Falling Through Fiction

cozy corner to hoard fanfics, scream about characters, and live in fictional worlds 💌📖

[fandomcentralsstuff]

[starmocha]

Love and Deepspace + YouTube Comments ↳ 2025 with Sylus

[humanjarvis]

when sylus has a long night, you know you'll have a long day.

when he returns from hours of annoyances, cleaning up and pulling on his black velvet robe, he doesn’t slink into bed like usual, trying his best not to disturb you despite the thrill he gets when you’re cranky. instead, he wakes you without remorse, gathers your weakly protesting form in his arms, and carries you to his favorite armchair—the one that overlooks the bustling nightscape from the balcony.

and once he sinks into the seat, sylus holds you captive. 

his kisses linger all over. they torture you with long, wet, scandalous sounds, amplified when he sometimes drags his hot, rough tongue against your softer skin.

through it all, he’s grunting his pleasure, huffing your scent the way he longed to earlier. he’s anchoring you to his lap, holding you over his bulge, suppressing your squirms in every direction. his skin is so warm—too warm—and your body quickly follows suit. 

“can i move, sylus?” you whine into his ear.

he ignores you, much too entranced with your body. 

“sylus.”

a soft growl leaves him as he comes up for air—now is not the time for talking.

“why,” he whispers, pressing a slow kiss to your temple, “would you want to do that? are you not enjoying the sunrise as much as i am?” 

“it hurts.” you gesture shyly between your legs, ghosting over your tingling clit. “and you’re not doing anything to make it better—just making it worse,” you slur, still disoriented from ruined sleep. “it’s uncomfy.” 

you feel his chuckle more than hear it—hot, heavy pants setting your nerves aflame. “uncomfy, hm?”

“yes. it’s too much.” to prove your point, you try to wriggle away. arms lock around your waist like iron. 

“ask me nicely.”

“please. i’ll stay here. just wanna get comfy.”

he tilts your head up to kiss you deeply, his broad, built chest heaving against yours. “go ahead, sweetie. get as comfy as you want. but while you do, know that i’m not letting you go anytime soon.”

[suninia]

Not for you!

LADS men x MC/Reader SMAU You accidentally sent a picture of you wearing your newly bought lingerie after coming home from a night out drinking. Safe to say, their reactions had you wishing to be buried 6ft underground. Tags: slightly suggestive *wink wink*, non-established relationship (yet ehe) (still bad at this) Disclaimer: Photos are not mine and will be linked down below ;D

────୨【 Ｘａｖｉｅｒ 】ৎ────

────୨【 Ｚａｙｎｅ 】ৎ────

────୨【 Ｒａｆａｙｅｌ 】ৎ────

────୨【 Ｓｙｌｕｓ 】ৎ────

────୨【 Ｃａｌｅｂ 】ৎ────

Hope u enjoyed it! <3

[xxsyluslittlecrowxx]

𝐀𝐍 𝐀𝐔𝐃𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐎𝐍𝐄

synopsis: after a disastrous day on set, rafayel turns up at sylus’s apartment looking for whisky, attention, and a fight he can flirt his way through. what begins as sharp banter and petty provocation soon slips into something far more dangerous: being wanted by the one man who refuses to be fooled by the performance. cw/tw: sylus x rafayel. crowfish. rafayel!actor x sylus!sponsor au. li x li. nsfw. mdni. smut. blowjob. brat behaviour from fishboy. teasing. anal penetration. edging. light powerplay. smut without plot. read here: ao3 ⋅ tumblr a/n: a little resurrection of a fic i once removed from the world. also, yes, i am deeply fond of watching my two men remember how much they enjoy each other.

Rafayel had spent years perfecting the art of appearing carelessly beautiful.

It required more effort than most people realised.

A jacket slipping from one shoulder could suggest exhaustion, provided it fell at the correct angle. Three undone buttons whispered of heat and impatience; four began to look desperate. Even the arrangement of his limbs across Sylus’s obscenely expensive sofa had been considered, though only briefly, because too much thought ruined the instinctive quality of the thing.

One leg stretched along the cushions. The other hung over the armrest, loafer still attached, its sole hovering perilously close to the pale upholstery. Beneath the open edges of his shirt, studio powder clung to the warm hollow between his collarbones.

He looked ravaged.

Tastefully so.

“They made me kiss her twenty-two times.”

At the windows, Sylus unfastened his watch. The clasp made a small metallic sound. Nothing else followed.

Rafayel tilted the whisky glass balanced against his stomach and watched amber climb the crystal. It was Sylus’s whisky, naturally. His own collection contained rare bottles, beautifully labelled and mostly chosen for sentimental reasons. Sylus bought liquor as though preparing to bribe kings.

“Twenty-two,” he repeated, placing great significance upon each syllable. “I can still taste her lipstick. Cherry. Artificial cherry. The sort that makes you think of cough medicine and poor decisions behind a nightclub.”

Sylus laid the watch beside his keys.

There came no sympathy from him, or even the grudging noise he sometimes made when acknowledging that another person had spoken.

Rafayel raised his voice. “Hello!? My lips may never recover.”

“They appear functional.”

A smile threatened at the corner of Rafayel’s mouth, though he smothered it beneath an injured sigh. “You could at least pretend to care.”

“I could.”

“How comforting.”

Sylus shrugged out of his jacket. The movement drew the dark fabric taut across his shoulders before it came away, revealing the cleaner lines of his waistcoat beneath. Every part of him remained offensively composed. After midnight, following meetings that had probably involved threats, bloodshed, or financial reports—Rafayel had never determined which Sylus disliked most—he still looked as though disorder had approached and been refused entry.

Rafayel drank. The whisky warmed his tongue, followed by a ribbon of smoke and spice.

“You know,” he continued, “I’ve kissed fewer people in my entire life.”

