing a part of him natural to others—
"no, little bird. you were never..." he disrupts through his narration, tries not to tear the paper out, which kept revealing every bit of resentment you felt for the athlete from the start. he could feel every venomous word injecting into his veins, he couldn't do anything to stop reading at the same time.
dick wanted to know every emotion you felt, and yet, biting his lips—
"it's me who doesn't deserve you. you shouldn't... shouldn't talk about yourself like this. nobody deserves you..."
it was all he could comment. he wish you could hear these sentiments in person, he wishes you were here just so he could disprove every line, every insult you'd written off as cruel jokes meant to hurt yourself.
cruel jokes that always came with dripping ichor.
no matter how aged and dry the blood may be, he couldn't wash away the scent of it clinging on shriveled paper; another wave of guilt clings to his heavy heart.
yet the truth continues.
"he does these— these flips i see him perform on TV as nightwing, and i remember all the times he'd mindlessly do handstands or jump from the second floor to the next, smiling to anyone who'd see. they don't know how lucky they are, dick was never this way to me...sometimes he'd also do it when i'd sneak into the cave and find him talking with the others...
"every time he does, he's got the same..." charming, was what was supposed to be written next, but you've scribbled over the word, violently, as dick's trembling fingers runs over the back of the paper, feeling the torn page, the heavy handed words engraved in every line; imagining just how much animosity had filled your entire being to the point you'd replace charming with—
"he's got the same... dishonest— the same disgustingly huge smile he always gave me whenever he made excuses that he's busy, that he's got work, hero work — he never says, i pretend to never suspect — to do.
"i- i understand that," he stutters, biting his lips at the sarcasm which bleeds into every word. "you can't stop someone like dick. when he's got his mind set on a goal, not even bruce or damian can talk him out of it. in that order of things, my opinion would never matter, hah. i just was never considered into a goal. so i understand. it's not like i can be mad for any longer when he still smiles at me while making all these excuses and- and sometimes even promises of next time's. at least he doesn't see me as a villain, he doesn't mistreat me or anything. so i can't blame him, he's... still nice.
"but then again, it's also so obvious, of course, that the only difference between me and the people he saves on TV is... is that the smile he shows them... is genuine.
"and the one he shows me is still just the product of an afterthought—"
dick couldn't finish reading the entire entry before slamming the papers down on the panels beside him, quivering hands wracking across his hair and slamming into his face.
his eyes, they fill with salty water faster than he could swallow down the heavy lump residing in his throat.
for a moment, the manor's air stills once more.
his thoughts betray him and fill him with pictures of your younger self, your scarred fingers writing alone in your room— the blood dripping down and on to the paper from the deep cuts etched into your skin, from your swollen fingertips sore from all the words you've etched with faded ballpens. how, despite the pain wracking throughout your very body, you'd continue to write down the feelings too heavy to express, once hopeful eyes slowly dimming until it bursts to flames.
until all you felt was resentment dick deserved to feel from you.
the more he imagines your own pen stabbing every word into paper, the more it starts to feel like every word was a thousand knives stabbing into his very skin. if not for the panels keeping his stability, leaning to his side, he'd collapse.
"no..."
god no.
have you always thought of him this way? was he always like this to you?
he didn't mean to treat you like you were nothing.
he didn't mean for you to portray his tired smiles and his dismissive hands as a sign of disinterest, of falsified emotions, of dick acting like you never mattered when he was just— he was just so oversaturated with the guilt of jason's death, his fights with bruce, his teammates, the teen titans, the loss, the grief. he didn't mean anything—
but that wasn't a fucking excuse.
not when he'd left you waiting for thirteen years, not when he'd treat you like a second option, waved you, told you, "not today!" with a smile betraying his every intention.
he'd never given you a chance, that was an undeniable fact. even when you were always home, even when he found the time to be home for all the others.
he doesn't understand himself, he wanted to so badly—
call you, his baby bird.
he wants to fix things, correct his mistakes, even if it were too late, even if the image of him, once bright and shining, was now tarnished into a stranger you'd despise. dick just wanted to — no matter how much he rubs his eyes with his arms to rid the spilling tears, bites his lips, crumples the fragile paper with shivering fingers to numb his emotions down before the guilt devours him whole — he wants to apologize a thousand times. he wants to take back every wrong action of his and consume you in all his emotions, the good, the bad, the ugly— just so your opinion of him would change.
just so you wouldn't see him as the brother who was never there.
who was always running off to bludhaven to avoid you.
dick wanted to grovel, he wanted to crumple into a ball and remove the aching lump that had resided in his throat ever since he found your room. the tears he thought would never fall from his eyes were already bursting before he could even cease it. and ashamed as he may be from being seen in all his rawest form by the others; the pain, the guilt, the memory of your wide-eyed smile, the sensation of your tiny fingers holding tight against his palm overpowers any embarrassment he thought he'd felt.
god, he misses you.
he wants to see you — the paper has long since been shriveled by his powerful grip, his head buried in his arms, all the tears he'd been holding back came rushing out of him 'til it turned to dry heaves, and alfred's gloved palms patting his back doesn't compensate for anything other than unneeded sympathy. the silence that the others had allotted for your grieving older brother wouldn't change the fact that you're still the missing piece inside the manor. and for the first time in a while, he felt the same shadow that had cloaked his entire being from the moment he'd found out jason died after he'd returned from that space mission, that he was too late to even save the boy; too late to save you from yourself — dick had never despised himself as much as he did now.
he knew he could never be forgiven, he knew that for as long as he lived, he would never live up to the image of him you once held in high regard anymore.
yet as he laments all the moment he could've been your older brother, could've been your family, your hero— he still pictures the quirk in your tired steps, the way your eyes lightened, the way your wide smile revealed your chipped teeth from the very moment he first left you at your room; and it only makes the tears run down faster.
he imagines that little child all alone in the kitchen on the day of their birthday, blowing on the little candle of their cupcake in the dark of the night, making a wish for a better one next year.
have you even received a gift from any of them before?
— god, his eyes clamp down harder, drowning the world in all the darkness — a sight you've probably been accustomed to living here, dick hates thinking about it — he doesn't even want to imagine anymore, biting down at his tense arms, trying to stifle his sobs.
yet no matter how much he tries, he couldn't get rid of the hole that had ripped right into his chest, the ache thumps louder in his heart every time your little smiling face appears in all his thoughts, it was a pain that clawed into emptiness, settled deeply in every scar wracking across his body.
a reminder that even with all his sacrifices, all the battles he fought— he still couldn't save you.
he still couldn't save his baby bird.
if you had wished for a new family in that lonely birthday of yours, he understands you.
if you had wished for one you can actually call your own, for a father who was never absent, for a family who never turned their backs on you, for an older brother to never once break any empty promises; he truly understands.
because dick could be the leader, the dependable older brother, the hope of bludhaven. he could spend his entire life saving others. he can grow, fix his relationship with bruce, with jason, raise damian, become the idol everyone knew and loved and never once doubted.
he can be the change his city needs to be a better place—
but no matter what, at the end of the day—
he'll always hate himself.
the voices within the cave remained silent.
at the same time, no words were needed to be said.
it was difficult to ignore dick's weeping all throughout, his lonesome bawling was the only sound that filled the empty space. the only sound that penetrated the suffocation everyone but alfred felt.
even the bats had stopped their panicked wings from flapping due to the earlier commotion. the stalagmites that once dribbled water had deafened into nothingness. if it was because everyone had succumbed to their own thoughts, or if it was because it seemed the manor had stilled the noise for you— nobody knew the answers.
there was truly nothing filling the air except for dick, and even then his sobs were stifled by his arms.
the clawing silence remained, the volume of dick's sobs had grown softer. he had been mumbling "sorry's" and incoherent apologies all throughout. sometimes there were promises, other times he'd choke on his own tears and beat at his chest, begging for something they couldn't hear.
nobody could easily approach him, let alone ask if he was alright.
the answers were already obvious.
alfred had ceased from any physical comfort he'd offer to the shivering hero, withdrawing his palms and returning to bruce's side. bruce, whose face, once neutral, now softened when he shared a glance with the butler.
like him, he knew his words wouldn't do any help. it might even make things worse—
it might make dick storm off the manor and find you alone.
as much as they felt pity, both alfred and bruce knew dick was too far gone to be even offered anything to make him feel better. any affirmations, small or big, words or not, couldn't soothe the all consuming guilt he'd felt.
all they could do was leave him to his own bubble, ignore the guilt eating at their conscience too. not even a remark was heard from a wide-eyed damian, who had watched his eldest brother the entire time, who felt like part of this was his fault too.
and yet he didn't mean to drop your sketchbook for the entire family to see.
he didn't mean to be a part of the spiral of events leading to dick's breakdown.
it was his sworn duty, an unspoken promise, to keep things of yours all for himself. the entirety of his early training inside the batcave was just a distraction for him to extricate any thoughts he had of you. he'd hidden your sketchbooks in corners of the cave, in cabinets where he's guaranteed nobody, not even tim, would open, let alone access.
then he tried to train with his sword as intended while waiting for the rest to arrive at bruce's announcement.
yet even if his slashes against the training dummies were harsher, even if he had to remind himself that you shouldn't be infecting his thoughts as much as you did for others— like dick, he couldn't erase any memories he had of you. he couldn't erase the gruesome illustrations you drew, your aggressive reaction from the last time you've talked to him, even that one memory you had together that had been pestering him long before you even left the manor...
in the end, he found himself in the middle of the open space, fingers running across the spine of your thickest sketchbook; one figured he hadn't opened before. with papers stuck in between pages, and pages ready to fall off if he even dared open the book.
the one he held was different from the others. it had no front cover title like it typically does. not even a name etched on any side. your other sketchbooks always had old and peeling stickers embedded into its covers. some were nonsensical, others were what he speculated to be your favorite characters from shows he also watched — he never realized just how similar you two were. if it were him in the past, he'd reject the notion, spit on the shoes of anyone who'd dare point it out — you'd use a white acrylic markers on some textured pages, draw stars, zigzags, swirls; anything that gave it personality.
anything that screams the fact it's yours.
but this one was fancier, a more expensive sketchbook. left blank and barren, like you didn't want any trace of it linked back to you.
everything about it was bizarre.
damian knew that although your voice was the one everyone heard the least, the things you owed had marks, titles, names that were unique only to you.
if anyone else had taken your possessions, even if you were a stranger to most, they'd know it'd be yours.
damian knew how desperate you were to be known.
to be seen.
that's why everything of yours had to be yours. it needed to have pieces of you stuck on every corner, it needed to scream you.
the fact that he knew all this, the fact that he knew information, unknown to others, about you at all, despite his inherent refusal to acknowledge your existence within the manor—
he wouldn't explain.
but he knew either way, and that was all that needed to be said.
... hence why it was strange how this sketchbook of yours has no identity traced back to you.
but to damian, it also meant something special. something sacred if you were keen in hiding something. damian believed it's special if only he had the access to whatever knowledge you'd hidden in your sketchbooks—
except when he'd open through the middle pages, he was greeted not by the more intimate journal entries you typically opt to write in blank pages, not by the graphic drawings he'd expected to see— but by an array of faded blueprints of the cave he stands in now, sketchbook spreads of their costumes: front, middle, and back; all drawn so accurately, it sends shivers across damian's spines to imagine just how intimately close you were to the suits to even know the patterns up close.
even speculations about the items they carry inside their utility belts, backed by newspaper clippings that show candid photographs of the vigilantes takings candies, ropes, and of the like out of their belts.
you weren't hiding something from them.
if you did, you'd have taken this sketchbook to your grave, you wouldn't have left it alongside your other belongings, things you thought would carry dust, be discarded by alfred. but you've known more about them far longer than they did you, you've compiled entries about what you've learned, little notes; passive aggressive remarks. you knew about their hero identities—
damian wasn't horrified about you knowing about them, even if your compiled proofs were shoved right in his face, even if he felt the hairs on his body prick up— he'd drawn a sword right to your neck at the first meeting; you were bound to be curious either way. about your half-brother. about the life he had prior to gotham. alfred had given you a quick rundown about the young boy before you'd greet him by the door.
the sweat running down his forehead, his legs feeling like jelly, his pupils dilating wasn't attributed to your discovery of their secret identities.
damian wasn't that afraid of that fact, even if there was a lingering ounce of astonishment.
no.
he was shaken by the thought that you knew so early.
that you were aware of the different life they led outside of yours. that you were almost purposely kept out of the picture and that you knew—
you knew so well that your largest sketchbook yet, and it was by far one of the oldest too, spanning from inexperienced sketches of batman's costume from the very start, to the whiter, more untouched pages by the very back.
— his fingers had not shaken just carrying the sheer, behemoth-like weight of the book, but the weight of your knowledge, the regret that had suddenly invaded all his thoughts; it had him slip both his book and his sword right out of his hold like butter, just right before he could remember to tighten his grip.
the crash was deafening like the wringing in his ears. he'd stick to his spot for a second, frozen in place whilst the others had begun to notice the contents of the paper.
then the rest became a blur to damian, the young boy looking down at his hands, his scarred fingers, his calloused palms. he's sworn to use them for good as robin, as a protector of this city alongside batman.
it wasn't easy.
the change was not sudden for damian. you can't just undo the years of battle and gruesome training he'd went into being an assassin. but there was still an undeniable change. becoming robin by force, being treated like an outsider at first, dealing with judgemental stares, working with his father's disappointment, meeting steph and finally being treated like a kid by her, getting closer to dick— having to prove his way into being a worthy holder of the mantle he had now.
damian asks himself:
was he worthy of redemption after all these years? was he worthy of atonement for all the blood he shed? when even in the path to proving himself— he'd never been good to you?
would forgiveness come naturally after he'd told you you were better off gone in the first place?
he'd taken a step back, sensations unwelcome but not unknown had invaded his every being: the warmth he felt when he first saw you, followed by the burning rage, the unworthiness, the envy.
your once unafraid eyes staring right at him, your welcoming nature, holding that damned tray of sweets staring back at him in mockery, all the traits he saw in himself in you if he wasn't raised to be like who he was—
you knew about their nightly endeavors, you knew of how often you've been left behind and excluded from everything, and yet you remained kind.
kind, but also afraid to take another step in his direction.
you've learned to shake under his gaze, learned to turn the opposite way when you've crossed paths, not only in the manor but in school, in public where anyone could see that these two half-siblings never acted like they were.
you changed your seating arrangement so you'd sit off at the far corner of the already long and winding dining table; only for the distance between you and your family to turn wider; eating with utensils barely clanking the ceramics, turning away from everybody, excusing yourself too early.
sometimes, you wouldn't even come down at all.
you shrink in your position every time he'd enter the library, leave without a word, watch him and dick become closer brothers than you ever had the chance of even spending a second with the eldest.
you both were the outsiders, and yet only one remained the victor.
you'd done everything to avoid more pain into your already miserable life. you'd done nothing wrong and damian had purposely inflicted more and more until your cup of patience was drained and you'd almost exploded at him. if he wanted to prove himself to be the rightful vigilante of the city, then why'd he act like villain to you...?
what was it about you that had him feeling so deliberately jealous?
... before his questions could be answered, he had already been counted into the family.
they were kinder to him now, less cautious—
he'd learn to speak less formally, gained friends at school, joined a football team, earned crushes, got teased; he had been counted in invitations before it was even considered.
he learned that it was alright to not act older than his age. he'd been treated like the boy he is, a young child still cluelessly navigating a world full of mysteries.
life was faring well, as well as it could get in gotham, and yet...
he was constantly reminded of how you were the only one in the family who was the first to treat him with compassion.
you were the one who'd open the door on him first before everybody else, despite alfred's cautious warnings, despite knowing the boy younger than you would be acknowledged far easier than you who had lived in the manor for the entirety of your life.
you were everything damian was not. you were everything damian wished to be.
he'd read your entries, learned about your bitterness, and you never took it out on him despite all your venomous words cutting through paper. you held yourself back from lashing out. you never reciprocated the same damning words he'd spew right at you. never fought back except for the very end; where you'd learn to avoid him if it meant a day of peace.
when he'd learn to miss you after.
where shortly after, the manor had become quieter.
he looks at his palms again.
these were meant to protect, meant to shield his older sibling from harm, to serve common people like you who had no power against the crimes of this city. you were the only non-vigilante in the family, the only person vulnerable enough to walk on the city's streets with the risk of danger with every footstep, and he was your baby brother— but he should've been far beyond that.
he should've been your protector too.
... and yet all these hands had ever done for him was hurt you.
no one else was there to protect you from his harm.
damian doesn't understand why. he remains lost in thought, lost for words.
lost in the regrets that'd pile up in his chest until all he could feel was the same sting, like an open wound poured with alcohol, when you'd glare back at him after another round of verbal assault, when you'd run away from the boy, when he stalked you all the way to your room and found you piercing through fragile, already scarred skin with yet another razor— that he swore he'd thrown out before, that meant you'd went and bought another, unable to live a day without constant physical torment—
your head was tilted down, eyes drawn wide open, blankly gazing at the crimson droplets beading and dripping from your thighs. this had turned into a habit. just another coping mechanism.
this became routine.
numbing down every bitter emotion beating out of your chest by hurting yourself with something worse.
and damian could only watch you fall deeper into a hole he helped dig.
what kind of hero was he if he couldn't even save his older sibling?
he recalls you, peeking through your doors, how you hit back loud sobs, head buried on your quivering, bleeding thighs, still afraid of being heard, blood seeping out of lips from all the times your teeth would pierce through wounds meant to heal, your nail beds had been bitten raw, fingertips stained with red, too, as you run your hands, ripping, tearing at matted hair; even if you were located in the far, abandoned corners of the manor, you'd learn to regulate your sobs in fear of it echoing through the halls.
to him, you were like a wounded animal, a terrified dog who'd learn that noise meant another inflicted bruise, another horrific slash across your body. being heard never meant being seen, being judged for acting the way you do. you'd shrink in the far corners, until you could be mistaken for a faint silhouette, and it was far better than knowing you were only acknowledged, but you were never offered a helping hand.
whilst damian had all the help he could get into becoming better, you'd disappear into the sidelines, only to become worse.
even if damian himself had tried every means of delaying your hurt without you ever knowing, you'd always find another way. you'd always be one step ahead of him, and you'd be back to picking scabs, back to scratching your neck, biting your knuckles, running off to find alfred, to every corner of the room only to find nothing—
because the butler had been busier in the batcave, day by day, caring for damian, losing his attention to you as a consequence.
back then, he found that a bragging right. another reason to shove in your face, another 'why' on why he's better than you. why your presence is a stain against the growing family. because the butler you love, who you thought would always be by your side had began catering and offering his own familial love towards the youngest— the youngest who'd done everything to remind you you were nothing and nobody.
he thought, at the sight of you falling on your knees after hours of searching for alfred through winding hallways, empty rooms, dizzying stairways until you'd land inside the library, begging, whispering under your breath, to any god, to any deity willing to hear you, while tears had begun cascading down your swollen eyes and hollow cheeks— he thought he'd laugh, thought he'd feel relief, like a heavy weight would be lifted from his chest just being witness to you falling into despair at the lack of alfred's presence.
he thought the pathetic sight would only make the pride heighten in his heart.
instead, all that came to him was his limp arms laying still on his sides, not a sound unable to escape his tightening throat. wide, terrified eyes had settled on your heaving body.
crumpling down on the carpeted floors, you were unable to breathe.
unable to release anymore of your pathetic sobs, you'd resort to clawing on furniture, the sharp edges of the coffee table violently hit your sides, you wince, you release a sharp cry, but still, you continue stumbling far deeper into the nook of the library, afraid of being heard.
the sight before him was a wretched show.