Sylus glanced over.

“I highly doubt that.”

The insult arrived with such calm precision that Rafayel placed a hand over his heart. “Cruel.”

“Accurate.”

“Cruelty disguised as accuracy remains cruelty.”

“You should put that on a pillow.”

Rafayel stared at him.

Sylus’s expression held for perhaps two seconds before amusement disturbed it, a brief tightening near the eyes, the ghost of a smile he clearly intended to deny.

There you are.

Rafayel shifted deeper into the cushions, pleased with himself. “She had no rhythm, either.”

“Tragic.”

“It was. I moved closer; she moved away. I turned my head; she turned in the same direction. We nearly broke each other’s noses during take fourteen.”

“A shame you didn’t.”

“Are you jealous?”

Sylus had begun rolling his sleeves. One precise fold, then another, revealing his forearms inch by inch. “Should I be?”

“At least a little. I spent eight hours with my mouth on another person.”

“And still came here.”

The answer settled lower than Rafayel expected. He covered the flicker in his chest by taking a sip.

“I came for the whisky.”

“Of course.”

“And your charming company.”

“I’m touched.”

“You disguise it well.”

Taking the empty glass from Rafayel’s loose fingers, Sylus examined it as though the evidence of theft had only just become apparent. Then he lifted it to his own mouth and finished the thin amber trace clinging to the bottom.

From the same edge Rafayel had used. A negligible act. Meaningless, perhaps. Rafayel’s gaze remained on Sylus’s lips anyway.

“How was the scene?” Sylus asked.

“Catastrophic. We may have destroyed cinema forever.”

“That bad?”

“The director wept.”

“With joy?”

“I didn’t ask.”

Sylus crossed to the drinks cabinet and poured another measure. Ice cracked beneath the liquor. “You usually enjoy making people weep.”

“Only when they deserve it.”

“And she didn’t?”

The whisky arrived before Rafayel could reach for it. Sylus held the glass just beyond his fingers, waiting. A petty punishment. Rafayel pushed himself upright enough to take it, though Sylus retained his hold for one beat longer than necessary.

Cold crystal between them. Their fingers touching.

Then the glass came free.

Rafayel settled back. “She smiled.”

Sylus’s brows drew together.

“During the confession,” he explained, watching the ice instead of the man standing over him. “Every time the camera came close, she smiled.”

“Perhaps she was nervous.”

“Perhaps.”

“Were you?”

The question slipped under his guard with irritating ease.

Rafayel scoffed and tipped his head against the cushions. “I have never been nervous in my life.”

“You threw up before your first opening.”

“That was food poisoning.”

“You drank champagne for breakfast.”

“The grapes had turned.”

Sylus lowered himself into the armchair opposite, one ankle crossing his knee. “Naturally.”

Rafayel took another drink.

Silence pooled around them, accompanied by the low hum of the city beyond the windows. Usually he could bend silence into whatever shape he wanted. A laugh would make it conspiratorial, a sigh turned it dramatic, one well-chosen remark could fill a room more effectively than music.

Tonight, it resisted him.

“She smiled,” he said again, quieter now, “as though she’d already seen herself in the trailer.”

Sylus waited. The patience of him could become unbearable. He simply watched, leaving Rafayel to decide whether the truth should live or be smothered.

“It was supposed to be ugly.” Rafayel’s thumb moved along the damp side of the glass. “The confession, I mean. He’s loved her for years and resents her for making it impossible to stop. She knows accepting him will ruin them both. There should have been shame in it. Anger. Something that cost her.”

“And instead?”

“Cherry lipstick.”

A small smile softened Sylus’s mouth.

Rafayel flicked a cushion at him.

Rather than strike him, it sailed past the armchair and collapsed several feet away with an undignified sigh.

Sylus followed its path with his eyes. “Impressive.”

“I adjusted for the air current.”

“There is no air current.”

“Exactly. Sabotage.”

“By the air?”

“It has always resented me.”

His own laughter came more easily this time, loosening something caught beneath his ribs. Sylus did not join him, though the amusement remained on his face.

Rafayel stretched his legs across the glass table. The soles of his loafers landed on its spotless surface.

Sylus’s gaze dropped.

“Remove them.”

“Come and remove them.”

Another sip of whisky concealed Rafayel’s smile.

Across from him, Sylus gave no immediate response. He merely studied the offending shoes, then Rafayel’s face, measuring the provocation for hidden edges.

“It must be exhausting,” Rafayel mused, “having everything exactly where it belongs.”

“It was, before you arrived.”

“And yet you continue giving me the access code.”

“A temporary lapse in judgement.”

“Repeated weekly.”

“I remain optimistic.”

Rafayel dragged one heel across the glass, leaving a deliberate streak. “About reforming me?”

“About the possibility that you’ll grow bored.”

“With you?” He let his attention wander over Sylus’s loosened collar, the rolled sleeves, the powerful lines of his hands. “Unlikely.”

The room changed.

Barely.

A thread had tightened somewhere between them, invisible and suddenly capable of drawing blood.

Sylus raised his glass. “You like the attention.”

Rafayel’s smile became sharper. “Everyone likes attention.”

“You need it.”

“I inspire it. There’s a difference.”

“You arrive complaining about being watched, then sprawl across my furniture until I look at you.”

“I’m tired.”

“You put your shoes on my table.”

“My legs are tired.”

“You opened another button while I was pouring the whisky.”

Rafayel looked down.

His shirt had, indeed, acquired a fourth opening.

“How observant.”

“You made certain I would be.”

A laugh hovered at the back of his throat. He swallowed it with the whisky, although warmth had already begun creeping beneath his skin.

“Perhaps I enjoy presenting you with something worth looking at.”

“Perhaps,” Sylus murmured, “you’re testing how much you must reveal before I stop seeing the performance.”