'but i've seen people suffer far worse.' his thoughts try to convince him, but his fingers tightly clenching the hems of his shirt tells another story.
'i've beheaded assassins before, i've seen guts mangling out of hanging bodies, stacks of corpses piled on top of another. the stench of rotten decay is as familiar as the polluted air in gotham—'
... and yet you crumbling into a ball in the corner dealt a far worse nausea residing in his thoughts, a lump forming on his chest the same way it always does when he notices another round of makeshift gauzes had been carelessly slapped on your heavily clothed body.
damian was terrified at the way you carelessly threw yourself into more danger.
damian was terrified of what your carelessness might entail.
... your little brother imagines your dangling body suspended in the air, neck embraced by a rope. and nobody would've known you were gone, nobody would've been there by the time the last exhale has escaped your purplish lips.
you'd be dead, and you'd be mourned for far too late.
and suddenly his vision spins, a wave of bile clung stubbornly up his throat.
damian doesn't want to imagine anymore, then he feels a draw, a magnetic pull, like he'd want to come out of his hiding spot, reveal himself to you— not to insult you, shame you for being weak. but your younger brother watching you hide behind bookshelves, gazing blankly, paired with the horrifying imagery of your deceased body—
one he couldn't just erase from his thoughts...
he doesn't like admitting it: but all he wanted to do was to comfort you the same way alfred had always stuck by his side, the same way stephanie had brought him to that bounce house and treated him like a young boy— damian wanted to, he needed to sit by your side. he doesn't want to see you cower in fear anymore, for your pupils to shrink, for your first instinct to turn the other way and away from him.
all he wanted was to lean his head against your shoulders, pretend like he had never once drawn a sword on you, like he had never committed any of his past mistakes— all he wanted to be your younger brother.
maybe it was a way to comfort himself too.
maybe he just doesn't want to be ridden with nightmares of your limp, decaying body for every second he'd shut his eyes.
but he wasn't brave enough, not yet. he regrets not being enough. he regrets simply resorting to watching you over in the shadows instead. watching you curl over, nails blunt from being bitten raw digging deep in your knees. he watches you try your best to steady your lungs, to contain the nasty bile tethering over the edge of your lips. the longer you sat there, accompanied only by the dust motes floating under the dim, warm lights in the library, the more the shame, the regret, the undulating hatred in himself curled bigger and bigger until it became mocking voices, violent imagery of what could, what would happen to you if he doesn't come save you right now.
... yet despite it all, he never once came out of the obscurity of the shadows. he never had with you. he never did until it was too late.
he remained stationary, engulfed in nothing but guilty conscience.
and really, it was ironic: two siblings suspended in the dark night, and yet only one had truly seen the light.
and damian notices, he always notices, no matter how much he pretends to never care,
that the longer you cried all by yourself...
the more it seemed to never end.
reblogs and interactions are encouraged and appreciated.
PLEASE READ: oh my god, i poured all my heart and soul into this, cried a bit bec i was afraid of losing progress again, and then cheered some more when i finished. so i'm begging for comments, interactions, any of ur fave lines please. there's a lot of parallels between dick and the mc. and then between damian and mc too. and u guys don't know it, but your comments and submissions were so much help in making me finish this early 😭🙏 also, thank u guys for ur patience! i appreciate all the kind comments, all the encouraging words in my inbox. honestly, i never expected a&a to be as much of a passion project as it is now. it used to be an outlet for my emotions, and it still is, but i never realized how many people actually loved the reader as much as much. that's it, love y'all !!!
Plot: The Ramshackle prefect has a stutter caused by a childhood head injury
C/W: Leona, Rook, Idia x reader (seperate), talks of a childhood injury causing a stutter, romantic & platonic points
A/N: YAAAAAY ANOTHER UPLOAD
LEONA:
->Honestly found it annoying the first time he heard the prefect's voice
->After a time of interacting with the prefect, he does get used to it and learns to be patient with them.
->When it is revealed that their stutter had developed after a head injury they got when they were young, his interest peaked.
->If the prefect and Leona end up dating, and the prefect asks if they could get speech therapy to help with their stutter, Leona would agree as long they go to therapy first to ensure that they aren't doing it out of insecurity or because they want to impress Leona's family.
ROOK:
->Like anything and everything that breathes, he finds the stutter beautiful, which definitely confuses the prefect.
->Rook would sing on and on about how their stutter displayed their resilience and their struggle of not being able to properly communicate, yet continuing to try.
->He treats the prefect's stutter the same as anyone else, and won't persuade them into changing themself for anyone, including him if they end up dating.
IDIA:
->Thought they were doing it on purpose to act like an anime character the first few times he interacted with them.
->After explaining to him that it was actually from a head injury they sustained when they were young, he shuts the fuck up real quick and reflects on himself.
->He then admits that he also stutters a lot when he is nervous and the pair bond over it.
->I like to imagine that, if at the same time, Idia is nervous and the prefect is stressed, they'll stutter in unison. Just as dream.
Plot: The prefect is very physically affectionate towards their friends and the people close to them.
C/W: Can be read as romantic or platonic
A/N: YAYY UPLOADED AFTER 10000 YEARS!!
Edit: THANK YOU @margorako FOR HELPING ME WITH JACK!! I MADE SEVERAL MISTAKES IN HIS PART BEFORE BUT NOW I'VE FIXED IT!!
ACE:
->When Ace first met the prefect, he was surprised by how touchy they were.
->At first, he wasn't a very touchy person himself, so he had asked the prefect to stop touching him as much, to which they respected and cut down the physical touch quickly.
->However, he began to feel extremely jealous when he noticed that all the clinginess the prefect had for him had transferred to Deuce
->After a near month of mentally battling with himself over his feelings, he admitted to the prefect that he was jealous of Deuce and wanted them to be as touchy as they used to be with him.
->The prefect just smiles and intertwines their arm with his
->Everything goes back to the way it used to, but Ace now appreciates and looks forward to the prefect's affection.
DEUCE:
->Was very surprised the first time the prefect ever held his hand.
->He was only used to his mother being affectionate with him.
->But he took to it really well when the prefect explained that it was just how they showed their appreciation.
->He sometimes even initiates touch, holding hands, interlocking arms, giving bear hugs etc.
JACK:
->Jack runs hot since he comes from the northern area of his homeland to help self regulate because of the environment he grew up in.
->Hes used to his younger siblings using him as a climbing wall all the time, so when the prefect had held his hand for the first time, feeling uncomfortable by their touch.
->The prefect understood and didn't touch Jack unless he initiated contact first.
->After they become closer, Jack is more open to the prefect touching and hugging him, even growing to like the sensation of being held and touched.
->If the prefect and Jack begin dating, trust his tail wagging from side to side like it's nobodies business. It makes Leona gag and Ruggie snicker whenever they spot them.
EPEL:
->Epel LOVES it
->Especially when they hold onto his arm. Makes him feel manly.
->The only thing he doesn't like is hair ruffling, but the prefect luckily doesn't do that much unless they are teasing him.
->He's also used to his parents and grandmother being affectionate with him, so it did surprise him the first time the prefect held his hand or arm.
SEBEK:
->He doesn't understand why the prefect is so touchy with their friends.
->At first, he had requested, just like Ace, for the prefect not to be so touchy with him. Not because he was uncomfortable with it, but because he didn't want Malleus to view him as weak for allowing a lowly human to touch him.
->But that all changed when he spotted Malleus being held onto by the prefect, without the prince admonishing them.
->After that moment, he finally relented and allowed the prefect to touch him.
->He likes when they hold onto his arm
->The only time he refuses for him to be touched is when he is on active duty for Malleus so he can properly protect the prince.
next parts of a&a might be the most brilliant stuff i've done yet and it's probably because we finally get the plot moving (and trying to make it something beyond just a neglected reader story (but the progression is a consequence of it)) which would lead to really big discoveries (mystery character reveals, plot and all that).
the first five chapters were just the set-up to a bigger picture and i'm genuinely so proud of how i managed to connect everything into one cohesive order (i'm also trying to fix pacing issues that others have pointed out in the past chapters) so 🙏 apologies for how long this is taking me but the delay (for me personally) would be well worth the wait (and this is the first time i'm proud of something i wrote isn't that bizarre?!)
no more spoilers for now, but ready ur tears y'all because we get even more angsty :) !
In which Omega!Fem!Reader and her Alpha, the NRC Staff, are getting ready for their first mating season as a married couple.
Warnings: 18+, omegaverse, established relationship, Fem!AFAB!Reader, sexting, dirty talk, talks about penetrative sex, breeding kink, sex with the intention of getting pregnant, age gap with Trein, knotting
Should I write more autistic! reader centered twst stuff? If you guys want anything specific, please send requests. My inbox is dryer than a elderly nun :(
big power bottom varka??? have I finally found my people? my home???
WHERES THE LINE... I WANT A TURN TO BE HIS CHAIR-
I need to see those muscles in use as he just uses me for his pleasure-
you… you get me bro. you fucking get me.
ugh the things i want a big man like him to do to my dick.
idc how fit and strong knight!reader is, dude is not beating varka’s insane stamina. varka is gonna be drain the hell out of that dick and will still be able to go a few more rounds. meanwhile it looks like the reader’s soul left his body ten minutes ago after he already came inside of varka numerous times.
this doesn’t stop him. he’ll just pat your cheek and say “you’re a good little knight. i’m sure you can take some more.” then go back to riding your dick like crazy until he’s fully satisfied.
all for your sake. pt 1. (again &. again mini-series)
ft. platonic! yandere batman (mostly bruce wayne for now) x gn! neglected single parent reader.
reblogs and interactions are encouraged and appreciated.
— masterlist !
just had a damning thought about a&a reader with a kid.
you who had a child while you're way too young through a failed relationship, trying your hardest to hide the kid from your own father, bruce, afraid the kid would only turn devastated at the thought of their own grandfather neglecting them the same way you were too.
and a bruce wayne who only recently learned about the news of your kid and tries his hardest to acquire at least an opportunity to confront you and assure you that he wouldn't make the same mistake and provide you all the care, the funding, the necessary things a single parent heavily needs in raising a child alone— and that includes him, your siblings, your family, as part of the package.
now, he's seated on your springy couch, across from you as the waft of hot coffee stirs you awake and alert from what words bruce had just thrown your away.
you couldn't exactly recall everything he'd told you, for it was too much for your mind to comprehend amidst the heavy night after all your shifts, but what stood out the most was his last sentence that was all you needed to hear for you to realize the weight of his promises:
"come live at the manor."
that was exactly the reason why he'd even come to your shabby apartment in the first place, without an invitation, without a warning— without your knowledge that he knew all along where you lived despite all the precaution you took for your entire location to be well under wraps away from what was once your family.
but that's not your main concern right now. gotham is under the bat's protection, it's a given he'd know, but even if you pretend that everything happening right now is normal; it still doesn't calm you down from the momentary panic you felt when you saw your father in all his suited glory right at your doorstep with that stupidly gentle smile he had plastered on his face when he invited himself in.
but again, that's not your main concern.
your father, and by extension, your family stalking you is not your concern. you repeat in your head, as the thought of your kid's safety comes hurling at you like a boulder— but you shake your head. no. don't overthink it. don't think of them as a threat towards your child's safety.
because what truly worries you is his sudden insistence of taking you into the manor after just having realized you'd have kept hidden a child from away from family for way too long.
although you wanted to deny that offer so badly, just wanting your own child to depend on you as not only a subconscious act of vengeance against bruce, but also because you can never trust anymore promises — not after being left alone to grow up yourself, not after your failed relationships where 'i do's' were just a distant fantasy, not after the world had hurled stones at you your entire life, treating you like a joke — you also had to think of your child's future.
after all, you saw the way your mother struggled just having to bring food to the table.
you saw the way the light slowly drained from her eyes.
you saw the way you yearned for stability.
you didn't want your child to go through the same hell as you. they were too lovely, too innocent like you once were. bubbly, and curious, and pure as the light that gleams in their eyes. untouched by cruel hands that could bruise their vulnerable skin.
their chubby cheeks, their grateful smile accompanied by their crooked, chipped teeth. the way they say their thank you's like the chirp of a bird from across the room when you'd given them small gifts. they should be playing in playgrounds, crying because they tripped after playing too rough with other kids their age, and running towards the sound of your voice calling them to come home— not this.
not locked up in some apartment, all sheltered without any friends or any other family other than their parent to tend to them.
yet it was so reminiscent of your relationship with your mother's.
of that time where everything seemed so simple. where all you ever worried about was how to portion your food with her without her feeling guilt nor shame for having you think of sharing with her.
all that made you happy was her then.
all that made you happy was your child now.
you don't want to shatter that innocence. you don't want to sacrifice their gleeful smiles to the same hell that took away your youth. you'd rather die. gotham is way too cruel, it took your mother away from you too soon. it takes and it takes and it takes.
at least in the manor it could shelter them, even if it's the same cage that left you feeling rotten from within. even if it's the one you tried so hard to crawl away from with bleeding fingers and desperate gasps.
"come to the manor, please." when you looked up at him, eyes momentarily peeling away from the sleeping child on your chest— curious, but still closed off from showing him the true intensity of your bitter emotions, he only reiterated what he told you just moments ago.
"your child will be safe in a place where crime could not reach them—"
'and you will be safest there, too.' he doesn't say aloud, but from the glint in his eyes, you could only ever guess what the other unspoken words in the air meant.
if it means danger, or another round of misery from being ignored and treated as some faceless ghost, then fine, as long as your child is safe and sound; you're satisfied.
you can't think of him genuinely caring for you. that was a concept long unknown and unfamiliar, a territory you couldn't thread on because bruce wayne was never known for loving you.
if he cared for his grandchild now more than he does you, you could accept the slight envy swirling deep beneath your stomach just thinking about the fact that bruce can love your kin, your own blood, but couldn't love you.
you could swallow every bitter truth shoved into your mouth until it eventually swallows you too.
but you couldn't ever possibly think of anyone in the family loving you as a universal truth. you'll simply just throw it all up and pretend he'd never said anything remotely akin to acting like a father.
you inhale, shakily staring at bruce, waiting for him to continue.
he does so, leaning forward, "and it will be good for your child as they grow. there will never be a moment where they will be alone—" ouch, you flinch internally at the choice of words. if he knew that was a low blow to you, then maybe he chose to stay silent about it as to not reopen anymore wounds that he already had, "they'll have your siblings as uncles and aunts to care for them. their education, from kindergarten to college, will be paid for and planned in full. whatever course, whatever extracurricular they want to pursue, i'll provide the necessary means to support that
"and you—"
"me?" you wince, unused to bruce fully ever acknowledging your existence.
he merely nods, ignoring the way your eyes dart around.
"you can continue college without anymore disruptions. i know you dropped out to care for the kid, but i also know you still wanted to pursue your dreams, so the family's here to watch over your child for you if you ever decide to return to college.
"you'll have us help care for you every step of the way, the way it should've been all those years ago, (name)." he stands, knees accidentally hitting the short coffee table acting as a barrier between you two. you flinch like a wounded animal in response to the sudden noise, watching with cautious eyes, your hold on the sleeping child tightening ever so slightly, when bruce circles the table to reach you.
you curse the couch for acting as another barrier trapping you once he nears you, and wish your child wouldn't wake up from the sudden thumps whirling within your chest, but bruce only leans down, meeting your eye level, and places his heavy palms on your laden shoulders.
the gesture wasn't comforting, it wasn't as nice as the young you would think it would be, but it was enough to ground you from a round of what feels like an incoming heart attack when bruce stares back of your panic stricken eyes with unquestionable certainty and one of his smiles that only guarantees a million mysteries as to what it truly means.
only that it means he's already won something you never even agreed to.
bruce wayne— no, your dad, he cups your face like a father would when checking up on his child, and leans down to leave a small, but gentle kiss on your forehead, that smile never once leaving his face when he leans back to stare at you once more.
"wha—"
"you'll understand, wouldn't you, (name)?" the question is heavy, it doesn't require an answer, and it doesn't quite connect to any of his previous statements. you're not sure what it means, but something tells you it's not meant for you to decrypt unless you want to return to your teenage self, already about to have another bout of a full blown panic attack.
instead, you mindlessly whisper in reply.
"no i don't, bruce..."
"(name)," he says your name again, like it's a broken statement always stuck on his tongue. like he's not quite used to saying it.
you could only gulp, the lump in your throat as thick as a glacier.
"i miss it when you used to call me 'dad'," he comments, laughing airily, but the joy doesn't reach the way his eyes stoop low just to look at you with more of his unsaid sentiments.