The warmth vanished.

Rafayel rested the glass against his thigh. “You’re very pleased with that sentence.”

“I’m pleased when I’m right.”

“Then I imagine you’re accustomed to disappointment.”

Sylus leaned back.

No retaliation came. No clever barb or victorious smirk.

Only that gaze.

Steady. Unimpressed by brightness. He looked at Rafayel the way he might look at a locked door whose mechanism he had already understood.

Rafayel nudged his knee with the toe of his loafer.

The gesture restored movement to the room, or seemed to.

“Nothing?” he prompted.

Sylus glanced down at the leather pressing against the crease of his trousers.

Rafayel pushed higher.

“Twenty-two kisses,” he said, voice softening around the provocation, “and I come home to a man who refuses even to pretend he wants me. Imagine what that could do to my self-esteem.”

“This isn’t your home.”

“Cold.”

“And you possess enough self-esteem for several minor countries.”

“Still cold.”

His foot travelled farther up Sylus’s thigh. The edge of his sole brushed close enough to feel the heat beneath the fabric. Rafayel watched the movement, then lifted his lashes.

“Maybe you don’t know what to do with me.”

Sylus placed his glass on the table.

A quiet click. Crystal against wood.

The sound passed through Rafayel more effectively than any raised voice.

Sylus’s hand closed around his ankle.

Firmness without force. Heat encircling the slim joint. Rafayel’s muscles tightened beneath the grip, a response so immediate that amusement flashed across Sylus’s features.

“Careful,” Rafayel warned, though the word emerged lower than intended. “These shoes are custom.”

“They’re on my table.”

“And therefore deserve execution?”

“They’re in my way.”

Sylus slipped the loafer from his foot.

The motion should have been ordinary. Practical. Instead, his thumb dragged along the hollow beneath Rafayel’s ankle, where the pulse fluttered close to the skin. He took his time removing the second shoe, fingertips following the curve of bone before the leather came free.

Both loafers landed neatly on the rug.

Rafayel remained held.

“You could let go,” he observed.

“I could.”

“You’re repeating yourself.”

“You’ve become quiet.”

“Enjoy it. A rare luxury.”

Sylus pressed his thumb against the pulse beneath his hand.

Rafayel’s toes curled.

A single betraying movement. Small enough that another man might have missed it.

Sylus didn't.

His gaze lifted, heavy now with recognition.

“Still want me to let go?”

Rafayel leaned farther into the cushions. “I want to see what you intend to do.”

“Liar.”

“Excuse me?”

“You already know.”

The fingers around his ankle slid beneath the hem of his trousers, gliding over warm, bare skin. Slowly enough that each centimetre registered. Rafayel suppressed a shiver by drawing his other knee up, adopting an ease he no longer felt.

“Presumptuous.”

“You came here for this.”

“I came here for the whisky.”

“You drank it.”

“I might want more.”

Sylus’s thumb travelled along the inside of his calf. “You want many things.”

“And you’re famously generous.”

“Only when asked properly.”

The statement hung between them, darkly polished.

Rafayel laughed, but something brittle entered the sound. “How tedious. You know I don’t beg.”

“Oh, I know you do.”

His breath caught.

Sylus released him.

The sudden loss of contact felt like a punishment. Rafayel drew his leg back before the instinct to follow became visible, folding both feet beneath him as he sat upright.

“Arrogant bastard.”

A tilt of Sylus’s head acknowledged the familiar accusation. “You’ve said that already.”

“I’m trying to help you remember.”

“I remember everything you say.”

The reply stripped the next joke from Rafayel’s tongue.

For a moment, the room held only their breathing.

He looked away first.

Below them, traffic passed through the city in streams of pale light. Thousands of windows, thousands of private rooms. People moving through their small lives, performing joy, grief, desire. Telling each other whatever was required to remain loved until morning.

“It gets old,” he admitted.

Sylus didn't ask what he meant.

Rafayel’s fingers worried the cuff of his shirt. “The staring. People decide what they want me to be before I enter a room. Charming. Difficult. Beautiful. Cruel. It saves them the inconvenience of meeting me.”

“You encourage them.”

“It’s my job.”

“It’s convenient.”

His jaw tightened. “You think you understand everything.”

“No.”

The answer came without hesitation.

“Only you?” Rafayel guessed, allowing mockery to return.

“Yes.”

His eyes snapped back to Sylus.

There was no smile waiting for him. No indication that the line had been offered for effect. Sylus watched him with an unnerving steadiness, his attention resting on details Rafayel could not conceal: the faster rise of his chest, his fingers gone still around the cuff, the pulse beating at the exposed base of his throat.

“You should teach a course,” Rafayel muttered. “How to make affection sound vaguely threatening.”

“Would you attend?”

“I’d heckle from the back.”

“You’d sit in the front.”

“And distract you.”

“You already do.”

The admission settled warmly between them.

Rafayel’s mouth curved. Softer this time.

Then Sylus stood.

The size of him altered the room. One moment he sat across from Rafayel, contained by the armchair; the next, his shadow fell over the sofa, darkening silk and skin.

Rafayel tipped his chin upwards. “Looming is terribly unsubtle.”

“I’m aware.”

“You could at least offer me another drink before taking advantage.”

“A third? I think you’ve had enough.”

“And there goes the romance.”

Sylus’s fingers found the open collar of his shirt. Rather than undo the next button, he traced its edge, following the line where silk met skin. Rafayel felt the path of that touch in places it had never reached.

“This is what you came for,” Sylus murmured.

Rafayel’s hand settled against his waistcoat. “You remain very certain.”

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

The challenge warmed Sylus’s breath against his mouth.

Rafayel could have denied it. The scene offered him every opportunity: a scoff, a laugh, some exquisite little insult to restore distance.

Instead, he hooked two fingers beneath Sylus’s collar and pulled.

Their mouths met without elegance.

The first kiss bruised rather than persuaded. Teeth caught, whisky passed warm between tongues, and Rafayel’s head struck the cushions when Sylus followed him down. He laughed into the kiss, startled and pleased by the sudden violence of it, then bit Sylus’s lower lip until a low sound vibrated through the man above him.

At last.

Rafayel drew back just enough to speak. “Twenty-three.”

Sylus’s eyes were darker at this distance. “What?”

“My total for the day.”

“You’re counting that among the others?”

“Jealousy suits you.”

One hand closed around the back of Rafayel’s neck.

“I’m not jealous.”

“No?” He brushed his mouth against Sylus’s, withholding the kiss at the last instant. “Then perhaps I should describe them.”

“I’m familiar with poor acting.”

“Her mouth was very soft.”

Sylus tightened his grip.

Rafayel’s grin flashed.

“She made this little sound whenever I—”

The rest disappeared beneath Sylus’s mouth.

He kissed Rafayel as though trying to erase every touch that had preceded him. The slow refinement vanished, replaced by hunger sharpened through restraint. Rafayel welcomed it with equal greed, hands moving over Sylus’s shoulders, dragging the waistcoat open until buttons strained beneath his fingers.

Sylus broke away only to seize the silk at Rafayel’s chest.

One button slipped free.

Then another.

He worked downwards with infuriating patience, exposing Rafayel a measured piece at a time. Cool air touched his sternum, his ribs, the tense plane of his stomach.

“Is this meant to intimidate me?” Rafayel wondered aloud.

Sylus’s knuckles skimmed the edge of his nipple.

His breath stumbled.

“Apparently not,” Sylus replied.

“Cheap trick.”

“Effective.”

Two fingers closed around the sensitive peak and twisted with controlled pressure.

Pleasure flashed beneath Rafayel’s skin. His spine lifted from the cushions before pride could interfere, chest pushing into Sylus’s hand.

The answering smile appeared slowly.

“I hate that expression.”

“You put it there.”

“Then I’ve made a terrible mistake.”

“Another one.”

Sylus lowered his mouth to Rafayel’s throat.

A kiss first, warm and deceptively gentle. Then teeth. The bite drew a sharp sound from him, followed by the heat of Sylus’s tongue passing over the mark.

Rafayel curled a hand in his hair. “That will show on camera.”

“Yes.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“So you’ve mentioned.”

Another bite bloomed lower, over his collarbone.

Rafayel’s fingers tightened. “People pay a great deal of money for this skin.”

“They can admire what’s left.”

Laughter broke from him, breathless and disbelieving. “Possessive.”

Sylus raised his head. “Do you object?”

The directness of the question cut cleanly through the game.

Rafayel studied him, close enough to see the faint flush beneath his cheekbones and the strain hidden within his stillness. Control, he realised, had never meant indifference. Sylus felt it all; he simply refused to be ruled by it.

Rafayel slid his palm along the hard line of his jaw.

“No.”

The word came quietly.

Sylus waited.

“No,” he repeated, drawing him closer. “I don’t object.”

A kiss touched the centre of his palm.

The tenderness of it disturbed him more than the teeth had.

Before it could deepen into something dangerous, Rafayel caught Sylus by the front of his shirt and rolled, forcing him backwards into the sofa. Surprise widened those red eyes for a fraction of a second.

Rafayel straddled his lap.

“There,” he breathed, settling his weight over the hardening shape beneath Sylus’s trousers. “Much better.”

Sylus’s hands came to his hips. “You need the illusion of control?”

“I need you to stop behaving as though desire is something you supervise.”

Rafayel ground down.

The composure beneath him fractured.

A rough exhale escaped Sylus; his fingers dug through the thin fabric at Rafayel’s waist, strong enough to bruise. The response delighted him. He moved again, slower now, feeling the hard length trapped between their bodies.

“Look at you,” he murmured, echoing Sylus’s earlier tone. “All that discipline.”

“Enjoying yourself?”

“Immensely.”

He opened Sylus’s waistcoat, then began on the shirt beneath, far less patient than the man had been with him. Buttons came free beneath hurried fingers. One tore loose and vanished somewhere between the cushions.

Sylus glanced down.

Rafayel followed his gaze. “I’ll buy you another.”

“That was custom.”

“So were my shoes.”

“Your shoes remain intact.”

“For now.”

With the shirt spread open, he dragged both hands over Sylus’s chest. Warmth and muscle shifted beneath his palms. A pale scar crossed one side, then another lower down, each mark carrying a story Rafayel had never been given in full.

His mouth softened over the first.

Sylus went still.

The kiss lingered. Less seduction than recognition.

Then Rafayel bit.

A hand caught sharply in his hair.

“Brat.”

He smiled against Sylus’s skin. “There’s the affection.”

Tugging his head back, Sylus exposed his throat. “You’ve been provoking me since you arrived.”

“I’ve been entertaining you.”

“You threw a cushion at my head.”

“It was a weak moment.”

“You put your shoes on my table.”

“You were neglecting me.”

“And now?”

Rafayel rocked his hips against him, mouth parting when friction dragged across his cock through the layers of fabric.

“Still undecided.”

Sylus rose with him.

The sudden movement forced Rafayel to catch his shoulders. A second later, his back met the sofa again, Sylus settling between his thighs with enough weight to steal the next breath.

“Decide quickly.”

The command darkened the air.

Rafayel’s trousers opened beneath practised hands. Button. Zip. The waistband peeled back from his hips, followed by underwear, cool air slipping across heated skin.

Sylus looked down.

The silence became almost unbearable.