'yeah, and i miss it when i used to be stupid and actually thought of you as my dad,' you wanted to reply in snark, but opted not to when your child suddenly began to stir in their sleep, muttering jumbled words as they adjusted their position to bury themself deeper on your chest.
you sigh, patting your kid's head, then you gazed back up at bruce, who watched the scene before him way too intensely.
after a momentary beat of silence, he says:
"so, what is your decision, (name)?"
"i..."
bruce's offers were way too good to be true. way too considerate. he didn't just have your child in mind, but also you, too. it opens up a million doors for opportunities you otherwise could've never provided your own child. and bruce was right with something else; your child would be safer and happier with an entire village willing to help prepare them for the future.
you're willing to sacrifice your entire world just to see them not end up like you. they were your bundle of joy. the only light shining upon your bleak world. you wouldn't know what to do with your life without them, even if you've never asked for what was supposed to be a mistake of a lifetime, they've proven more to be a blessing to you than the burden your ex told you they were when they dropped off the crying child at your doorstep.
and the sight of them grappling on your clothes, begging you to not leave them like your ex did warranted both pain and empathy in your heart. it was just like all those years ago, when you've only had alfred to love and cherish you, even if it wasn't enough. you know what it's like to be unwanted and abandoned. you've experienced being unwanted in your entire life— your child doesn't deserve to think of themself that way.
it's way too perfect to pass up, but what only made you hesitate were the intentions bruce refused to outright tell you. what would he earn with this favor anyways? it's not like you could pay him back with affection or love. it's not like you could face your siblings, all childless and younger than you ever looked, and play pretend, like they never once ignored you in favor of their duties as vigilantes.
you're only doing this for your child's sake.
you're reminded that everything you do now, your choices, your decisions, your jobs that you juggle tirelessly, are all done with your child in mind.
if you took away your child's future from them, you could only see yourself in bruce's footstep. you could only see yourself as some greedy, heartless monster who only ever thinks of themself in the picture.
you stare at them, gaze still shaky and unsure, but your embrace on your child said otherwise, as you nod a wordless agreement with bruce's offer at staying in the manor for stability. you heart still wavers in your decision, if what you're doing is right or wrong, not missing the sinister beat of dread in your chest as your child lays asleep in your protective hold.
he only hums, then places his hand to ruffle your already tangled hair. thinning and unwashed and ugly. you feel filthy after your shift, not even having the time to wash up since you've got a hungry mouth to feed and dishes waiting to be washed— but you're reminded time and time again that this is the fate you chose to uphold as you look down at your sleeping child, smiling softly at the drool slowly seeping into your apron.
and...
you ignore the way bruce's eyes flitter between you and your kid, you couldn't read the way his thoughts had drifted to fantasies of what could've been you and him on the couch. with him lulling you to sleep. with you, comfortable, and safe, and happily dreaming in his arms.
but you've grown too fast. you had a child you didn't want in the first place — the same way bruce did with you — yet had to keep. the heavy bags he now sees closely in your eyes wordlessly told him about your sleepless nights working late to provide for the child. swimming in them was exhaustion only a parent could understand, a playful youth drained to care for another life, an identity lost, just to be labeled as a parent and not anymore as an individual.
the weight of sacrifice is something bruce is aware of, but amidst it all, there was still so much love in your eyes. too much love into the tiny life you held in your arms.
love that bruce had never once given you, slapping him in the face at the sight of you gently grazing your fingers across the growing hairs of your child's scalp while you look down with a tired, but oh-so fond smile at the growing kid under you.
the difference between you two was that you loved the child despite all the pain you'd have to feel looking into at the same eyes as your ex, whilst bruce refused to look at yours; didn't even acknowledge yours.
you have so much love spilling beneath the seams for the product of a loveless relationship. you could've abandoned ship, sailed away to a different city, refused to look at the eyes of your own child like bruce once did; but you were better than him in every way. you took it all in stride, you chose to dismiss the sick and twisted discomfort stabbing every pore in your skin just to care for a life you only knew for a short amount of time.
— whilst bruce could only discover the love he always had in his heart after it was too late. after you've left the manor with a resolve to sever everything that could ever associate you with him.
but, ah, he'll prove himself better for your sake too.
he'll be the father you've always wanted, even if it felt dire and unrequited. he'll show you love, he'll show you care, he'll be with you every step of the way like he promised to— even if you're not some young kid anymore begging for affection, you were still his kid, as were all your siblings. all his promises towards your child extended to you too. he'll provide you the safety net you always needed but never received back then.
even if you'd have to kick and thrash and beg to be let go once you'll realize that your freedom is limited to the manor and your university once you're back home, bruce is willing to take every hit and every punch all in stride as a father should be.
even if it takes him using his own grandchild as bait for you to stay, he's already planned ten steps ahead of time an entire scheme to at least turn your own kid to be as equally protective and paranoid for the safety of their parent just to keep you safe and sound.
and to bruce, all of this sounds reasonable and necessary.
because, after all, just as you're choosing to step into the doors of what once was your cage for the sake of your child—
bruce is also willing to make the sacrifices necessary for the sake of his own too.
a/n: miss me? well, i miss y'all too except i had to go on a long hiatus for a lot of reasons. leave comments, i love them since they motivate more further <3 otherwise, this is dedicated to my friends @thecloudsaremyhome, @mishkradetsa, @gluttonousriceflour, alongside everyone else who's been supporting me for a long, long time.
summary. "my parents aren't home" is a hell of a text to get from your reserved boyfriend. now you have to see what's going on, don't you?
wc. 7.4k
tags. smut | sub bottom megumi, top reader, they're both 20yo+, reader is described as big + fights like a brawler (to fit with megumi's shikigami [:), fingering, oral + rimming (megumi receiving), brief thigh fucking, size difference (skinny megumi (it's the gojo genes, it's out of my control)), belly bulge, multiple orgasms, untouched orgasms, doggy style, light mind break/humiliation. gojo makes an appearance at the end.
notes. ngl aging up characters feels a little strange to me? idk if i'll do it again lol
[ requested ]
Megumi is sore, tired, and cranky. Crankier than usual, anyway. His state wasn't helped by his boyfriend, who seemed to have limitless energy and always had a one-liner on hand, who had skipped him back home, planted a kiss on his lips at his doorstep, and promptly skedaddled before Satoru found them canoodling. His mood had soured immediately upon his departure.
His rush to get away was inconsequential, however, as Megumi later found a handwritten note on the kitchen counter regarding Satoru's cross-country midnight snack run.
Megumi's thumb hovers over the 'send' button on his phone.
Come over. Gojo's out.
He debates the idea.
His vices get the better of him.
His phone pings. I love it when you're rebellious! Be there in ten.
Ten minutes? Knowing you, you'd only need five. You liked him so much it was rather embarrassing, and he never hesitated to tell you so – all you did, however, was grin brightly at him and agree.
Regardless, this gives him a few minutes to kill. He'll clean up his room before you arrive.
Six minutes later, there's a soft knock on his balcony door. He glances up from where he sits on his bed, tugging his headphones down around his neck. Beyond the glass are the twinkling night lights of Tokyo, steel spires and reflective glass points jutting up into the black night sky. Unfortunately, he can't see any stars, but the little red lights blinking atop skyscrapers are calming enough.
He sets his laptop aside and rises to his feet. He slides open the door and glances up.
You grin down at him, stuck to the side of the building by the palm of your hand and the soles of your shoes. You look quite comfortable, crouched against the glassy surface, despite being thirty storeys up from being a pancake on the footpath.
"How's it hanging?" you greet with a wave. "All clear on the inside?"
"Mhm." He nods. "Come on in. Cold outside."
He turns, leaving the door open. You land on the balcony with nary a sound, kicking off your shoes and tucking them in the shadowy corner between his potted hosta plants. It was a space he made for you, as he shared a balcony with Satoru, and it wasn't visible beneath the broad hanging leaves unless you crouched down.
You slip inside and lock the door with a soft click, watching with a soft smile as Megumi taps away at his laptop, completing a section of his mission report. He doesn't like to leave paragraphs unfinished.
While he scowls at his screen, you dip into his bathroom to wash your hands and fix your hair. It gets windy after you clear the twentieth floor.
You waltz out, humming softly and shucking off your jacket. You toss it over his desk chair. "So, you called for me? What's on the itinerary tonight?"
He shuts his laptop, setting it aside. He wiggles his toes in his socks, tilting his head thoughtfully. "Dunno. Didn't think this far ahead."
"Nah, I don't believe that for a second. You're always thinking. 'The quiet ones have the loudest minds', right?"
He rolls his eyes but allows a small smile to tug at his lips. He leans back on his palms as you take a seat on his bed, draping yourself over his sheets. You prop yourself up on an elbow, and the twist of your body offers him a straight-through view down the gape of your baggy t-shirt. He stares, unabashed, as he replies.
"Mm... I'm definitely thinking of something right now."
Your grin turns sharp. You tilt your head. "Like you weren't thinking this the first time you texted me, Megumi. You have exactly two thoughts about me, and you're not calling me a loudmouthed idiot so I can only assume it's thought number two."
"You are a loudmouthed idiot." He allows you to scoot closer and slip his headphones off from around his neck, setting them next to his laptop on his bedside table. You hover over him as he settles back into his pillows with a soft sigh, spreading his thighs to fit you between them. He places his hands on your waist. "You going to put words in my mouth, now? Gonna guess what I'm thinking?"
You grin, rolling your hips against his. He sucks in a breath. "I could put a few things in your mouth... 'Words' aren't on the list."
"You're a dog," he mumbles, pale cheeks flushing. "Stupid."
"Oh, you like it," you say playfully, patting his cheek. "Getting shy, are we? C'mon, Megumi, don't clam up now! Tell me what you want from me. If I need to be, I can be quiet."
"Tsumiki's not here this week," he mutters, lifting his hands to your shoulders and tracing your collarbones. "No need."
"Well, all the better for me, huh? I get to pull as many pretty sounds out of you as I want and nobody can stop me." You tug on the bottom of his basketball shorts, sliding it up his leg. You sit up, pulling Megumi's thighs on top of yours.
He stares down at himself, his cheeks reddening. Christ. He swears one of your thighs is as big as his waist. He shudders out a breath as you tug your shirt over your head – grabbing it from the back of the neck in that Hollywood-jock way – and toss it aside carelessly, all too eager to put your hands on him.
"This is what you wanted, right?" you ask, tugging up his shirt to reveal his lean stomach. You place a hand against it, measuring the size, and Megumi twitches in his shorts. "Otherwise, shirt goes back on and I'm raiding your fridge."
He rolls his eyes, grabbing your hair and yanking you down to push his mouth against yours. You groan softly and he pulls at your belt, deftly undoing it with one hand. It eventually slips off the bed with a soft clink, but neither of you care.
"You can steal the juice after you fuck me, you walking stereotype," he mutters against your lips. "Unfortunately for you, no one here drinks."
"Damn," you say, not particularly disappointed. "Is it orange juice?"
"Yeah. The expensive, sustainably-produced kind with the pulp."
"That might be better than any vodka. Quick, strip for me. I wanna see what other fun stuff you have in the pantry. Do you have any square watermelons?"
Megumi kicks you in the hip, making you flinch and groan. "I'll break up with you if you're only with me to steal my food. You also can't eat square watermelons."
"Sorry, sorry," you wheeze, massaging the achy spot on your ribs. "Bad joke. I'm with you because I think you're cute – and hot."
He huffs, pulling his arms back and crossing them over his chest. "Uh-huh... You know, I'm not sure I'm in the mood anymore."
"What?" Your eyes widen. "Wait, Megumi, baby, I really am sorry! How do you take your apologies? Poached, fried, sunny-side-up?"
He gives you an unimpressed look, jade-green eyes boring into you. A brush of your hand over his shorts tells you he's not not into it, but you doubt your jokes are helping. You've got to get back onto his good side.
"I'll eat you out," you murmur, mustering up all the sincerity you can in your expression. "Wouldn't you like that? You'd shut me up, wrap your pretty legs 'round my head. Win-win, huh?"
He considers your proposition, pressing his knuckles to his mouth. You shift and inch your face closer to his pelvis, playing with the elastic band of his shorts. You cup his thighs, one in each palm, and Megumi ruffles his dark hair with a sigh and slumps back into the sheets.
"Yeah, fine. Whatever. Lube's in the drawer." He jerks his chin in its direction.
"Fuck yes," you breathe, scrambling over and digging around for it. The drawer also contains a notebook, an old high-school pencil case, and a worn copy of Tolkien's The Two Towers. Two highlighters and a pencil rattle around freely, and you don't doubt that he's done some light annotation work within the book's margins.
"This is another reason I love you," you say, pulling out the nondescript white tube. "Great taste in literature."
"Classic for a reason," he mutters, accepting your kiss. He tugs you back in for a deeper one, warm lips moulding so perfectly with yours. He hums softly and lifts his hips to help you shimmy off his shorts and underwear. His pretty pink cock twitches under your heavy gaze.
He rolls his hips against your thigh impatiently. "Well?" he prompts, lifting a brow. "Apologise away."
"Right, right." You uncap the tube and slather your fingers in a generous amount, pressing the tip of your middle finger against his taut hole. "I'll be gentle."
"I know."
You ease each knuckle into him, slow and steady. He clenches at the cold feeling. He's tight with just one finger, and you're honestly still surprised he manages to fit you at all.
"I have to prep you so much. Like a virgin," you mumble, breathy and awed. He clicks his tongue, his voice steady even as his hole flutters around your finger.
"Shut up, you're so embarrassing." He scowls. "Not my fault you're huge."
"Eh..." You shrug, working him open gently. "Am I big or are you small? Seriously. Puberty did nothing for you."
"I'm taller than Yuji. That's all I care about."
You chuckle, caressing his thigh. His hole, wet with lube, sucks you in eagerly. You chance a second finger, and his back arches as he grips the sheets, a staccato sound between a gasp and a groan escaping his throat.
"Tall and pretty," you hum, fucking your fingers into him. You scissor them when you sink in to the knuckle, brushing his prostate, and his cock twitches where it lays on his stomach. "Like a model."
"Ah, good. I'm your trophy boyfriend." His breath hitches as your fingers glide against that spot inside him. "Fuck. Less talking, more doing, babe. Want your mouth on me."
"Yes, dear," you reply teasingly, sinking out of his vision. Your hot breath fans his cock and his eyes flutter shut as your soft lips close around his tip, lapping at it gently. You hold it up with the vee of your fingers, your warm palm splayed across his stomach to keep him down. Your other hand works him open, slick sounds echoing off the walls of his room.
He's not generally a loud lover, which is a right shame because his moans are addictive. You just have to work hard for them. He exhales sharply, fingers digging into your scalp, as you take him in your mouth down to the base with ease. His thighs tense and he tosses his calves over the breadth of your shoulders, digging his heels into your bare back. You radiate warmth like a damn heater, and the room's already beginning to feel stuffy – or maybe that's just him.
You hum quietly around his cock, making his back arch with the vibrations. You press on his prostate at the same time and the pleasure bites its way right through him, sharp and sweet. He curses under his breath, tugging his shirt up around his chest to give you better access. You thank him by kissing his tip, flicking your tongue against the wet slit, and engulf him to the root.
He moans your name, reflexively tugging you further into him. "Shit—! Fuck, goddamn—"
You pop off for a breather, smirking as he instinctively pushes your face towards his cock. "Got any more swear words for me, baby?"
"Yeah, here's one. Fuck you."
"Eh." You waver a hand. "Technically, you already said that."
"Suck my dick."
"Good job! That's a new one," you hum, and oblige with a grin. You use the distraction to slip a third finger into Megumi and his back arches, hole clamping down around you. He struggles to relax – you can only fit them in to the second knuckle – and you pop off to coo softly, reaching for the lube and applying more. He squelches when you push them in and you press gentle circles into his hip, watching your fingers sink into him carefully.
"You're doin' great, Megumi," you murmur, and his heart skips a beat. "Sorry, I need to reposition. You – are coming with me."
He gasps when you tug him down his mattress by his ankle, closer to where you kneel at the foot of his bed. You part his thighs again and return your fingers to his hole, pumping them slowly. You blow cool air against his tight pink rim and he hisses softly, a complaint already rolling around in his mouth.
The words promptly die in his throat when you give his hole an experimental lick.
"Oh, fuck," he nearly whimpers, eyes screwed shut as you dip your tongue into his ass. His hand twists in the baby hairs at the nape of your neck and his hips jerk into your mouth.
You curl your fingers, pressing harshly on that sensitive bundle of nerves, and he jolts with a harsh gasp. You lave at his tightening pink hole and he digs his heels into your back as you flick your tongue against him, matching the pace of your fingers.
You're still gentle – just unrelenting. The slick sounds of your fingers filling his hole are filthy, and excess lube smears against his ass with a lewd shine. You bury your face in his ass and your other hand holds his leaking cock out of the way, flattening it against his stomach, and he can't help the jolt of pleasure that runs through him at the sight.
It's like his cock isn't even there anymore. You're so concentrated on eating him out that this little part of him has gone forgotten – not like it really matters, though, because holy shit, your mouth is incredible, quick and dextrous. You barely have to breathe. Guess all that talking really does help with other things.
He murmurs something, fisting the sheets until his knuckles go white. You can't hear him over the obscene sounds his slick asshole is making when you push your fingers into him.
"What was that, baby?"
He grunts softly as you jab his prostate. He shudders. His breaths are quick and shaky, his hands constantly switching from gripping the sheets to your head. He peels his eyes open, resolutely staring at his ceiling and not at you.
"I'm close," he whispers, body jerking as you shift the arm pinning his hips down. Your nails scrape over the underside of his cock. "Oh, shit, shit, shit – your tongue—"
He can almost feel you smirk as you double your efforts, fingers digging into his stomach to keep him from bucking up into you. Your fingers twist and curl, opening his tight ass up so nicely, and your tongue traces his twitching hole, lapping up his flavoured lube.
Then you slip your long tongue in with your fingers.
Megumi seizes, thighs clamping around your head, and you groan in pleasure as you feel him jolt and tremble under you, his cock spurting across your hand. Hot streaks of thick come spatter his stomach and it flexes as he gasps and pants, rocking your face into him and pulling on your hair so hard it almost hurts. You tug on his cock absently, smearing your palm with his release.