Rafayel was already hard, flushed and wet at the tip, desire leaving no room for pretence. He resisted the impulse to cover himself beneath another joke.

“Nothing clever?” he asked instead.

Sylus took him in hand.

Every prepared sentence vanished.

His thumb passed slowly over the sensitive head, spreading the moisture there before gliding down. Rafayel’s hips jerked; a broken laugh caught between his teeth.

“That was clever enough,” Sylus decided.

“Smug bast—”

The grip tightened.

His voice failed.

Sylus stroked him with maddening steadiness, neither hurried nor gentle, learning each reaction as though Rafayel had not already given him this knowledge before. Pressure changed near the base. The next pass twisted slightly beneath the crown. Rafayel’s thighs drew closer around Sylus’s hips.

“Too slow,” he complained.

“You’ve been here less than an hour.”

“I’ve had a difficult day.”

“So I heard.”

“Twenty-two times.”

Sylus’s thumb pressed into the slit.

Pleasure speared through him. Rafayel’s head fell back. “Fuck.”

“Twenty-three.”

The correction arrived against his throat.

He laughed helplessly, the sound breaking when Sylus stroked him again. “If you’re trying to make me forget her, you’ll need to do better.”

Sylus’s hand stopped.

Rafayel opened his eyes.

“That,” Sylus murmured, “was unwise.”

He released Rafayel’s cock.

Before protest could form, Sylus moved lower. His mouth travelled over Rafayel’s chest, pausing to close around one nipple until Rafayel arched beneath him, then continued across the trembling muscles of his stomach.

Realisation came with the warmth of breath against his hip.

Rafayel’s fingers tightened in the cushions. “Sy.”

Sylus looked up.

The sight alone nearly undid him: broad shoulders between Rafayel’s spread thighs, hair fallen slightly out of place, mouth hovering close enough that each exhale ghosted across exposed flesh.

“Still remember her?” Sylus asked.

“I’m making an effort.”

“Poorly.”

His tongue traced the underside of Rafayel’s cock from root to tip.

Rafayel’s body bowed.

A sound tore loose, far too honest to reshape into laughter. Sylus closed his mouth over the head and sucked, slow enough to make every sensation distinct—the heat of his tongue, the pressure of his lips, the hand holding Rafayel steady at the hip.

“Fuck,” Rafayel gasped again. “You arrogant—”

Sylus took him deeper.

Words collapsed.

His fingers found Sylus’s hair, curling there without deciding whether to push him away or drag him closer. The latter instinct won. Sylus allowed the pressure, throat relaxing around him as Rafayel’s hips lifted.

A low groan vibrated through the wet heat.

Rafayel’s vision blurred at the edges.

The man had no right to look so composed while doing something so obscene. Even with his mouth stretched around Rafayel’s cock, Sylus maintained that watchful, infuriating focus, his gaze fixed upwards, reading each tremor.

“Stop looking at me,” Rafayel breathed.

Sylus withdrew with one last pull of suction.

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

A lick passed lazily over the tip.

Rafayel’s thighs trembled.

“You’re impossible.”

Another slow stroke of his tongue.

“I hate you.”

Sylus’s mouth curved against him. “Still performing.”

He took Rafayel deep once more.

The pleasure became merciless. Wet sounds filled the room, punctuated by Rafayel’s faltering breaths. Sylus worked him with mouth and hand together, setting a pace that drove him towards the edge, then easing back whenever tension tightened through his body.

Twice.

Three times.

By the fourth, Rafayel’s composure had been stripped to threads.

“Sylus.” His voice emerged hoarse.

The mouth around him slowed.

“Please.”

That earned him another deep pull, followed by Sylus’s tongue pressing firmly along the sensitive underside.

Rafayel cried out.

His hips lifted, chasing the heat, but Sylus drew away before release could reach him. Cool air struck his slick skin.

“No.” Rafayel’s eyes flew open. “Absolutely not.”

Sylus wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “You said I was too slow.”

“I didn’t ask you to stop.”

“You didn’t ask me to continue.”

Murder became a reasonable response.

Rafayel seized his collar and dragged him upwards. Their mouths crashed together; he tasted himself on Sylus’s tongue, salt and whisky and something indecently intimate. The flavour only sharpened his hunger.

His hand slipped between them.

Sylus’s trousers had become intolerably restrictive. Rafayel opened them without finesse, pushing fabric aside until his fingers closed around hot, rigid flesh.

The breath against his mouth changed.

At last, some justice.

Rafayel stroked him, learning the weight and heat, the velvet drag of skin. Sylus’s forehead lowered against his, composure thinning with each pass of Rafayel’s fist.

“You’re very quiet,” Rafayel whispered.

A hand closed around his wrist, guiding the rhythm harder.

“Does that disappoint you?”

“It makes me curious.”

“Dangerous habit.”

“Let me hear you.”

Sylus’s eyes narrowed.

Rafayel twisted his wrist beneath the head.

The response came low and rough, a sound felt through both their bodies.

His smile turned luminous. “There.”

Sylus kissed it away.

Clothes became intolerable after that.

A shirt shoved from one shoulder. Trousers dragged low enough to free movement. Rafayel’s silk lay open beneath him, wrinkled and damp against his skin. Each attempt at elegance dissolved under hands made impatient by hunger.

When Sylus reached towards the table drawer, Rafayel caught his wrist.

“Bedroom?” Sylus asked, breathing hard.

Rafayel looked at the distance between the sofa and the corridor, then at the man above him.

“Too far.”

Amusement flickered. “Impatient.”

“I’ve waited all evening.”

“You arrived forty minutes ago.”

“An eternity.”

The drawer opened. Lubricant appeared in Sylus’s hand.

Rafayel’s pulse quickened at the sight.

Playfulness remained between them, but something steadier had gathered beneath it. Sylus touched his thigh, his gaze holding Rafayel’s.

“Tell me.”

It took no effort to understand.

Rafayel reached down, taking Sylus’s slick fingers and guiding them between his legs.

“Yes.”

The first touch was exploratory, circling, spreading warmth over sensitive skin. Rafayel drew his knees higher, opening himself beneath Sylus’s gaze.

“Still yes?” Sylus asked.

Rafayel pushed back against the pressure. “Unless you intend to interrogate me all night.”

One finger eased inside.

His breath escaped through parted lips.

The stretch came gradually. Sylus gave him time to adjust, moving with a patience that contrasted almost painfully with the hunger in his expression. A second finger joined the first, pressing deeper until Rafayel’s body opened around them.

The teasing answer he had prepared dissolved when Sylus curled his hand.

Pleasure struck hard and bright.

Rafayel’s heel dug into the sofa. “Again.”

Sylus obeyed.

His fingers found the same place with devastating precision, rubbing until sparks climbed Rafayel’s spine. The open shirt shifted beneath his heaving chest; sweat gathered at his temples. No camera would have loved this version of him. His mouth hung open, eyes dark and unfocused, each sound arriving without polish.

Sylus watched as though nothing could be more beautiful.

The realisation hurt.

Rafayel reached for him, fingers closing around the back of his neck. “Come here.”

Their mouths met more gently than before.

Sylus continued working him open through the kiss. A third finger entered, the fuller stretch edged with discomfort, then warmth as Rafayel relaxed around it.

“You’re tense,” Sylus murmured.

“You’re large.”

“And you’re flattering me.”

“I’m complaining.”

“Poorly.”

Rafayel bit his jaw. “Fuck me before I change my mind.”

Sylus stilled.

The hand inside him remained steady, neither retreating nor advancing.

“Will you?”

Rafayel understood the question beneath the question. He softened his grip, stroking his thumb behind Sylus’s ear.

“Yes,” he answered, free of theatre. “I want you.”

A kiss pressed against his brow.

Then the fingers withdrew.

The loss left him aching. Sylus positioned himself between Rafayel’s thighs, one hand beneath his knee, the other guiding his cock against the slick entrance.

The first pressure forced the breath from both of them.

Sylus pushed slowly.

Rafayel’s body resisted, then yielded by increments. The stretch burned through him, each measured advance leaving less space for thought. He clung to Sylus’s shoulders, breath breaking against the side of his neck.

“Easy,” Sylus murmured.

“Don’t patronise me.”

“You’re shaking.”

“You’re still talking.”

That earned him a huff of laughter.

Sylus pressed deeper.

Rafayel’s nails scored his back. “Oh—Oh.”

“Too much?”

“No.” He tightened his legs around Sylus’s waist. “Keep going.”

The final inch seated Sylus fully inside him.

For several breaths, neither moved.

Rafayel felt impossibly full, stretched around the thick heat of him, every nerve awakened by the slightest shift. Sylus’s forehead rested against his. Their mouths hovered close without kissing.

“This,” Rafayel managed, “is a terribly inappropriate use of designer furniture.”

“I’ll have it cleaned.”

“How unromantic.”

“I’ll burn it.”

“Better.”

Sylus withdrew slowly, dragging against every sensitive place, then pushed back inside.

Rafayel’s laughter fractured into a moan.

The next thrust carried more force. Then another. A rhythm built between them, restrained at first, granting his body time to soften around the intrusion. Sylus’s hands held him securely at the hips, controlling the angle, while Rafayel met each movement with a lift of his own.

The sofa complained beneath them.

Somewhere, the abandoned whisky glass tipped against the wood but did not fall.

Rafayel buried his face in Sylus’s throat, breathing him in while pleasure gathered again. Each thrust travelled deeper, driving a rough sound from his chest.

“Harder,” he whispered.

Sylus obliged.

The force pushed Rafayel higher across the cushions. His shirt tangled beneath him; his hair caught at the corner of his mouth. All grace abandoned him. He moaned openly, one hand gripping the sofa while the other dragged along Sylus’s back.

“That,” Rafayel gasped, “is going to bruise.”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

Sylus made a sound that bordered on a growl.

The next thrust struck the place his fingers had found earlier.

Rafayel arched hard. “There.”

Again.

His vision flashed white.

“There—Sy, right there.”

Sylus adjusted the angle and gave him exactly what he had asked for, each drive of his hips forcing pleasure through Rafayel with brutal accuracy. The room filled with broken sounds, skin against skin, breath catching and releasing.

Rafayel’s cock dragged between their bodies, slick and neglected.

Sylus reached for it.

The moment his fist closed around him, Rafayel cried out.

“Too much?” Sylus asked, though his hand continued moving.

“Don’t you dare stop.”

“Ask properly.”

Rafayel opened his eyes.

Even now. Even with control slipping from both of them, Sylus held his gaze, asking for the one thing Rafayel found hardest to surrender.

Honesty.

Another thrust drove the answer loose.

“Please,” Rafayel breathed. “Make me come.”

Something fierce moved across Sylus’s face.

He kissed him, one hand stroking Rafayel in time with the movement of his hips. The rhythm turned relentless. Pleasure tightened low and hot, drawing every muscle taut.

Rafayel clung to him.

No room remained for charm. No audience waited beyond the glass. Nothing existed except the body above him, the body inside him, and the unbearable certainty of being seen without costume or light.

“Sylus.”

His name came apart in Rafayel’s mouth.

“Again.”

“Sylus.”

“Look at me.”

Rafayel did.

The climax broke through him.

His back arched from the sofa as pleasure tore along every nerve, violent enough to empty him of thought. He came across Sylus’s hand and his own stomach, each pulse wringing another helpless sound from his throat.

Sylus watched him through it.

Watched the exact moment performance became impossible.