When he returns to his senses, he lets you go, legs falling limp like jelly to the bed. He shudders and shivers, gulping down breaths as his lashes flutter. His hair is extra messy, jutting out in every direction across the sheets.
You coo his name, eyes clouded with lust as you grin lazily between his legs. You rest your head on his inner thigh and he twitches, sensitive. With his eyes on you, you bring your come-sticky fingers to your mouth and wrap your lips around them, sucking them clean. A pearly droplet rolls down the side of your palm and you twist your wrist to lick it up, long scarlet tongue running from wrist to pinky. He shudders out a wanton sigh.
Despite the sight making his cock twitch with interest, his brow furrows. He needs to regain a sliver of dignity. "You're – You're such a pervert..."
"Says the one who loves getting his ass ate," you tease, running your tongue over your palm. Your other hand has disappeared out of sight, and he assumes being trapped in your jeans isn't fun. "You came because of it. You're such a nerd."
His frown deepens. "I'm not."
"Yes, you are."
"I'm not."
You roll your eyes and grin, rising to your feet and shuffling onto his bed. You tug insistently on his shirt and he allows you to slip it off. "Agree to disagree?"
"I don't like agreeing with you about most things, generally."
"My god, you're such a bitch," you murmur, chuckling. You grab his thighs, pressing them together, and toss them over your shoulder, slotting yourself flush against his ass. He gasps, face pink. "Fine, back to basics. Are we dating?"
"Y-Yes." His palm is pressed against the thigh of your jeans for his own comfort, unused to being manhandled in such an open position.
"Do you think you can come again?"
"Yes."
"Want it hard?"
"Yes."
"See? Not so hard to agree with me."
"None of that is agreeing," he says in disbelief. "Those are yes-no questions. How did you even graduate from high school? Hey—!"
You shove your cock between his thighs, the hot tip gliding against his balls and settling against his base. You have both of his legs in one arm and you kiss his milky calf teasingly as you lean forward, gently fucking your cock into the space between his thighs. He's slim enough that a good portion of your dick peeks out from the top of his thighs, rubbing against his tight balls.
"D-Don't you dare come from this," he huffs, staring down at your thick cockhead as it pushes past his creamy thighs and slicks up the inner sides with pre. "I didn't tell you to come over just to have you bust like this. I want it inside."
"So demanding," you say impishly, rutting into him. "But alright. I like to spoil my princess."
He hums, ignoring the way his thighs twitch each time you rub up against them. He's still a little shaky from his high. "Good."
You lean down, making his breath hitch as you test his flexibility, and kiss his neck. You tug a pillow down for him. "Love you."
"I know, you big sap," he says, but there's less bite in it than usual. The corner of his mouth even curves up.
He sinks into the pillow below his head as you thrust into his thighs, eyes fluttering shut with a soft, preparing sigh. Your precome makes the glide smooth, and you press his pale thighs together. You pull away and tilt the head of your cock further down, pressing it to his tight hole. Gently, you push in.
Megumi's expression tightens and his body rolls and flexes, fingers twisting in the pillow. You soothe him with sweet words, and he nods in agreement, relaxing as best he can.
"Good, Megumi," you murmur, watching as he relaxes enough to fit a couple more inches. He flinches when your hot touch traces his cock. "Doing so well, baby. Just like that."
He lets out a shaky noise, nodding. He makes an aborted motion to brush his chest and you take note, reaching up with your spare hand to circle his nipple. He arches into your touch, his slick gummy insides rippling against your cock. You groan softly as he blushes dark, the sensitivities of his own body betraying him.
"S-Sorry," he whispers, his tight walls massaging your cock as you rock shallowly back and forth. "You're – big. Ah, hnn..."
"Nothing to forgive, baby. Tell me to pull out and I will, yeah?" You laugh softly despite yourself, squeezing the side of his thigh. "Stretching my little boyfriend... Kinda an ego boost. Nobody else can make you feel like this, right?"
"I've – hah – never had anybody else, you ass," he breathes, and you know he intends it to sound a little mean, a little disparaging, but he's so flushed and his voice trembles in the middle, and it's just cute. His fingers twitch before curling into balls, tugging at the pillow corners.
Your cock sinks in a little deeper. "Mmhm – my pretty little virgin. Takes cock like a champ, though, doesn't he? Such a good boy for me," you purr, distracting him with your words while you coat your cock in an extra smear of lube. You push back in and he lets out a sound startlingly close to a mewl, eyes rolling back briefly as your hips meet his ass.
"F-Fuck," he pants, open-mouthed. He looks and sounds absolutely wrecked, his hole scraping your shaft with each thrust. "So deep – ohh, fuck me, fuck me, c'mon—"
Your jeans zipper presses into his ass as you grind into him. Something about you being half-dressed makes his stomach flutter. Is it because it feels needy, like you couldn't even wait to undress him properly before taking him as yours? He gnaws on the inside of his cheek to keep back the dangerous noise that threatens to bubble out of him.
"You're so pretty when you're being fucked open," you chuckle, making him gasp. "Got a face like a model, body like a porn star... This tight little hole takes me so well, doesn't it? Stretches you nice and full. Drives me crazy, watching all this dick vanish inside you like that," you hum, huffing a laugh. "Like, where does it all go? Not all in my sweet little boyfriend, surely."
"I-Idiot," he gasps, covering his mouth to muffle his moan. "You're being so – so dramatic."
Humming thoughtfully, you lean forward, pushing his slim legs higher. His wet warmth hugs your cock tight, a slick little sleeve for you to enjoy. "Am I?"
You draw your hips back until only the tip rests inside him, then snap your hips forward and sink your entire length into him. He gawps, a few little gemstone tears glittering at the corners of his dark green eyes, and he scrabbles at your hips, fingernails catching in your belt loops and pockets but never really sticking. He lets out his first real moan of the night, sharp and breathy.
"Hnnnh..." He whimpers, eyes dazed as he gazes up at you. His throat bobs and his hair bounces as you fuck him with quick, deep strokes, dragging past his hot, swollen prostate with each thrust.
In a fit of desperation, he pulls at his own asscheeks, spreading himself open and begging wordlessly for more. It's hard to keep himself open with the lube making everything slick and warm, and he ends up clawing at himself as he pants, mewling softly as you tug his body down into yours and fuck him harder. Your skin slaps wetly, loud and lewd.
His cock throbs, twitching where it leaks a pool of pre onto his belly. "C-Close, 'm close," he keens, unable to bring himself to care about the degenerate way he's acting. Your cock knocks the breath out of his lungs, and he loves the way the rough denim of your jeans rubs his ass raw with every rolling grind. His fingers dig into the meat of his ass. "I – ah, hah – close – babe—"
"Yeah, me too," you huff, embarrassingly into the sight and sound of him falling apart. His asshole squelches as you fuck into him harder, rocking the mattress dangerously, and you brace against the bed, pinning his legs to your shoulder when they start to jolt and kick. His feet bob in the air and he greedily drinks in the way sweat shines on your skin and gathers in the dips of your muscles.
You're just so big. You're the close-up brawler to Megumi's ranged attacks, and you've been fighting side-by-side for so long that Megumi's rustier than he should be when it comes to serious threats shoving themselves in his face. It's so much easier to let you at 'em – and a lot more fun to watch you come trotting back to him to have the blood wiped off for you.
He feels so fucking tiny under you like this, gone dumb on your thick cock pounding him into the mattress. He can't get enough.
He comes first, barely about to stutter out your name before his orgasm slams into him, knocking the thoughts out of his head as he feels a sudden warmth flood his guts. His silky, gummy insides ripple and tighten, milking your cock with every aching hot throb, and you groan lowly, fucking him slow and deep through the sea of pleasure.
When you pull out, his hole clenches – and doesn't close. Thick white come dribbles down his ass, pooling around his twitching hips. The sight's enough to reignite the flame in your lower stomach.
You set Megumi's legs down as quickly and gently as you can, before rolling him over onto his stomach and tugging his hips up towards you. He gasps, barely about to get out a questioning huff before you're slamming back into him, fucking the come back into his hole.
He cries out – and immediately slaps a hand over his mouth. His dark hair bounces as he jolts back and forth on your cock, his ass slapping against your hips.
How are you already hard? Sorcerer things, he supposes faintly, because his own cock is filling again. His sticky insides feel so good and sore, perfectly shaped to take your dick, and he clamps both hands over his mouth, falling forward onto the bed. The angle slants his hips up and you crush his prostate on the first thrust, making his toes curl and an embarrassing high-pitched noise to slip out between his fingers.
"Fuck, baby," you whisper, grabbing his wrists and pulling them away. You shift your grip to his upper arms and fold them back, using them as leverage to fuck into Megumi's quivering, dripping hole. "Wanna hear you. There we go. Be nice and loud f'me."
He shakes his head, screwing his eyes shut, as you tug his body backwards onto your lap, letting him feel your hot, pulsing cock resting against his walls. Fuck. The way he's forced to move with you when you do makes him weak in the knees. Good thing you're holding him up.
"Me-gu-mi," you tease, shifting your grasp on his arms. You fuck him lazily, strokes long and slow, and by the way his sigh quivers and his head droops, you know it's not what he wants. "I won't let you come before I hear your lovely voice."
The lean muscles of his shoulders and back flex as he tests the grip you have on him. Broad shoulders, little waist – a proper pretty boy. "H-Hurry up. Gojo might return soon."
"So?"
His head snaps back, a glare harsh on his flushed features. "Don't 'so?' me. Hurry the hell up or you're doing the walk of shame back to yours. Alone."
"You're so mean," you say breathily, grinning. "Love that about you."
He clicks his tongue. His dripping cock is aching to be attended to. "Yeah, well – shit!"
His cry is unobstructed and wonderfully clear. You lean down, taking a peek at his face, and it's almost enough to make you come on the spot. His swollen lips are parted, his blush dark and high on his sharp cheekbones, and his hair sticks to his temples. His eyes flicker towards you, his absurdly long lashes fluttering. His chest heaves.
"Th-That's a dirty trick," he stutters, chancing a glance down. His eyes squeeze shut as his throat bobs harshly.
You tease, "Like magic, huh?" You roll your hips forward in such a way that it has Megumi's chest constricting, as if halfway to tears. A bump protrudes from his flat stomach, a sight made even more obvious when he inhales, his panting breaths shallow but heavy as if he's run a marathon.
You lean back with a chuckle and set a hard, steady pace. Megumi tenses, legs shuffling weakly beneath himself, and can't swallow the embarrassed little sounds that slip out between his clenched teeth. Strings of those noises escape him and his fingers flex, balling into fists. He'll take his dignity to his grave if he must.
Well, that's your purpose, isn't it? To bring him to his little deaths?
"You feel real good like this, baby," you croon, voice low and sweet. He shudders, swallowing roughly, as your cock pistons in and out of his abused hole. Damn it – he can feel the filthy mix of lube and your come dripping down his thigh with each clap of your hips against his ass. "And you're so sensitive, aren't you? My cock hits all the good spots in you, doesn't it, nice 'n' deep... Doesn't it make you wanna let go?"
"I-It's – hah – It's humiliating," he hisses, even though he knows you're right. It's the same story that always goes like this: him refusing, him struggling, him getting devoured by his own lust and submitting like a crashing plane submitting to gravity.
"No, it's cute." You pound into him, merciless and unforgiving as you chase your high.
There's something addicting about being used like this, held in place like he weighs nothing to you. You fuck him like a toy, his come-slick insides gooey and hot, and it can't be his fault when he comes if he can't get away from you, can it? It can't be embarrassing when it's not his fault, and if half the pleasure comes from submitting, then that's not his fault, either.
You're mean. You're making him like this.
A soft, breathy moan escapes into the air.
At the sound of it, your grin takes on a dangerous edge. Megumi's ass is red and tender, the steel rivets of your jeans and the stiff zipper making him twitch and shudder as they scrape against his skin. Your hips quicken, the headboard rocking alarmingly close to the wall, and his mattress creaks as you yank him back to meet you halfway.
His pitiful cock swings between his thighs, dark red and throbbing. It looks painful. You have half a mind to relieve him – but he's so pretty when he comes untouched, and you must have a masochistic streak in you because watching him struggle and come from the smallest bit of friction pleases you like nothing else. His dick pulses with a spurt of clear pre and he inhales with a shaky whine, squeaking quietly and stiffening when you tug his arms further back, making the arch in his spine more pronounced.
His hips jerk. Every time his cock smacks his thigh he moans, warm wet insides rolling as he heaves around you. The bulge in his belly appears and disappears with your thrusts and Megumi's head is foggy. He scrabbles slightly in place, half of him wanting to run away while the other half can't get enough. Unable to choose a side, he can only kneel there, pierced on your cock, and sob out a wet whimper.
The sound is music to your ears. His gasps are whinier, more involved, and you can tell his control is slipping. He no longer gnaws on the inside of his lip to keep himself silent.
Arousal curls hot in your lower stomach. You cock throbs, leaking inside him, and he heaves out a shuddering moan, tilting his head back as his slippery walls squelch around you. His tongue flicks out to wet his lower lip. He aches.
Megumi whimpers and barely has time to open his mouth. "C-Close—"
His expression tightens. His eyes roll back.
He seizes. Pleasure slams into him like a tidal wave. He lets out the sweetest whines as his hips twitch and he thrusts against air, creamy white come splattering his stomach in thick ropes.
His sudden vice-tight heat yanks you over the edge with him, surprising you. You gasp and groan as he keens, stuttering incoherently as his puffy hole milks your cock as if it was made for it. Your fingers tighten around his arms, your cock slamming deep inside him and flooding his stomach, and he has no strength to do anything but quiver and moan, hips still jolting erratically as come dribbles down his shaft and balls.
You tug him into your chest, hooking your chin over his shoulder and grinding into him as he rides out his high. You watch him with soft eyes, panting softly, as his hips slow. Eventually, he slumps against you, chest rising and falling breathlessly. A hand curls around the back of your neck and remains there, warm and shaky.
"Damn," he whispers, finally. Your cock twitches, the aftershocks of your high still buzzing along your nerves, and he lets out a deep exhale as the clarity sets in. "That was..."
"Good?" you offer, one big hand splayed gently across his chest. He nods, closing his eyes, and lets his head fall against your shoulder.
He licks his lips. "Grab me a glass, too, please."
"So presumptuous," you murmur, kissing his neck. You wrap a hand around his thigh, lifting him off your lap. He winces slightly, messy hole clamping around nothing, and sinks forward into his sheets, content and boneless. "Lemme clean you up first, yeah?"
"Yeah," he murmurs, burying his face into his pillows with closed eyes. He runs a hand through his hair and hums sleepily. "Thanks, sweetheart."
The pet name feels soft and warm falling from his lips. You kiss his shoulder again before dragging yourself reluctantly out of bed, and your fingers trail down the length of his arm as you pull away. He shifts his hand to let your touch linger as long as it can.
Clean-up is quiet. He's acquiescent, allowing you to manoeuvre his body how you need to. Sometimes you think he's fallen asleep, but then he'll shift to make it easier for you. Your Megumi was never so selfish as to leave you without some pillow talk.
"You know," you begin, breaking the silence, "I may have gotten too impatient."
"How so?"
"I didn't bring a spare set of clothes, and, well..." You gesture vaguely down at your stained jeans. "Oops, right?"
Megumi stares. He turns away and chuckles, nestling into his pillows. "You can steal some of mine while you wash yours. Whatever fits. You can grab your clothes in the morning."
You press a kiss to the back of his neck, making him laugh softly at the tickling feeling. "Ooh, I love a good sleepover. Thanks so much, Megumi."
He hums in response, and if he peeks while you strip and search his closet for his baggiest casual pieces, no one will ever know.
Later, Megumi watches from his place atop the kitchen counter as you pour two glasses of orange juice. His legs swing lazily off the edge, and he accepts the offered glass when you turn around. He downs half the thing in one go, exhaling afterwards in something like relief. You lift a brow, amusement tugging at your lips.
"What?" he mutters, shoving your shoulder as his cheeks glow pink. "You're tiring."
Your smile grows cocky as you fold your arms over your chest, raising the glass to your lips. "Nothing. I'm just... learning things."
"Oh, fuck off," he scoffs, sipping his glass at a more considered, moderate pace. His gaze follows you as you slip between his thighs, one of your hands resting on his thigh. "You already know what you do to me. You haven't learnt a thing tonight."
"I'm always learning about you," you say with mock seriousness, lifting a finger. The movement bunches up the sleeve of the navy zip-up hoodie around your bicep, straining ever-so-slightly – your voice brings Megumi back to the topic at hand.
"For example," you're saying, "you still have the tickets from our first date, which is downright adorable."
"You don't?"
"Not pinned up like you have do. I don't want them to fade, so they're very carefully tucked into an old notebook – from the same year we got together, of course." You tap your chin. "Doesn't Gojo tease you about it?"
"Given that he's been banned from my bedroom since I was fifteen, no, he doesn't." He presses his thumb and forefinger to his forehead, making a face. He ruffles his hair. "I really need to get on with the whole 'finding my own place' thing. We're just so central with this apartment, and honestly, with the way Gojo reacted when Tsumiki moved out for university, I'm not sure he won't just cry when I leave."
"Aw. You really care for him." You pinch his cheek. He pouts, pushing your hand away.
"Stop it. I want more juice."
He hands you his glass. You roll your eyes fondly, grinning as you reach over and grab the carton. You step closer, hooking your chin over his shoulder, and fill both glasses behind his back. He presses his cheek against your collarbone, one arm draped over your shoulders.
"We could always move in together," you offer. "You did mention it once or twice."
"Hm. I guess so."
"Why do you sound so surprised? You brought it up first."
"I dunno. Guess it feels like a big step. Feels a lot more weighty when it's not just a passing thought."
"We'll think about it some more. Honestly, with how you were acting earlier, I'm shocked that you're still awake," you tease, passing him his juice. "Maybe tomorrow you'll wake up and go, what the shit, that was a terrible post-sex idea, and clutch your head with second-hand embarrassment."