The sight seemed to finish him.

His rhythm faltered. A curse escaped beneath his breath, followed by several deep, uneven thrusts. Sylus pulled out just before release, spilling hot across Rafayel’s hip and stomach, his hand braced against the sofa as tremors moved through his body.

For several seconds, neither man spoke.

Then Sylus lowered himself carefully, avoiding the worst of the mess, and rested his forehead against Rafayel’s shoulder.

Rafayel stared at the ceiling.

The chandelier remained intact. A mild disappointment.

His breathing slowed by degrees. Beneath his palm, Sylus’s heart pounded with gratifying disorder.

“I think,” Rafayel began, voice scraped raw, “we ruined your sofa.”

© 2026, xxsyluslittlecrowxx. dividers by @uzmacchiato

taglist ⋅ @l0st1nthedark ⋅ @valkie-moon ⋅ @ellavelysworld ⋅ @fearlesshades ⋅ @someprettyname ⋅ @msfrostfeathers ⋅ [ADD ME]

[lostinficanya]

[ikeusnupii]

10 PEOPLE I’D LIKE TO GET TO KNOW ˎˊ˗ 𐔌՞ ܸ.ˬ.ܸ՞𐦯

tyyy @mytwinsung for tagging me !! 🤍 (granted like a week ago...)

last song: sun has set - beabadoobee (I WON THE FREAKING TICKETMASTER)

currently watching: never ending summer, it's this c-drama that i keep seeing everywhere but i haven't watched it yet but i'm planning to soon :p

current obsession: photography 👀 i just love when my feed looks clean and aesthetic like it just makes me happy inside, sooo i've been experimenting with different digis

currently reading: re-reading the percy jackson series 😛 (I CANT WAIT FOR SEASON 3 AND FOR THE EPIC THE MUSICAL MOVIE)

currently working on: riki's part of lens unfocused... I'LL GET IT OUT SOON I SWEAR I'VE JUST BEEN SO BUSY 😭😭

currently wearing: a thin tank top and jorts because it's so FREAKING HOT. house slippers too ig

last google search: the weather... 💀 donno why i keep searching that when i KNOW theres a freaking heatwave everyday 💔💔

fav flower: magnolias ^^ they’re so big and pretty and they smell good and they look so delicate andand (or lilies for the same reasons lol)

✿ tagging: @noirellee @veorise @whiskimsy (im too shy to tag 10 people...)

[txtworlddom]

ty @overtheggum baby for tagging me mwah

last song : no more disco by yeonjun (SHE. TOLD. THE. DJ. NO. MORE. DISCO.)

currently watching : saiki k (occasionally), avatar: the last airbender, supergirl, zanjeerein (pakistani drama i love this so much it's on youtube everyone please watch it), and also i just started alnst so wish me luck

current obsession : the world cup (i'm actually so sad it's ending soon i've had so much fun watching it), no labels: part 02 (YEONJUN THE LOVE OF MY LIFE THE APPLE OF MY EYE BANGER AFTER BANGER AFTER BA-)

currently reading : lowkey nothing i'm chud as fuck LMAO but technically i'm catching up on all my ao3 updates and other fics in my tbr

currently working on : and if i said nothing... gulp... i'm actually planning out the next four years of my life so i can get into med school during the first application cycle 🥹

currently wearing : an oversized shirt that has bleach stains on it and sweatpants (my favorite comfort fit tho icl i love looking chud)

last google search : "gutom tagalog to english" ... in my defense someone commented gutom na ako on a moot's story and i didn't know what it means

favourite flowers : hydrangeas! (yes this is because txt has a song called hydrangea love) (fun fact my girlfriend asked me out with a paper hydrangea everyone say ridhu is the best)

npt!!: @qintten @calebsfavoriteusedthong @naomiarai @luvyizhou @komigyu @mazeinthemoon @theghostofgyu @kiminchae @urigyeoul @skyizhou + anyone who wants to join <3

[qintten]

TY FOR THE TAG EMMY!!!!!!!!

last song : bite by mad tsai (idk who this is but it appeared in my recommended. im imagining a sylus edit with it in my brain 💭)

currently watching : show? none. youtuber? on a safiya rewatch binge rn for some reason

current obsession : ball sort puzzle.............. 🔴🟠🟡🟢🔵🟣

currently reading : my fanfiction tbr!!!!!! and #proud of it!!!!!!

currently working on : artist alley stuff!!!! and and working on a better tagging system for my blog hehe

currently wearing : my big tshirt with the neck collar cut off to make it off shoulder (yes that trend)

last google search : normal refresh vs hard refresh (bc this one website keeps lagging on me and apparently there's diff types of refresh??!)

favourite flowers : carolina jessamine!!!!! my fav fav fav fav!!!!!!! 💛

npt aaaaaaaa: @miscellaneous-misty @maimaily @corvusmemoriae @nevers109 @gravitationalbluberry @princesspeachi3

[gravitationalbluberry]

:D thanks for the tag mia!!!!

I think it’s really funny you just found mad tsai bc i’ve been following him since he got popular in 2020. out of all his songs, killer queen is one of my personal favorites!

𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐠: King For A Day by Pierce the Veil funny enough because I was also imagining a sylus edit in my head

𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠: Attack on Titan with my brother! I’m not really a big anime person so he’s been the one trying to slowly introduce it to me. And then also JRWI because it will forever be my favorite d&d podcast.

𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐨𝐛𝐬𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧: my tamagotchi that i’ve made a few posts about recently.

𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠: not anything at the moment but i’ve really been wanting to read 1984 and keep getting distracted by other things. 😅

𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐧: my very long list of fanfic ideas and a very short documentary 20ish minute documentary about AI and it’s effects on education.

𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: a white t-shirt and black, white polka dot shorts, and a necklace I got from my best friend for our 8th grade graduation!