He huffs and levels you with a look. "It can't be that terrible. Rent is expensive. Roommates are always viable. We just have the option of sharing a bed – and that means more fun-money for plants."
Just as you set the carton aside, the front door beeps and clicks open. Megumi freezes and can't get away fast enough.
He locks eyes with that stupid black blindfold.
A wide, smug smile creeps over Satoru's face. He knocks the front door shut with a kick of his heel, and he practically skips out of his shoes.
"Well, well, well! What do we have here?" he drawls, a sizeable white bag hanging from his fingers. In his other hand is a soda drink with a colourful print on the sleeve. He gestures broadly with the cup. "YN! Haven't seen you in years! How've you been, huh? You know, if I didn't know that I was your absolute favourite teacher, it'd feel like you've been avoiding me. All your messages come through Ijichi! You can't spare a few minutes to pop by my office?"
He pouts, waiting expectantly with a hand on his hip. You feel like a deer caught in headlights.
"Uh," you say intelligently. You are suddenly aware that your shorts sit several centimetres too high to be reasonably called 'basketball shorts' any longer.
Megumi clears his throat, moving you aside to hop down from the counter. He stands in front of you, which gives you a few precious seconds to pull the sides of the zip-up hoodie closed over your bare chest.
"You're back early," he says, in lieu of anything else.
"I mean, it is—" he flicks his wrist and glances down "—two in the morning. Speaking of – you boys should be in bed. One of you, at least. I can't control kids who aren't my own!" He laughs to himself.
"Keep calling me a kid and I'll treat you like an old man, gramps," Megumi threatens. "Got the hair and humour for it, too."
"Po-tay-to, po-tah-to," Satoru replies breezily, tugging off his blindfold and wrapping it around his wrist the same way a girl would with hair ties. He steps forward, dumping his bag on the end of the counter and taking a loud sip from his drink. "You're just jelly that my hair does what I tell it to. Mm – actually, now that I think about it, I've got something else to say."
He takes three long strides forward and pushes Megumi aside to stare you down. You start, staring at him with wide eyes.
"Gojo," Megumi hisses, but goes ignored.
"Now, I can excuse bullying Megumi for his stick-in-the-mud personality, but I draw the line very firmly at breaking his heart." He stares up at you with a tilted head, blue eyes half-lidded and leisurely as he flicks his finger against your chest. It's a motion that looks frighteningly familiar, and you almost step back as he moves further into your space. His Infinity presses lightly against your skin, crackling with power, and you can see the slight shimmer of it pulsing from him. Despite the ease he uses it with, it feels as heavy as lead.
"Gojo, stop – I'm not a child."
"While I do feel a teeny bit insulted that Megumi would hide this," he gestures between the two of you, "from me, I get it. I mean, who's good enough for my itty bitty Megumi? Not a lot of people, I assure you. Most people are dicks. And when I kill things for a living, I could see how that'd make a kid nervous. Need I remind you of how good I am at my job?"
"No, sir," you squeak.
"Great. And, being that you were one of my students, I shouldn't have to mention just how much pain I can dish out."
"That's right, sir."
"Nor will I have to remind you of what happens when I do a little..." He flutters his fingers, mimicking a magician's flourish, and forms a tiny ball of Purple at the tips of his fingers. The pale glow illuminates his face from below.
His eyes bore into your skull. The air is sucked out of your lungs.
"Gojo!" Megumi yanks Satoru's arm down, dispersing his technique, and shoves himself between your bodies. He glares at him. "What is wrong with you? I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm far too old for you to be playing 'protective dad' over. Legally, I could volunteer for the military, kill a man, and drink myself to death tomorrow if I so wanted. I should be allowed to choose my own partners."
Satoru eyes you for a moment longer, then glances down at Megumi and his whole look changes. He deactivates his Infinity, the air around you becoming ten times lighter, and pouts, ruffling Megumi's hair – Megumi grimaces.
"You are! I'm just exercising my right to do some light boyfriend-threatening," he whines. "I've always wanted to do that! And you know I wouldn't actually atomise you, don't you, YN? You're my favourite ex-student!"
"R-Right, sir..."
"I mean, I would still hunt you down like a dog if you ever hurt Megumi, but I'd make it quick!"
"Gojo," Megumi groans. "Please leave us alone."
Playfully, Satoru salutes, winking knowingly at Megumi. "Gotcha. Boyfriend stuff, right? I'll leave you two lovebirds alone, now." He skips away, waving a hand over his shoulder at the bag of snacks on the counter. "Have a peek, take what you want! Mostly, I went out for a walk. I just liked the colours of the packaging. Cheerio, kids!"
As he vanishes into his room and closes the door, Megumi sighs, letting his head fall into his hands. He turns to you, grabbing your hand. "Sorry... Maybe we should've just stayed in my room. Are you alright?"
"I'm, uh, not gonna lie," you chuckle nervously. "I wasn't expecting..." You flick your fingers.
He purses his lips, squeezing your hand. "Neither was I. He got serious with this, of all things? Ridiculous."
You wrap your arms around him – because having a black hole pressed against your throat was terrifying – and he rests his arms over your shoulders comfortably. You bury your nose in his hair and mumble, "You're the one running over to my place next time."
Just got home from watching the second fnaf movie, and my friend kept saying how she wanted to 'see Micheal's Freddy Faz balls'. How about I jump off a building?
synopsis: you are the daughter of the man alhaitham brought down, bound to him by the soul mark that feels more like a curse than fate. somehow, one letter at a time, he finds his way into your heart—until you can no longer pretend you don’t ache for the man who ruined your life and saved you all at the same time
word count. ❤︎ 14.4k words—give it a chance. PLEASE I BEG give it a chance and i will venmo u a penny
before you read. ❤︎ female reader ; soulmates au ; somewhat enemies to lovers (it’s a bit one sided) ; reader is azar’s daughter ; reader is a rtawahist scholar and wields an electro vision ; reader is going through it guys. cut her some major slack okay ; YEARNER alhaitham ; soulmarks as the soulmates trope ; sumeru plot is heavily referenced and i hope it’s all accurate it’s been 3 years ; male masturbation ; vaginal fingering ; protected sex (use condoms!) ; praise kink ; getting together ; implied moving in together in the end ; this is not proof read. i am tired and hungry
commentary. ❤︎ read the extended author’s note here
The Akademiya admissions form includes the following overview for Rtawahist:
Rtawahist is one of the Six Darshans of the Akademiya that students may select to study, specializing in illuminationism and the pursuit of truth through the study of the stars. Its scope includes, first, astronomy—the mathematical observation and mapping of celestial bodies—and second, astrology—the interpretation of their patterns as signs of destiny. Students who pursue this Darshan will train in celestial observation, star-mapping, and the interpretation of cosmic patterns, combining scientific precision with philosophical inquiry.
When you fill out your application years ago, you check the box for Rtawahist without even reading the overview. You have no need to do that. You do not bother with listing a second choice, either. You also have no need to do that. Your father will see the application through—that much you already know. Privileged, perhaps, but not unearned. You have every intention of earning your keep.
When the acceptance papers arrive, Rtawahist is stamped as your chosen Darshan. You are not surprised. You are not ungrateful, either. The stars, you think, may have been your first love—you do not take your devotion to them any more lightly now than you did when you studied them.
You have never anticipated that the same stars you devote yourself to could be so cruel, forcing you to watch the man who replaced your father as Grand Sage also be the one who orchestrated his downfall.
You cannot bear the injustice of it.
Your father—who now sits in a cell while the city mocks his name—has been replaced by the very man who put him there. The same man they call a hero. The same man who stripped him of his title, his dignity, and every scrap of respect earned through decades of work and brilliance.
You catch this despicable man just as he leaves his—no, your father’s—office.
“Excuse me,” you hiss, “are you the one they call Alhaitham?”
He pauses, glancing over his shoulder at you. His expression is unreadable, almost bored—like you’re an interruption that he endures. The veins in your head threaten to burst from the sheer insult of it.
“I’m on my break now,” he says flatly, “if you wish to submit an appeal to any funding proposals, please submit an application according to the prescribed format—”
“That’s not why I’m here,” you interrupt, hissing once more.
His eyes glance over your figure up and down briefly—your blood boils even more for it—and then there is an almost imperceptible shift in his gaze. Curiosity, maybe, or perhaps recognition. Good, you think, he should recognize you—and he should regret it soon enough.
“Then I can’t imagine what business you have with me.”
Your eyes narrow. “It’s about my father.”
“Ah.” His arms cross loosely over his chest, as if the puzzle has solved itself. “Then you’ve come for closure. If that’s what you want, I’m not sure I am the one to turn to.”
You grit your teeth. “Do not talk as though he’s dead. I don’t need closure for a man who still lives.”
“I never implied he wasn’t alive. He’s imprisoned,” Alhaitham replies evenly. “By his own actions. I didn’t decide his actions for him—I only carried out what had to be done when his ambitions threatened the nation.”
“What do you know of his actions?” you snap. “You think yourself to know every detail simply because you were the scribe? Handling a few mere documents doesn’t give you the knowledge and upper hand you think it does—you’re still nothing but a scribe with a salary that is hardly applaudable. What, you think you understand him because you saw a single moment from the outside?”
“I understand him because I saw everything I had to,” he replies blandly. “I don’t have to be more than a scribe with a generous income to know I watched him imprison a god. I also didn’t need a report to see him falsify divinity and use that for his own gains.”
“That’s not true,” your voice shakes, “you have no idea what you’re saying. You’re believing the convenient cover-up story that—”
“It’s the truth,” he interrupts. “You just don’t want it to be.”
Your hands ball into fists as your breath trembles. His composure infuriates you—it makes your grief feel small, your faith in your father feel foolish. It makes you feel inferior to a man who has held a title of authority for less than two days. Your father was a foolish piece in the Fatui’s schemes—this you are certain. There is no other truth you will believe. You cannot stand for the injustice of their plans falling on his shoulders and stripping him of his freedom. Stripping you of his presence.
“He devoted his life to this Akademiya. To Sumeru. To the Archon, weak as he may have felt she was. And you—you sit in his chair and call yourself righteous for tearing him down and stealing his position.”
Alhaitham exhales quietly through his nose, a trace of weariness threading through his voice. “I stole nothing. I sit in that chair simply because someone has to—and the Archon herself has asked it of me. This is a temporary position. I have no interest in leading the Akademiya long-term. If you wish to read the reports detailing your father’s crimes, I suggest finding the General Mahamatra. I’ll have it arranged so you’re granted permission to see the documents, if it’ll ease your mind.” He shifts slightly, a finality to the motion. “Now, if you would please allow me to continue with my rather limited break—”
You don’t bother hearing the rest. His earlier words already have landed like cold water against your face. How dare he? How dare he speak to you as though you’re a fool—a child, a little girl who is naive enough to believe whatever reports were written by the same insidious people who used your father as a scapegoat for their own gains?
You watch as he turns from you and begins to walk away. To dismiss you once more. To ignore your existence and the weight you are left to carry because of his selfishness.
“Don’t you dare,” you whisper. The words shake from nothing else but fury. And before logic can tell you otherwise, before it can stop you, your hand shoots out. “Don’t you dare turn from me before I am finished, you scoundrel!”
You catch his wrist. And then you regret it. (Perhaps ignorance, as they say, is the ultimate form of bliss. Perhaps if you had never touched him, had allowed yourself to be ignorant of this discovery, you’d have been able to live some semblance of a happy life.)
It happens in a sudden—there is a searing heat surging beneath your palm, sharp and alive, as though something ancient and dormant has been waiting just beneath your skin for this exact moment. A soft, glowing light emits where your fingers meet his skin, and what looks like a thin, golden thread burns into both your wrists before settling into a mark.
You both freeze.
Alhaitham’s eyes flicker down to the mark forming on his wrist, then to yours. The same shape—a sharp V, and from its bottom, points three thin lines branching outward. You recognize the shape almost instantly—a constellation. Aquila. (How cruel fate is, mocking you with a soulmark that mirrors your favorite constellation and ties you to a man you loathe.)
You stumble back a step, your breath catching in your throat. The glow lingers on your skin for a moment longer, pulsing faintly before it fades—leaving behind the familiar, unmistakable shape burned into your wrist.
No. No, no, no—it can’t be. It can’t. You refuse to believe it. You won’t.
Your stomach twists, your skin burns, your eyes sting, and the air collapses in your lungs. You drag your hand away from him quickly—as if scalded by his touch—staring at the mark like it’s something foreign, something monstrous, something hideous.
Alhaitham’s expression doesn’t change—still composed, still maddeningly calm. You hate him for it. For being so unfeeling about something that has all but changed the direction that your world spins and the axis that it is tilted on. He opens his mouth to speak, but you’re already shaking your head.
“No.” The word cracks on your dry tongue. “No, this isn’t possible…it can’t be—”
“It would appear,” he says quietly, “that it can.”
The way he says it makes bile rise in your throat. He sounds like he might be identifying a constellation, not dismantling your entire world. Like he’s merely stating an objective fact that he has read in a textbook rather than admitting to changing your whole life. Again.
You clutch your wrist to your chest, covering any evidence of the mark as if hiding it might undo it entirely. “You…this—” You can’t even form the accusation properly. The words tumble along your tongue, frantic and hurried as you try to string together something coherent. “Undo this! Undo what you did!” you shriek, the words panicked.
Alhaitham freezes, just a fraction, his hand brushing his own wrist where the mark glows faintly. His eyes flicker between your face and the mark, calm on the surface but calculating beneath.
“That would be impossible. I didn’t do this,” he blinks, “nor could I. This…is not in my control. Or yours. And please, lower your voice—people will get the wrong idea if you scream in the halls—”
You shake your head, tears pricking your eyes. “This can’t be real! It can’t—”
“It is,” he says firmly. Louder this time. You blink through your tears and look at him—really look at him, and only now do you notice his pallor. Only now do you notice he subtle tension in his jaw, the faint dig of his nails into his own skin. “This is very real, and it isn’t exactly something either of us can simply ignore. Therefore, it would be wise of you to accept—”
“No!” you shake your head, your voice giving away your horror as it worsens by the second, “No! You can’t be serious. You can’t expect me to accept that the stars would decide this fate for me. They…they would never trap me with…with you! A man so awful, so wicked, so utterly merciless. How could they curse me like this? How could they choose someone as vile as you to be my fate? How could I deserve something as cruel as this?”
“I—”
You turn before you can hear any more words from him. You turn and you run—you run past the halls of the Akademiya, past the streets of Sumeru City, past every vendor and market you know, and you run into the quiet, empty home your father raised you in. The one that is devoid of him now—and maybe always will be. You run from him, from that man and from the mark he taunts you with, from every fragment of happiness he tore away from you and has crushed in his fist.
────────────────────────
They say not even the Archons can come in the way of a soulmate’s bond. It is written and sealed by Celestia themselves—or so the whispers tend to go. You often wonder if that’s just the Akademiya’s way of giving reason to what they don’t understand: linking this inexplicable bond to a power such as Celestia that they find equally impossible to grasp, yet impossible to deny.
If you were not so devastated, you might think it’s funny that you and Alhaitham happen to be a pair. Your visions certainly make for a good dynamic—Dendro and Electro. A formidable combination, as everyone likes to say. The two heighten each other, a sharper and more concentrated source of energy when together than apart. The Akademiya’s been taking advantage of that for years, pairing Dendro and Electro users in Matra units whenever possible.
There was even research once—old Akademiya studies claiming that soulmates who were both vision wielders always shared elements with strong synergy. Hydro and Pyro, perhaps. Cryo and Pyro, maybe. Dendro and Electro—everyone’s favorite in the Dendro Archon’s nation. The reactionary benefits were a popular topic across Sumeru, and being the nation of Dendro, plenty of Dendro scholars happily threw themselves into studying the synergy with Electro.
It spread far enough that even Liyue got involved. A researcher there proposed something new: that some soulmate pairs didn’t have opposing elements at all, but the same one. Their powers, they said, heightened differently—something that is less of a reaction, something that is more of a saturation. A phenomenon they called Elemental Resonance. That theory didn’t last long. The skeptics tore it apart, insisting two vision wielders didn’t need to be soulmates to fight well together. The sages pulled their funding soon after, and the whole thing was left to fade into obscurity.
You have never particularly believed any of it. You doubt the Archons and the gift of their power to you has much to do with your supposed bond to Alhaitham, either. Still, a small part of you almost wonders if those who are divine have a strange sense of humor—what chances that Celestia has decided Alhaitham is your fate, and the Archons have decided that your vision is his match.
Perhaps if your soulmate were anyone else, you might have believed in the divine. You might have even trusted their judgment. You almost wonder if they have made a mistake until you stare at the lines that mark your wrist—and then you know that, however much you want to deny that the divine have power, you cannot.
Aquila. Your mark is the shape of Aquila’s constellation. It is proof enough that Alhaitham is your soulmate just as much as your vision is Electro. There is no denying this truth. You would recognize the constellation in your sleep—a scholar of your caliber from Rtawahist’s darshan would never mistake such a commonly known collection of stars. You have studied the stars for so long. Day after week after month after year, you’ve stared into the sky and wondered if each constellation will guide you to the truth. Your father has always said it would.
You remember it vividly—the first time he’d taught you about the stars and their meanings. Azar was always a doting father. You can still feel the warmth of his arms as he’d sat you on his lap as a child, pointing to the sky and guiding your eager eyes.
That one is Aquila, he’d whispered. But in the Rtawahist, we call it Vultur Volans. It reflects an older astronomical lexicon predating the modernized Aquila, you see.
Well. That one is my favorite, you’d whispered back excitedly. And he’d chuckled—you still shiver when you remember the way it felt. Warm. Safe. Good.
Your father was always good.
And yet, he is sitting in a jail cell with zero contact from the outside world. Even contact from his own daughter requires utmost effort on your part. Official regulatory protocols dictate that you must submit a formal request to the Grand Sage to visit any current prisoners before their trials. Your only options are to follow them—but you don’t expect it to be a yes.
As Acting Grand Sage, Alhaitham alone has the authority to approve or deny any visitation for Azar. No one apart from you will visit Azar—you are the only one who loves him. You know that. You think you may be the only one who even likes him. The thought makes you a little sick.
When you submit your request, you are certain that he will deny you the right to see your father. You think, deep down, you may have just made the submission more to spite him than to visit Azar. But then the reply comes—short, stamped, and neatly folded in an envelope—and his handwriting legibly scrawls: APPROVED.
You can’t decide if you’re relieved by the opportunity or enraged that you were granted his mercy.
But you waste little time. When you arrive, the matra who escort you say nothing. They don’t have to. Sharp eyes and distrustfully downturned lips are something you are growing used to, something you are accepting as yet another piece of your truth. People are not exactly unkind—regardless of where you and Alhaitham stand, he is a hero to the nation, and knowledge of your connection is not uncommon by now. People know better than to mistreat the previous Grand Sage’s daughter for his sins. They know to repay the current Grand Sage’s generosity by extending to you their mercy.
You hate it. All Alhaitham ever seems to offer you is some twisted sense of mercy. Like he is above you. Like his is the one to pass judgment on you while you are helpless to hope it is benevolence. He feels less like your soulmate and more like your superior.
You finally arrive—the door groans open. Metal drags across stone.
And there he is.
Your father is in a jail cell. He is a prisoner. A criminal. A sinner above all. Divinity will not spare him just because he is your father. They see him as nothing more than a blasphemer. Still, you can never see him as anything but your father. Not as the Grand Sage, not as the figure the city whispers about in disbelief and fury, and certainly not as the man whose name has already been stitched into Sumeru’s history as a traitor. Here, in the dim light, he is simply your father.
Azar sits on the narrow bench, hands resting loosely in front of him, posture still and tall. He hasn’t wasted away, you’re relieved to see—of course, it has only been a week, but you cannot help but worry that food and water are not something they spare kindly to a traitor of the Gods. Still, despite being well sustained, something in him looks smaller. His pride, maybe. His dignity. He has always held it tightly, even when you were a child.
You enter, and then his gaze lifts. The hardness drops away at once. His eyes soften—warm and steady and so in love with all of the little fibers of your existence standing in his line of sight. It’s the way his eyes always look when they fall on you. Suddenly, you are a child again. Suddenly, you ache to hold his cuffed hands and look up at the sky once more and hear him speak about the constellations.
But the sky is hidden by stone in his awful prison, and you fear he may never see it ever again. The thought makes your throat constrict, and suddenly every word on your tongue becomes heavy. Like lead. You wonder if you swallow them down, if lead poisoning will consume your bloodstream and kill you. You wonder if you speak them, the bluntness of their force will kill you on impact, too.
Damned if you do. Damned if you don’t. That’s how it feels—so you stay silent.
“Do you eat properly?” He speaks first. “You have always made a habit of skipping meals when you are upset. Who will make sure you drink water now that I am no longer there to notice you are not drinking enough?”
Of course, he breaks the silence first. And of course, it’s to express concern for you, not give you answers. The tears slip down your cheeks like a river washes over stone—unstopping and unthinking. Like a command from the sky, the current does not stop. It does not halt for the world, nor does it slow down for it to catch up. Your tears do not wait for you. They do not slow down in time for you to even decide if they will make an appearance.
Azar is a stain on the cloth that is this nation’s history. You know that.
But Azar is your father. You are his little girl. The blood in his veins is the same retched blood that pumps your heart. You live to a beat of life that was once cradled in his palms. When your legs were not strong enough, his arms carried you through this world, and even when you could stand on your own two feet, those same arms carried away the obstacles from your path and discarded them. No matter the weight, your father bore whatever burden the sky commanded.
How can you abandon a man like that? How can you look away from the face that is a reflection of yours? How can you condemn the eyes that learned the stars for you, so you would never know the struggle of learning every constellation alone?
Your fingers ache to scrub at the stain, to scour it from the fabric, to wash the ugly color out of existence. But your mind knows the truth: no soap, no water, no hand is strong enough to ever clean blood once it’s set.
“You’re asking me if I eat?” You hiss, the words catching on your breath. “They’re saying things, out there. They’re saying you imprisoned our Archon! That you forced the people into dreams and…harvested their energy. That you…that you almost ruined this nation and doomed us all!”
Azar does not move. When you were young, your father was always patient with you. He’d sat through every tantrum, still and calm until the energy it took to misbehave slowly seeped out of you. Only when you grew tired—and only then—would he pick you up and sit you on his lap. His voice would never rise. His hands were never harsh. His eyes were never cold.
Such energy that young body of yours always has. I almost envy it. Will you listen now, my dear?
Yes, father.
He does not move. He sits through every bitter word you throw at him, still and calm now, just as he was all those years ago.
“They’re wrong,” you continue, desperate now, your voice cracking in between pleading syllables. “They have to be wrong. You would never—you couldn’t do that.”
“I could,” he says simply, his voice quiet but firm. “And I did.”
The words feel like a slap to your face.
Your father would never hit you, but it feels like he has struck you with his own hand. Your heart stills, your stomach churns, and for one dizzying moment, you almost laugh. It’s nothing more than a twisted and cruel joke. Your father’s sense of humor has always been a little odd—but he is your father. The man who carried you on his shoulders to see Sumeru’s festival lights, who bought you your first paper book and the colorful sticky notes to annotate within it, who brought home pounds of zaytun peaches because you had briely commented you liked them once, who pointed out constellations and told you their stories so you’d forget the nightmares that frightened the sleep away from your eyes some nights.
“You’re lying to me,” you whisper. Your fingers clutch at your robes, desperate for something to hold onto—you cannot hold his hand. Not when they are cuffed. “You’re just…you’re tired, or you’re confused—yes, that must be it. I see now—they’ve poisoned you against yourself. They are accusing you of someone else’s plot through lies, Father, and you are believing them from your own guilt because you could not have stopped it on your own. You had no choice but to follow along—for your own survival. They may not see that, but I do. Listen to me. You can’t simply give in to what they say.”
Azar chuckles softly, the faintest smile curving his lips. Not cruel, not mocking—only tender. “I see your imagination still runs vividly, my dear. But I fear I am precisely what they say I am,” he tells you, in the same patient tone he once used to explain to your young mind how the stars move across the sky. “The father who loves you more than his own breath and the man who did what was necessary to see his ambitions through. They are two sides of the same coin. They never have been separate.”
Your vision blurs, and you shake your head furiously, but the tears don’t stop. “Stop saying that! Why do you lie? Please. Just…stop. Listen to me,” you beg, “you must tell them—the second of the Fatui harbingers is a terrible man. I have seen his records in the Akademiya, father. He once went by the name of Zandik. If he threatened you into doing his bidding, you have to just be honest—there is no shame in being powerless to a harbinger of Snezhnaya—”
His hand, bound by cuffs, cups your cheek. The rattle of metal sounds so horribly wrong—so sickeningly, nauseatingly wrong. “You are my child—my own flesh and blood. I will never stop loving you,” he says gently. “But I will not lie to you. Not even to soothe you.”
The words may have well ripped away the stars you always believed were hung in the sky by Azar himself. You don’t know what’s worse: the fact that his love has never sounded truer, or that his guilt has never been more absent. You don’t understand it. Cannot process it. It isn’t something he can explain to you patiently this time—how he can allow his love and his sins to coexist with ease when it feels like it tears your flesh straight off of your bones.
“You have consumed forbidden knowledge, haven’t you?” You cry, bordering on hysterics, “It’s caused you to go mad! We can get help. We can move to the desert and live peacefully if you wish—I’ll take care of you. The sky above the desert is the same sky above the Akademiya, I won’t miss this place—I promise! Let’s go, and perhaps your mind will be cleared of all of this nonsense, and we can just forget that any of this has ever even—”
“You are a bright girl,” he interrupts you, “a student I raised, in fact. You know how to find the truth, don’t you?”
You do. You’ve studied the art of truth since before you could even comprehend that there are worlds beyond the sky.
Your father is a criminal. And if, someday, you have children of your own, they will learn of his crimes from the history books. It isn’t a reality you can reverse by spinning the planet backward. There is no undoing this—only moving forward. There is only the future, and what the sky has decided will exist within it.
You will live without your father. And he will rot in a cell. The stars have already decreed it, leaving you no chance to protest. Perhaps even a week ago, you would not have dared to argue with them. It’s funny how one moment can change everything.
“The only truth I know,” you say, blinking through tears as you stand, “is that everything I have ever loved is forever ruined.”
You turn and walk out of the cell, your steps echoing down the corridor. You keep your eyes fixed on the floor, fighting back the sobs clawing their way up your throat. Your vision blurs so completely that you don’t even see the figure ahead until you collide with it. Skin meets skin—and it’s warm, grounding. Suddenly, the ache inside you disappears. For one fleeting second, breathing feels easy again.
Then you look up and see him. And you wish you could stop breathing altogether.
“You’re crying,” he murmurs. Alhaitham is ever the sharp mind—sharper than most in all of Sumeru’s Akademiya—and yet, he is somehow capable of saying something so painfully useless.
“Shocked, are we?” you smile thinly, pulling away from his hands, which have caught your waist to steady you. “Perhaps if you had a little love in your heart, you’d understand why.”
“I understand perfectly well why you cry for him,” he says plainly. “It’s just that he doesn’t deserve tears from someone he’s betrayed.”
“Why did you do it?” Your lips quiver. You search his eyes for answers as though they will tell you before himself—you wonder why you do when he is so cold. Blunt. He would tell you his answer even if you did not want to hear it for yourself. “Why did you take him from me?”
“Do you think you’d be spared from the version of Sumeru he was trying to build?” He raises a brow. Alhaitham is so, so cold, you think—so harsh and cruel with the way he holds a mirror up to your face and forces you to see the truth. How can you bear to look into a mirror ever again? How can you bear to see your eyes and remember they are the same eyes of your father?“Do you really think you’d find happiness in the world he wanted to create? You’d rather he take your life with him?”
“Don’t speak to me about what I would and wouldn’t want as if you know me,” you hiss.
“I know enough,” he says, gaze steady as it bores into you. “You’re my counterpart. I know that whoever I’m bound to by fate could never be someone so different from me. If you weren’t blinded by the fact that he’s your father, would our views really be so far apart?”
“I am not blinded by anything!” you poke a finger into his chest, “if I was, the only thing I would be blinded by is the horror of Celestia mocking me with you and…and that face of yours that haunts me everywhere!”
“And what? You think you haunt me any less?” he fires back—you realize now that you have only ever seen an Alhaitham that is patient. An Alhaitham who has lost his patience minces his words even less. “You think it’s easy to see your face every time I close my eyes? Your face that so closely resembles his? The man that nearly cost me everything I’ve worked for—my position, my achievements, my peace? You really think I believe someone like you—someone who is as capable and intelligent—can be this naive? You’re not suffering because of me. You’re suffering because you ignored the truth long before I ever spoke it out loud.”
You freeze. Your fingers tremble as you grab his shirt and yank him closer until your faces are level, your jaw set. “What do you mean?” you ask, low and dangerous. “What exactly are you accusing me of, you absolute lunatic? Has that knowledge capsule you touched rewired your brain completely?”
“Why do you think the Matra haven’t questioned you?” he fires back, voice firm but level. “As his daughter, you’d be a prime suspect for conspiracy. You studied under the same Darshan. You really think the General Mahamatra overlooks that kind of detail? Who do you think cleared you? Who made sure your name never appeared in the reports when documents detailing Azar’s plans were found in your own home? You expect me to believe that, for months, you never once suspected something was wrong? That you didn’t see it, or worse—you did, and you dismissed it? You think so little of your own father’s intelligence—that he wouldn’t tell me himself that you were innocent? You really think that he was never aware of your doubts that you shoved down blindly from loyalty, and that he wouldn’t beg me to spare you? He did. And I believed him enough to keep you out of all of his crimes. I have done everything I can to help you keep a shred of your dignity and your life as you know it, so that his mistakes don’t cost you. You think I would purposely ruin things for you? You think so little of me?”
“So what?” you whisper, voice shaking as you glare at him. “What…what is it you want? For me to thank you? To thank you for letting me exist at your mercy and witness how generous you are? Is that it? Is that what you want from telling me this?”
“No.” His jaw tightens, the muscle ticking beneath his skin. “I want you to finally see things for what they are, and stop letting your emotions cloud your judgment—”
“So now I’m too emotional?” You laugh, a sharp, broken little sound. “Forgive me, Grand Sage—perhaps being orphaned so young has left you with little knowledge of what it means to be loved, but I have the privilege of understanding exactly what that means. You’d never understand the agony of watching someone you love be subjected to this fate.”
He stills. His shoulders go rigid, the tension in his jaw almost visible.
Too far—your mind screams in sync with your heart. Too far. For a fleeting moment, you almost think you can feel the pain in his chest as if it were your own.
“You have no idea,” he says lowly, his voice laced with a venom you’ve never heard from someone so composed, “what you’re saying. My parents’ status hardly means I know nothing about love—you’d do well to remember that.”
“Or what? You’ll throw me in jail along with my father, is that it? Use that high authority of yours over my head?”
“Funny of you to lecture me about love,” he snaps, “when all you seem to think with is that blinding hatred of yours. I’ve waited so long to find you—did you know that? Since the day I was orphaned and stripped of that love you seem to think I know nothing of, I always dreamt of finding you—just what luck it would be that the one meant to love me would make it seem like such a rotten task.”
He grabs your wrists, prying your hands off his shirt and stepping back. Even now, the motion is painfully gentle—too careful for how sharp his words sound. Then he turns abruptly, boots bluntly pressing against the stone floor as he walks away one step at a time.
You stand frozen for a moment before rushing after him, the echo of your steps chasing his. “I’m not done speaking to you,” you call, practically jogging to keep up with his long strides.
“I am,” he says flatly, not slowing. “I have a meeting to prepare for.”
“I’m sure you can afford a few moments—”
“I can’t.”
“Well, too bad,” you snap, breathless. “You’ll have to find some way, because—”
He stops suddenly and turns. Before you can react, his hand wraps around your wrist again—not harsh, but firm enough that you stumble closer. “You are maddening.”
“Well,” you say stubbornly, “I suppose it’s no wonder we’re bound to each other because you’re the exact same way.”
“Fine then,” he rolls his eyes. He turns, dragging you along with him, “Then you can say what you need to say somewhere private,” he mutters, low enough that only you can hear. His eyes flick briefly toward the guards stationed down the hall.
He doesn’t wait for you to reply. You follow him (without a choice, considering the way his hand pulls you along) through the corridors in silence, your pulse still hammering from the searing heat of his touch. When he pushes open the heavy door to his office and steps aside for you to enter first, you realize that despite it all, Alhaitham is a gentleman. Painstakingly so.
He looks at you expectantly, still so stiff in his posture as he crosses his arms and leans his back against the door. Probably so no one tries to come in, you think to yourself.
“Whatever it is you have to say, best make it quick,” he grunts. “I’m a busy man these days—against my will, if I might add.”
You roll your eyes, scowling. “I’m sorry about that comment,” you mutter. “It was cruel.”
“You’re apologizing?” His brows lift in genuine bewilderment.
You scowl deeper. “Say what you will about Azar, but he raised me with proper manners. I’m hardly above apologizing when I should.”
He studies you for a moment, then nods slowly. “Well…I appreciate it.”
“What exactly is it that’s suspected of me?” you ask bluntly, meeting his eyes. “I want to know.”
Alhaitham sighs, shoulders relaxing. “It’s not that your innocence was ever in question—Cyno and I both agreed that if you were involved, you’d have been more of an obstacle during our plan. But ignoring you in any investigation entirely would’ve been foolish. Your father agreed to cooperate during questioning if you were cleared, so I looked into you myself.”
“And what did you find?” you press.
“Like I said,” he waves a hand, “you’re innocence was never a matter of debate. Whether or not you suspected your father before the rest of us and stayed silent…that’s another matter. One I’d rather not get into the ethics of.”
“I knew he was collaborating with the Fatui,” you whisper. “I saw…letters.”
He raises a brow.
You exhale shakily. “That’s all I knew. And I suppose not digging deeper was my mistake. Maybe I could have talked sense into him. I thought it was about money—or maybe knowledge. The man he dealt with was the second of the Harbingers from Snezhnaya. A man once called Zandik, and a former scholar here at the Akademiya. I read the reports—not that I was supposed to, but I did. I assumed Father’s hunger for discovery had just led him into questionable company. I never thought it would…” your voice falters.
“You would never have changed his mind,” Alhaitham says quietly.
You glance up at him, too tired to be offended. “Ah, is that what you think?” you ask bitterly.
“It’s what I know,” he replies. “If love for his daughter had been enough, he wouldn’t have risked everything in the first place.”
“So the problem was that he didn’t love me enough,” you say, laughing without humor.
“The problem,” he corrects evenly, “is that he loved his ambition most. Enough to let it consume him. No amount of love for you could have undone that. If it’s any solace, I think he would’ve regretted it—eventually. For your sake, more than his.”
“Wow,” you sniffle, voice flat. “I’m comforted.”
“Then I’m relieved,” he hums. “I’m not great at comforting. Means I’m doing something right.”
“Listen, Alhaitham,” you say tiredly, meeting his eyes for the first time without malice. His gaze softens the moment he sees your expression. But even then, you don’t soften the blow of what comes next. “The divine may have bound us together, but it’s clear to me that we’ll never make this work. Not when something so much bigger than us stands in the way.”
His eyes flicker—confusion, betrayal, anger, sadness. And something else you can’t quite name.
“How can you be so sure—”
“I’m not,” you cut in softly. “I just know that I’m tired. I need to make sense of what’s left of my life, and to do that, I have to stop living inside this…mess. You’re a constant reminder of everything I’m trying to move past. I think it’s better if we keep our distance.”
“I disagree,” he says quietly. You close your eyes. “But if that’s what you want, I’m not really in a position to argue.”
“Thank you,” you whisper.
With that, you leave his office. The skin of your mark burns as soon as you put distance between you, but you force your feet in front of each other with every step.
────────────────────────
Grandmother had told Alhaitham once, when he was young, that his parents were lucky with their fate. He’d thought her to be crazy at the time. What was so lucky about dying so young? Of leaving their only son behind before even watching him grow?
The answer became clear when he was a little older. Dying alongside your soulmate, he’d realized, is mercy. He had seen the way Grandmother would clutch her wrist; he had seen the way she would rub at the skin when she thought he wasn’t looking. His mother and father were fortunate—sure, they never witnessed their son grow, and yes, they never accomplished all the things they had dreamt as scholars. But they had each other for the entirety of their life spans since the day their paths crossed.
Grandmother was right. There is no fate that is more fortunate than that.
Alhaitham wonders if he is the most unfortunate individual to exist—how can it be that the same mother and father who were so lucky in their time had produced a son with such terrible luck himself? How can it be that with a soulmate so alive and healthy and near as his, he is still fated to the reality that he will never have you by his side?
Even a mind as brilliant as his cannot come up with any explanation for it. And it seems the more he would like to forget you—forget everything, the more you pop into his mind. Even in his dreams, you show up, haunting him and haunting every part of his mind and soul and body.
You’re soft. Alhaitham is overwhelmed by how soft you are.
Your lips are delicate, your skin is pillowy under his touch, and something about the way you touch him back is just as gentle, too. Your walls are soft as well—despite being as tight as they are, they’re warm and velvety, and they squeeze around his swollen cock so well.
“H-haitham,” you breathe, “please, Haitham—I need more. Please, baby.”
He shivers twice. Once because you call him Haitham, and a second time because you call him baby. He feels a third shiver creep over his spine when he realizes how much he likes your voice when it calls him sweet things like that.
Like a bee, you trickle honey onto his tongue—it’s warm and saccharine and addicting. He tastes it and wants to get closer. Nearer. He wants to feel you so deeply in his system, he would happily mistake the stinger and its venom for your love and your affection.
“Call me that again,” he pleads.
“What?” you smile, cupping his cheek tenderly, “baby? You are, you know—my baby.”
“You’re…you’re so soft,” he pants, groaning as his hips rut into you with a punishing pace—he can’t stop. More. More. More. That’s all he can think. He wants more. More of you and more of your existence bleeding into his. “Fuck, you feel so good.”
“So full, Haitham,” you sob, whining as the thick, blunt head of his cock presses against the sensitive part in the back of your walls. You squeeze around him, and he lets out a helpless moan.
It’s good—it’s so painfully good, and he’s so close, and the pressure in his lower belly feels so close to snapping. There’s an ache that’s building between his legs, right where he connects with you in between yours. A vulnerable place that only you can get close to, where he lets you make him ache.
He’s close. So are you. One more roll of his hips and—
—Alhaitham wakes with a start, his breath caught somewhere between a hitch and a curse. The sheets cling damp to his skin—heat is still crawling through his chest, his pulse hammering like he’s run miles through desert ruins to escape them as their walls close in on him. He almost wishes they had. He almost wishes he were in them right now, and that they’d collapsed on him and taken him down for good under the rubble.
Your voice still rings in his ears—soft, broken, begging. Since when has Alhaitham cared for the sound of your voice begging? He can still feel your hands on him, warm and desperate, the vision so vivid that he can still feel the phantom weight of your touch on his skin. And worse, he realizes, is that he had enjoyed it. Every second of his dream, he’d had his lips on you—on your own lips, on the slant of your jaw, against your throat. Every second of his dream, his hands were digging into your hips as if you were the only thing keeping him alive.
He drags a hand over his face, forcing the images back into the dark where they belong. But the ache low in his body betrays him, straining against the slightly damp fabric of his boxers.
Fuck.
It’s that mark. It has to be. He doesn’t lust over you this way, and the overwhelming truth is that he doesn’t even know you like that. There is no way Alhaitham can be this turned on by a stupid, fleeting image of you under him in his head—he hasn’t even seen you in days. But he supposes that only hurts his case—the longer the days go by without seeing you, the more restless the mark on his wrist has been. The divine must have it out for him. They force you into his senses, into his veins, into his dreams, into his fucking mind, deep in the smallest crevices until even his own body turns into a traitor.
There’s a twitch in his boxers. He covers his eyes with his hand and scrunches them shut with a frustrated groan—this is not a problem that will go away. Alhaitham knows this. He knows that if he gets up and forces himself into a cold shower and somehow manages to evade this problem now, it will only haunt him in his mind again. Even worse, he might just get a vivid image flash in his head in the middle of his work day and make his pants uncomfortably tight—tighter than they already are, that is.
So, with utmost reluctance, he caves.
Slowly, a hand wanders down his chest. It caresses the warm, sweaty skin. He tries to imagine the touch as yours—it’s a sickening thought that if he were a bit more coherent at the moment, he’d be horrified by. Your fingers would be less calloused, of course, but he doesn’t take too much time to linger on that thought.
“Fuck,” he whispers. “Fuck, you’re a headache,” he curses to himself. He’s right. You are. You make his worst migraine possible.
His finger circles a nipple gently, and he lets out a low hum of approval at the feeling. He wonders if you’d appreciate his physique—the planes of hard-earned muscle, the sharp contours carved from years of disciplined training, the toned definition written into every line of his body.
You’re pretty, Haitham, he can imagine you saying. He wants to hear you say it. He feels a little nauseous.
“Don’t tease,” he grits, “we don’t have time for that.”
You don’t care for your job enough to stress over being late—you’re busy against your will, remember? Don’t pretend you care now, he pictures you giggling in response. And you would be right. He doesn’t particularly care for his position. But he has a responsibility for the Akademiya.
His hand reaches for the waistband of his boxers, pulling them down swiftly and kicking them off under his sheets somewhere. He’ll worry about them later—for now, he worries about the thick, strained cock that falls heavy against his lower abdomen.
“You’re insane,” he mumbles, wrapping his hand around his cock and squeezing lightly as he feels a sharp, fleeting pressure of ecstasy run along his length. “You drive me insane.”
Then don’t go insane, he thinks you’d say. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, you know—you’re the one who keeps letting this happen, Haitham.
“You do this to me,” he whispers, arguing back, “it’s your fault.”
That’s rather mean, Haitham. You blame me for everything.
“I don’t,” he breathes—and then his hand strokes his girth. “If anything, you blame me.”
He gasps, eyes fluttering shut as his head falls further back against his pillow. The sheets cover his shame, yet he still feels unbearably bare and open and vulnerable. Touching himself isn’t something new—Alhaitham is like every other human, no matter how much he clings to logic and reason to guide his choices. Granting himself a moment of pleasure is nothing foreign, even if it is rare, given how busy he is.
But touching himself to the thought of you feels like he’s sinning, even when all he really is doing is giving into the fate divinity has designated for him. Perhaps they had always designed him to be in hell.
“Fuck, baby,” he moans, repeating your sweet, affectionate name for him back to you—like you can hear him if he speaks to the air and trusts it to carry the words over to you. “L-like that.”
You like it when I touch you this way, don’t you, Haitham? You’d ask.
“Yes, fuck,” he hisses. Filthy. You make him so filthy with the words he spills on his tongue. “It…it feels good.”
I know, you’d coo, I like it when my Haitham feels good. Because of me.
“Yours,” he agrees, letting out a raspy groan as he tightens his grip and strokes himself faster, feeling the familiar build up in his lower belly as the ache between his legs intensifies, “your Haitham,” he breathes.
My Haitham, he can hear you soothe, all mine. You were made for me, weren’t you? Made to be my love. I love you, Alhaitham.
He cums as soon as he hears you whisper those delicate words in the fragile existence of his subconscious. That place that exists but doesn’t all at once. That place that he can escape to, but never really go as he wishes. He gasps, letting out a quiet whimper as thick ropes of cum spill into his hand and coat his abdomen with heavy twitches of his cock—he tries to imitate how he thinks you’d touch him through his high.
Maybe you’d slow down, teasing him as he bucks into your hand with a frustrated huff. Or maybe you’d quicken your pace, stroking him faster so he’d have no choice but to be at your mercy. (It doesn’t matter, really—he’ll never find out, he’s sure. So he might as well run through every possibility himself and settle on what he likes best as the closest he’ll get to having you.)
Finally, when he slumps against his mattress as he finishes, limbs feeling heavy and tired, he stares up at his ceiling and lets out a shaky sigh as he feels his own erection soften in his grip.
“Same dream again,” he scoffs to himself, rubbing his clean hand over his face tiredly, “you’re depraved, you fool. And you only have yourself to blame—Sumeru dreams again because of your own flawless plan.”
He lies there, wallowing in his own misery and self-pity for a moment before a thought strikes him:
Alhaitham is a linguist. He studies the art of language—its history, its structure, the delicate logic that binds meaning to form. And if anyone knows how to put words together in the language he’s most fluent in, it’s him. He sits up immediately to get to work—and then he is reminded of the shameless mess he’s made and groans. (After this is cleaned, he thinks, after this display of lewdness is cleaned, will be the start of his careful plan.)
So it begins—one letter at a time, he gives you distance. Because physically, as much distance as you ask for within the walls of Sumeru City, Alhaitham will grant it. But linguistically, there is no distance you can create that he will not find a way to close.
—————
Week One:
To you,
I don’t expect a reply. In truth, I don’t even know what I hope to accomplish by writing this. Perhaps it’s a habit I can’t unlearn—the impulse to record, to make sense of what cannot be reasoned aloud by writing them on parchment. Or perhaps it’s because words have always been my preferred method of thinking, and you have become something I cannot stop thinking about.
You told me that space would be most beneficial. I’ve been trying to respect that. I keep my distance. I let you pass without a word, and I make sure my presence doesn’t reach you unless absolutely necessary. Yet language does not abide by the same rules as distance. Even now, as far as I am from you, I find myself turning my thoughts of you into sentences, as if the act of forming them could bring me clarity. It hasn’t.
I used to believe that words were easy tools meant to define—simple to wield as long as one abided by their rules, like grammar. Then you happened, and suddenly, every word I knew became insufficient. It no longer feels easy to use words. I don’t know what to call this feeling. Perhaps there isn’t a word for it yet.
What I do know is that I’ll write. One letter at a time. Not to persuade you of anything, but to preserve these thoughts before they’re lost to distance. Perhaps, along the way, I’ll find the right word for this state of mind you’ve put me in.
— Alhaitham
—————
Week Two:
To you,
Another uneventful day, though I suppose “uneventful” is a luxury in the current state of the Akademiya. Meetings have multiplied ever since I transitioned into leadership. Half of them could be replaced by a single well-written report, but apparently, no one else sees it that way.
The Dendro Archon insists I attend, so I do. I listen, I make my notes, and I watch as words—our supposed instruments of precision—are thrown about carelessly, stripped of meaning by overuse. It makes me wonder how many things in life lose their truth simply because they’re spoken too often. Perhaps feelings are the same. Perhaps it’s better that I don’t speak mine aloud.
Today, someone used the word corrupt during a discussion about administrative reforms. They said it as though it were an objective diagnosis, a simple matter of right and wrong. No context. No nuance. They did not give me a proper explanation for why they came to use that word when I pressed. It bothered me more than I expected. Words like that should be used with care, or they’ll become too easily bent by whoever speaks them.
It made me think about how language fails us when we use it without precision—and how I fail at it, too, when I try to speak about you. I’m still searching for the right word for what you make me feel. Something that isn’t dulled or watered down by overuse. There must be one. It just hasn’t presented itself yet.
So give me time. I’ll find it. Studying words is what I do best, after all.
— Yours, Alhaitham
—————
Week Three:
To you,
I find my days are increasingly occupied by bothersome interactions, though I suppose that is hardly surprising given my current position. Meetings, receptions, consultations—each demands a performance of attentiveness I must forcefully will myself to demonstrate. I am expected to navigate pleasantries, offer guidance, and answer questions I hardly consider worth any depth. It’s exhausting.
Social interactions in a professional capacity, in theory, should not require this much effort. Yet the expectations that are considered proper, such as tone, phrase, and posture, are disproportionately taxing. I suspect that those who set up these standards for the workplace hardly used their intellect when creating the framework for how we conduct ourselves.
Luckily, when I find myself drained, I can seek clarity by writing to you. Perhaps it is because no pretense is required. No careful phrasing to appease or persuade.
And yes, I am still searching for a word for how you make me feel. Even amidst these endless meetings, my thoughts drift inevitably to you. In one of the manuscripts I reviewed today, I stumbled across an archaic word: eunoia. It means beautiful thinking; a well-minded state. For a moment, I thought perhaps this is the word for what you make me feel—a state where every thought in my head is serene and filled with clarity. It then occurred to me that this would hardly be a fitting word—for all the clarity you might bring me, you are also the only person who manages to turn my mind into a hazy, unclear place. I hardly recognize myself when I think of you for too long.
So I continue my search, hoping that someday I will find the word capable of holding the entirety of this state you put me in.
— Yours, whether you will have me or not, Alhaitham
—————
Week Four:
To you,
I spent the last few days in the rainforest—an inspection trip to ensure the withering is no longer a threat. The humidity there was constant, draining enough to make even thinking a tiresome task. And yet, I found myself thinking more than usual.
In the thick of Apam Woods, I saw several kalpalata lotuses. I’ve heard they’re your favorite. The cliffs that they grow along make for a good contrast, blue and green against a pale grey. They’re said to be the origin of all plant life in Sumeru—the beginning from which everything else grew. I suppose that’s poetic, though I’ve never been one for mythic explanations. Still, I couldn’t help but think that if such explanations were real, every branch and every leaf in Sumeru traces back to the roots of a kalpalata lotus.
Every thought I have seems to trace back to you in much the same way.
I’ve had no luck with a word this week. I thought perhaps the change of scenery might help, but nothing suitable presented itself. Maybe the right term won’t come from research or inspiration at all. Maybe it will reveal itself gradually. Until then, I’ll keep searching.
— Yours, if you would honor me with the pleasure, Alhaitham
—————
Week Five:
To you,
I’ve spent the past week cataloging old star charts because I know the stars are what you love most—Aquila’s constellation among them. You’re already aware that the Rtawahist tend to call that constellation Vultur Volans, and you’ve certainly seen it in the night sky. I used to admire its symmetry as a child, as my grandmother had taught me to search for it when I could not sleep on restless nights. Now I can’t look at it in the sky without thinking of the shared version of it burned into our skin.
I’ve never been one to seek meaning from the divine. I believe in consequence, not providence. Yet even I can’t help but wonder what sort of irony governs a world where the person I was fated for is the daughter of the man whose corruption I exposed. There are moments when I think fate must be a cruel scholar, concluding at the expense of those bound within its margins. If it is you with whom I am bound to the margins, then I would not choose to escape them despite the flaws of this design. If you were to ask me whether I regret it, I would say I don’t. Justice doesn’t become less rightful simply because it brings pain. But I wish, more than anything, that it hadn’t been you who had to bear its cost.
I’ve finally found the word—or rather, two. You are familiar with them, I am sure. I know amongst the scholars of Rtawahist, you are one of the most brilliant—a star right here on the ground that I can witness without reaching the sky. The words are aphelion and perihelion: the points in an orbit when one is farthest from, and closest to, the sun. That’s what you’ve become to me: both distance and nearness. Cold and warmth. The center forcefield and the reason I keep moving. Whether you grant me the closest or farthest point of your light, I will always orbit around you. It is in my nature to do so, and it will never stop at any point in time.
If the divine truly intended for our paths to cross, perhaps it was not to bind us together, but to teach me that even a life governed by logic is still vulnerable to gravity. If it is you who will pull me down, then I will choose to fall, no matter the force that will shatter me as I meet the ground.
— Yours, happily so in every world, Alhaitham
────────────────────────
The letters come every week.
Every Monday morning, without fail, a new envelope waits at your door—your name written in Alhaitham’s impeccable handwriting. The calligraphy is always deliberate and elegant, not a single word crossed out, not a single stroke shaky. He is good with words—you’ll give him that much. Week by week, letter by letter, word by word, he carves his way into your heart. You knew he would. You always knew that not falling for Alhaitham was an impossible task. Not because fate demanded it, but because he had been right that day.
Without your father to blind you, you are not so different from him after all.
You read every letter. You drink in every word. You smile when he complains, and you roll your eyes when he’s predictable. You tear up when he thinks of you, and your lips tremble when he reminds you that as long as he can use words as his tools, you will never truly be free of him. You will never truly be alone.
By Sunday afternoon, the day before the sixth letter is due, you decide to pay him a visit.
You knock on his door. When he opens it, he blinks at you in disbelief, eyes flicking from your face to the world behind you as if to make sure this isn’t a hallucination. You blink back. For a moment, the world tilts on its axis the way it always does around him—gravity somehow always shifts and changes, tugging you closer to the ground when he’s near. Like you’re falling.
“You’re…here?” he breathes.
“Hello to you, too,” you snort quietly. “Proper etiquette is to invite guests in. Especially when they happen to be your soulmate.”
“Ah, well,” he says, a faint smile tugging at his lips. “In my defense, my soulmate happens to despise me. That complicates things, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t despise you,” you whisper. “We can talk about that. When you let me in—which you still haven’t done.”
He flushes, coughing as he hurriedly steps aside. “Right. Come in.”
You smile at that. He’s endearing—infuriatingly so. When he isn’t sending your father to prison or dismantling everything you once knew, he is so painfully endearing. And, of course, no one else would see it. You’re sure only you could ever find someone like Alhaitham endearing. Most people at the Akademiya certainly don’t.
When you’re both seated in his living room, opposite ends of the same couch, you whisper, “Thank you. For the letters, I mean. They…made me feel less lonely.”
“Of course,” he says quietly. “Though, I’ll admit, I had some selfish reasons for sending them. But I’m glad they helped. I know the last few weeks haven’t been easy for you.”
“Well,” you manage a tight smile, “Father writes to me too. I’ve come to terms with the fact that he’s responsible for his own actions—it only took a month, huh?”
“It’s not wrong to have faith in people you love,” he says after a pause. “Maybe not to the point where it blinds you, but…it’s not my place to tell you how to come to terms with betrayal.”
You huff a quiet laugh. “You always sound so detached when you say things like that.”
“Detached,” he repeats. “Maybe. Maybe I am—maybe I’m not as rational as I like to think I am.”
“No,” you whisper, “no, if anyone is irrational, it’s me. The facts were always there—I just chose not to see them. You saved Sumeru—and me, by extension, and I gave you a hard time for it.”
“I didn’t save Sumeru because I’m a generous person,” he says quietly. “I did it because there is an order to everything that should be maintained…and I don’t value imbalance to that order. It’s…it’s not about playing a hero.”
“Yes,” you crack a smile, “I forget that being generous is not a fit for that cold image of yours.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he grumbles. You giggle—he lets loose a small, barely-there grin. “I suppose Sumeru’s best interest is not something I stay ignorant of,” he finally admits. “But I’m sure that isn’t why you’re here, either.”
“It’s not,” you agree. “You’ve been writing to me. All this time.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He blinks, startled by the question, as if he can’t understand why you would ask. “Because you asked me to stay away. And I told myself I would respect that. But contact does not have to mean the absence of distance—I wanted to contact you.”
You laugh bitterly, shaking your head as you glance down at your lap. “You shouldn’t have had to do that. If I were worthy of that effort, you wouldn’t have had to fight distance in the first place.”
“I wanted to,” he says simply. “You were the one who needed distance. I didn’t fault you for that. You are worth fighting distance—to me, you are.”
Tears sting your eyes at his words. Alhaitham is good with words. You don’t think it’s because he studies them, though—you think it’s because deep down, he’s a gentle soul that was made to be patient with you. To learn you and what you need when you are unsure of it yourself. To be easy when you are difficult. You know why Alhaitham is your other half—it isn’t just because the divine have said so. It’s because the stars will always guide you to him. It’s because no matter where you are, there is always a way back to him.
He is always waiting for you. Always watching for you. Always searching for you.
You press your lips together. “I didn’t want you far because I hated you,” you murmur. “It was because being near you made it harder to accept that things…were changing. I thought being away from you would make losing my father easier.”
He studies you quietly, his voice soft, “Did it?”
“No.”
A breath escapes him—half sigh, half laugh. “So you continued, why? To punish me for the hell of it, huh? You really are something else.”
You know it’s a joke—still, for old time’s sake, you glare weakly. “Be quiet.”
He smiles fondly. “I knew it would be worth it if I’d waited. That one day, you’d come to me on your own terms. Even if it took months. Even if it took years. I would happily wait.”
“Why aren’t you mad at me?”
“Because you’re here now,” he says—like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “I knew it wouldn’t help to stay apart, but I knew I could never say no to what you wanted. And…I knew we’d never manage to do it for long. You’d have found your way back to me just as I would you. It’s just how things go—the nature of this world. You and I finding each other is in our nature.”
“I wanted to come find you after the first letter.”
“Why didn’t you?” he raises a brow—he almost looks a little hurt.
“Because I was scared,” you laugh—there’s no humor in it. Only a choked sob. Only a tear that runs down your cheek as his eyes quickly change to soften for you. “If I came, what if you decided I was just…too much? And then you hated Celestia for deciding to bind me to you? And then you hated me? And then no one would love me ever again—”
“You really are something else,” he snorts, grabbing you by the wrist and tugging you against his firm chest. It’s warm. Alhaitham is warm. You never want to be cold ever again. For the first time since you arrived, his composure completely slips. His fingers curl into your shirt as his voice cracks and he pleads, “Don’t go again. I’ll never hate you if you never leave.”
“I’ll never leave if you never hate me,” you sniffle.
“I should have known you’d be stubborn,” he playfully pokes your ribs, pressing a kiss to the crown of your head. “Using my own promise against me.”
“I believe it’s because we’re cut from the same cloth or something like that—that’s what they say about soulmates, don’t they?”
“Who knows,” he snorts, “I don’t waste my time reading hopeful fantasies.”
“Yes,” you let out a watery laugh. He wraps his arms around you tighter at the sound. “You took your time reading up to expand your vocabulary, instead. Like a hopeful romantic.”
“You took your sweet time coming to me,” he murmurs, chuckling. “What else could I do with my time?”
You hum. “I suppose I did. And you waited.”
“I would have kept waiting.”
You swallow hard. Then, your hand reaches up, cupping his cheek and making his breath hitch. “You don’t have to wait anymore.”
“Is that so?” he glances at you, amused. Hopeful. Affectionate. There’s love in there, too, in those eyes of his—you see it just as much as you feel it. You don’t know everything there is to know about him yet. You don’t know his pain and his joy and the things he keeps hidden away to keep himself safe. You don’t know what he likes to eat and what he doesn’t. What his favorite genre is to read (though you can guess), and what he hated learning most when he was a student.
But you know you’ll love him. The stars told you so. And you’ll listen—you always do when they show you the truth.
“Are you happy it’s me?” you murmur, gripping his shirt and pulling him closer. His lips hover over yours, and your breath fans across his mouth. He inhales sharply. “Be honest—would you swap soulmates if you could?”
“Never,” he grins, “I could never hand over such a headache to anyone else. It would be unethical.”
“Huh?” you gasp, “where went all your sweet, fancy words? This is not the Alhaitham I came looking for—my letters promised me a very different version.”
“Can you really call yourself my soulmate if you don’t like all versions of me equally?” he hums. And then he leans in, breaking the distance and kissing you. And you wonder, genuinely wonder, how you could have gone so long without ever feeling his lips on yours. Without ever feeling him against you and completing you this way. “I would never exchange you for anything,” he breathes against your lips, “never. Gravity will always pull me to your maddening charm, you see.”
“You must love being insulted then,” you giggle, pecking his lips, “because that is all I’ve done for, hm…let’s see, ninety percent of our interactions.”
“Do you take it all back?” he pouts playfully, shifting you onto his lap, your legs straddling his waist as his hands roam along your hips. He kisses your jaw, and you close your eyes, humming as you pretend to think about it. “I’m sure you do. You’ve probably realized I’m a catch.”
“The lazy, antisocial scholar who has a reputation for being difficult to get along with,” you think out loud, “let me see—hm, no, I don’t see what catch you’re referring to.”
“How shallow,” he accuses, “basing your assessment on rumors.”
“Actually,” you murmur, cupping his cheeks and cradling his face as you admire it (he’s handsome. You’ve never given it proper thought, but Alhaitham is the most handsome man you have met. Another infuriating advantage he has.) “I have the object of these rumors right here—no one will know if they’re true or not better than me.”
“Yes,” he breathes, “no one will know me better than you. If you’ll have me.”
“I would always have you,” you press a soft kiss to his nose, “you know that, don’t you?”
“I do now.”
And then he kisses you again. Harder. Needier. He kisses you like he’s been deprived of all that he’s been searching for in this life. Like he’s been denied his rights to his peace. Like he’s lost every path that leads him home. You kiss him back. Like he is the answer to every prayer you’ve ever whispered. Like he is the last thing you have left to anchor you. Like he is the only thing that’s truly yours in this world.
It’s a blur from there—wandering hands, hiked up shirts, searing touches. His shirt comes off, and then so does yours. His belt is unbuckled, and your waistband is tugged down. Your fingers trace over the hard planes of his abs, and his fingers trace the plush skin of your inner thighs.
“I want you,” he pants, whispering the words between slow, open-mouthed kisses. “Is…is that okay? It doesn’t have to be—we don’t have to—”
“More than okay,” you breathe. In fact, you add soft, pleading, “want you too.”
He groans, reaching to shove your panties aside to press his fingers into your wet cunt. He takes in the view—dark green fabric dampened by your essence and painted even darker. He grins.
“Did you wear this to see me? Knew it was my favorite color?”
You swat at his shoulder, glaring as he chuckles. “No, you lunatic! I wore these for myself because they happened to be the f-first….oh…”
You trail off, gasping as his fingertips brush against a sensitive spot along your walls, curling into you perfectly despite never feeling your body before this. You whimper, nails digging into his shoulders as he studies your face.
“Seems like I found it,” he hums in satisfaction, “that’s where you want me, is it?”
You glare at him in horror. “How lewd! Your mouth looks a lot better when you silence it, you know!”
“Why not help me with that, then,” he hums, “if you’d like to see it that way so badly.”
You do. You silence him with a kiss as much as he drinks in your soft moans while his fingers work their way into you. In and out. In and out. They stretch you open as they curl and scissor their way into you and glide against your warm, wet walls. You like the friction. His fingers are thicker and longer than yours—they reach parts you never thought about reaching. He fits you and completes you in a way that feels intentional. Like there is a reason why he is bound to you as part of what makes you whole.
“H-Haitham,” you pant—he pauses. His fingers still and his eyes widen for a fraction of a second, and you almost feel like you should apologize based on his reaction until his fingers slam against you with a faster pace, brushing harder against that spongy spot. With more force. More cause.
“Say that again—fuck, say that again, please,” he hisses.
“Haitham,” you whine, “so…so close.”
“Yeah? Are you?” he groans, “then cum. Cum for me, my beautiful girl.”
You do. You feel the way your walls constrict and tighten around his fingers—almost making them impossible to move, but he thrusts them into you anyway, working you through your orgasm. Your head falls to his shoulder, teeth biting the smooth skin as you mewl at the pleasure that ripples through your body—a leaf disrupting the calm still of of water and sending waves along the surface.
You slump against his chest as he slips his fingers out, panting for a few moments before you shimmy out of your soiled underwear and shift—the wet heat of your cunt grinds against his leaking tip.
“Fuck,” he curses, gritting his jaw.
It takes only a moment of thought before he wraps his arms around you and stands, carrying you to his bedroom and carefully laying you against his bed. You stare up at him, skin flushed with sweat and marks from his lips, and he feels his cock twitch at the sight alone.
“Haitham,” you breathe, wrapping your arms and pulling him down so that your lips barely touch, “fuck me—please.”
He closes his eyes and lets out a shuddering breath before he rummages through the bottom drawer of his nightstand. You watch with dilated pupils as he slides a condom over the thick girth of his cock, groaning at the friction before wrapping his hand around the base of his length. He guides himself to your entrance, panting roughly as he asks in a low, raspy voice, “Ready?”
“Yeah,” you breathe, “please.”
He pushes the first few inches of his tips past your folds—lets you pull him into a searing kiss as you gasp into his mouth and whine. He’s thick. Thicker than anything you’ve ever taken. You feel the burn of the stretch, and he’s not even fully in you yet.
“S-so big,” you whimper.
“You can tell me to stop,” he says softly, “promise. I’ll still be happy, okay? I’m happy with anything as long as it’s you. You’ll tell me if it’s too much, right?”
You nod. But your eyes are stubborn when they open, and he lets out an amused, defeated sigh. “I want it, you know.”
“I know you do,” he kisses your pout, “my stubborn girl.”
You angle your hips upwards before he can say anything else, taking the rest of him in with a quick movement as he sinks into your cunt. His breath hitches as you gasp, and then he bites his bottom lip and closes his eyes, letting out a shaky groan. You watch as he pants, breath labored, while he holds himself back and gives you time to adjust.
“You’re so pretty, Haitham,” you whisper, “your face is pretty. Know that?”
“Shouldn’t I be saying that about you?” he lets out a strained chuckle, “that’s what you should be hearing. Not the other way around.”
“Well, you took too long,” you say, flashing him a cheeky grin, “so I did it for you.”
Something flashes in his eyes at that—dark and hungry and insatiable as he lets out an amused chuckle. He grabs your ankle, making you yelp as he tosses it over his shoulder and angles himself to press deeper into you.
“My apologies,” he murmurs, nipping and kissing along your jaw as his hips pull him out almost fully and roll into you with a deep, heavy thrust. You let out a soft cry, eyes fluttering shut as he murmurs, “There we go—that’s a pretty view, isn’t it? I knew I’d be speechless, but this is just unfair, sweet girl…you’re breathtaking, aren’t you?”
“S-stop,” you gasp, turning your face away from him shyly. He laughs—it’s a husky, raspy little thing.
“Shy? What’s there to be shy about, beautiful? S’just me…a-and you, yeah?”
His hips roll with punctuated thrusts, angling the thick curve of his cock into you—hitting that same spot his fingers found so effortlessly. Whoever crafted Alhaitham took their time—they made him perfectly curved and muscled in all the right places. Of course, part of that is his own discipline. You know—very well, you know that abs and biceps like that don’t form overnight because genetics say so. But he was made by careful, slow hands that took their time on him. And those same careful hands took their time on you to make sure every curve and angle of you would fit against him. Would mold around him. Would curl into him so well, you would never know where you start and where he ends.
“You drive me mad, do you know that?” he whispers against your ears, “do you know how wicked a woman you have to be—to enter my life so fast and turn it upside down so quickly? Do you know how powerless you have to make me—to come and go as you please, like you did, and possess me that way?”
“I—”
“I’m not done,” he grunts, slamming his hips down and silencing you with a particularly sharp thrust, “you made me sick. Made me some…some shell of myself. Some version I hardly recognized. You turned me insane—more than any forbidden knowledge could have. Corrupted every part of my brain. You have to take responsibility for that.”
“F-fuck,” is all you say, whining as his thumb finds its way to your clit, rubbing harsh circles while the thick head of his cock bullies its way past your folds, sliding the ridges of his length along your folds. You shake from the friction—thighs quivering as you accommodate his punishing pace.
“You have to take responsibility for…for changing everything as I know it. You think you’re the only one who’s scared of change?”
“I’m not…I’m not scared anymore,” you breathe, “not if it’s you—you…you’re good change.”
“Yeah?” he asks—voice shaky.
“Yeah,” you nod.
He kisses you. You kiss back. Your second orgasm crashes over you harder than the first—only this time, it doesn’t break the serene calm of the water’s surface as it's still. This time, the waves are ones you saw coming—ones that bury you under them and pull you deep into the bottom of their depths.
“Haitham,” you whine—and your back arches off of his bed and meets him halfway as he grinds his hips into you with a sloppy, desperate pace.
“Yeah,” he pants, voice cracking, “y-yeah, I know. I know…I…I f-feel it too.”
You feel his cock twitch, and then there’s a flood of warmth against the thin plastic that separates you from him. He stills for a moment before he lets out a deep, throaty groan, burying his face into your neck and riding out the shockwaves of his own orgasm with sharp thrusts that don’t have proper rhythm. Not anymore. Not when he’s so far gone in his own pleasure as it burns through every nerve of his body.
He slumps next to you on the bed—not before he wraps a strong arm around you and pulls you flush against his sweaty chest. Alhaitham is warm. Even when you’re warm, too, you still want to feel his warmth. You don’t mind the burning heat. Not when it’s him.
“Did you mean it?” he whispers.
“Mean what?”
“That I’m good change?”
You look up. Light breaks over your face as you smile at him and trace your finger over his chest. “Yeah. You are.”
“You are too,” he says softly, lips curling into a delicate smile. “You’re everything good for me.”
“Does this mean the letters will stop?” you pout, “no letter tomorrow now that I’m here?”
He chuckles. Looks at you with a look you can’t remember the last time you’ve seen before—maybe it was when your father could still look at your mother. Maybe you’d last seen such a look on his face, all those years ago.
“Do you want them to stop?”
“No,” you whisper, shaking your head as you nuzzle closer, “I don’t.”
“Then they won’t stop,” he says, kissing your head. “Promise.”
────────────────────────
Just like he promised, Alhaitham never stops writing you letters. Even when your house is no longer registered under your name and you have no address anymore, he still writes you his letters.
“You sold your house,” he says quietly. “I saw the papers in the files.”
You pause your fingers from their adventures along his chest. It’s funny to think that some time ago—just a few months prior, even—you’d have stiffened at the words. You would tense at the fact that he knows anything about you and pull away from him. You would tell yourself that you have to pull yourself out of this bubble that surrounds you and throw yourself back into the real world.
But you know now that Alhaitham is the real world. He is under the same sky as you and watches the same stars. You point to a constellation and he looks. He learns it. He remembers it, too. He is part of your world.
“I did,” you murmur back. “I just…can’t keep going back there anymore. It’s not the same.”
“Where will you go? You haven’t bought another house yet,” he raises a brow. You roll your eyes—he thinks you didn’t think this through. You roll them out of slight amusement, though. Not bitter anymore like it once was.
“I’ll find one. I don’t have to move out for another two weeks.”
“That’s highly unprepared. Not a good calculated risk,” he clicks his teeth. This time, you give him a flat look.
If you are aphelion, Alhaitham is perihelion—opposite ends of the same path, always at different ends, yet always tied together by the same sun in the same sky. You are bound to him by the same, never-ending orbit. And he has sworn this to you, thoughtfully written in the letters you keep carefully hidden away in your drawer. For you.
“I’ll be fine,” you huff. “Mora isn’t exactly an issue. Say what you will about my father, but he left me a generous sum.”
He hums, staring ahead in thought. And then, “You know…you can always live here.”
You pause. “Here?” you ask cautiously, “you mean with you?”
He swallows for a moment and looks down. “Yes,” he says quietly. “With…with me. If you want, that is.”
“Your only other room is taken,” you snort, “by your roommate. And I’m not going to evict poor Kaveh—unlike me, he can’t afford a move.”
“This room is just fine,” he says boldly. Still, you can almost hear the way he’s a little hesitant. Scared, maybe. Still clinging to his pride as he delivers it with a shrug. “The windows are big. The mattress isn’t uncomfortable, either—you’d know. The bathroom has two sinks, too.”
“How convenient,” you nod slowly.
“Very.”
“Okay,” you whisper. You pause. He stills, but he doesn’t stiffen. You breathe in and then out slowly for a moment before you say it again, louder this time. “Okay.”
Alhaitham’s eyes brighten at that—but then again, they are always bright. His irises are the sky, and every little streak of color that paints them is vibrant enough that you might mistake them for the stars. You might even wish on them, beg them to tell you secrets and show you the way, and lead you down a path that always takes you to him.
And he’ll always be there. The sun might come out and the stars may disappear from your line of sight, but the stars will always be there. And they’ll always come back. There’s never been a night when they haven’t—not once, not in any chart the Akademiya has ever kept.
He smiles at your answer. It’s barely-there and it goes as quick as it comes, like a shooting star that passes by. But it came, and you have seen it in its fleeting glory.
He kisses your forehead and hums, “Okay.”
TWO MONTHS LATER SHE IS DONE AHHHHHHHH
kOkOfromwattpad @kokofromwattpad - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