𝐥𝐚𝐚𝐭 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐠𝐥𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡: “the odyssey release date” because I’m going to watch it today. turns out, it’s releasing tomorrow but my friend managed to get tickets for an early screening! I am going into it completely blind, as I have never read the odyssey.

𝐟𝐚𝐯𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞 𝐟𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫: hydrangeas! I think it’s really cool how they change color depending on the ph of the soil. and they come in the colors of the bi flag :D 🩷💜💙

npt: @ellavelysworld @humanjarvis @hisspecialapplesauce @sylusincluded @avananabread @kawaiikittenkawaiikitten @miss-s-ate-the-apple @blueworldsworm

[blueworldsworm]

Thank you @gravitationalbluberry for tagging me!! I found this Tumblr tag game really fun and cute to know everybody better. 🥰

🎧 Last song: Daddy Issues by The Neighbourhood -tbh it's from my comfort playlist where there are most of their songs; 🎬 Currently watching: whatever Turkish drama my mother put on the tv in the late evening -I'm struggling to find something entertaining to watch lately...; 🧠 Current obsession: I would've said LADS... but since the boycott, I'm having fun creating different kinds of mood boards -it helps me with my writings too; 📖 Currently reading: textbooks about writing and archeology -I'm helping one of my cousins with an uni's exam, so I'm doing summaries for them; 👩‍💻 Currently working on: my one-shots and fan-fictions -it had been so long since I was so inspired to write, and I'm giving all myself to this; 👔 Currently wearing: a white tank-top, a pair of grey Leakers' shorts and flip-flops -the heatwave is melting me; 🔍 Last Google search: Google Maps!! 😂 -my friends checks places to spend summer at, and I have the responsibility to check where and if these places actually exist; 🌻 Favourite flower: sunflowers -lately I'm discovering how beautiful and meaningful flowers can be, honestly, because I spent most of my life hating them for their pollen.

🏷️ npt: @lostinficanya - @officialkatzline - @leaderincrows - @snoozer-crow - anyone who'd like to join!! 💙

[lostinficanya]

Thanks for tagging me @blueworldsworm 🩷

Last song: You and midsummer... Lol I was listening to my lads playlist.

Currently watching: Boy meets world... I grew up watching Girl meets world and always wanted to watch the original show so finally watching it.

Current obsession: None unfortunately... I'm in my final year of college and things are so hectic I just feel exhausted everyday. I barely have time to read fanfictions 😭

Currently reading: Rebecca.... Only few pages in so can't say much.

Currently working on: My internship report... This final year is stressing me out y'all 🫪

Currently wearing: An ugly but comfy pajamas 😅

Last google search: "Do angler fish produce counter illumination" I was preparing for a quiz competition so I was learning about bioluminescent animals... Happy to tell you I won 3rd prize 🏆🤩

Favourite flower: Periwinkle flowers... I've seen them blooming all over the city and they are so pretty 😍

npt: @deepspacebabyy @mahoogi @misskryptonite

[qinchefanart]

source

[luvndeepspace]

So between:

🐺 the cn government giving Valko the ok.

🐺 the international fans wanting him back.

🐺 international websites picking the story in a positive not a negative way.

🐺 YouTubers not even knowing much about the game or fandom showing him and us love

🐺 A lot of cn fans actually on the bring back Valko side…

I’m feeling very hopeful and proud of (most of) this fandom ❤️

[eoncored]

my first bunch of valko hashtag gifs is available on google drive!! dl them, use them freely on the socmed of your choice! i will be adding more in the future! 🐺🖤

[diidiis-world]

It's like watching all the jjk characters get slaughtered again why do I keep joining these fandoms they're so depressing😭

[lostinficanya]

So real

[lostinficanya]

Guys! What the heck? They are not releasing Valko?

[tojicide]

REMIND ME ☆ SYLUS.

pairing: ex!sylus x fem!reader

summary: six months after your breakup with sylus, news broke of you moving on, which is something he simply cannot allow—not if he can help it.

warnings: (18+) smut, fluff, light angst, infidelity, pet names, established history, hair pulling, face sitting, oral (fem. receiving), unprotected p in v, finishing inside, aftercare.

word count: 6.1k

✧ masterlist | request

Once news broke the N109 Zone of a prospering romance in his district, Sylus couldn’t find it in himself to give a damn. It was when he heard whispers of your name adjacent to another man’s that he began to listen.

He was out the front door of his home within a second, his leg swinging over his bike before Luke and Kieran could have a say in the matter.

The two men stood side by side, shouting a frantic ‘it’s normal to move on!’ and a ‘it’s been six months!’ from the doorstep as they watched their white haired boss speed away.

Sylus was sure that if he gripped the handlebars of his motorcycle any tighter, they’d certainly break off.

If he was willing to harm his most prized possession over the pure frustration you’ve stirred within him, you should consider yourself the most lucky yet damned woman alive.

He liked to think he was headstrong, but when it came to you, he lost all of his sense. All rationale was long forgotten. You consumed him and he gladly let you, because all in all, it truly was a blessing and a curse.

For how much he loved to put the pedal to the metal, he’s never once arrived at your apartment as fast as he has just now. He didn’t even bother to properly leave his bike in between the lines of a parking spot before he was practically flying towards your front door, knocking rapidly until you answered.

Surprise was etched into your facial features as you crack the door open just enough to see who your uninvited guest was, but a strong hand pushed it open until it was agape. “What the fu—”

“Where is he?” he cuts you off with a question, his red eyes scanning your cozy living room like a predator on the prowl.

“Excuse you, I— what? Where is who?” Your questions stammer out as your brain tries to catch up to the scene in front of you.

Sylus forces himself to turn around and face you, realizing that his erratic behavior was likely confusing you. As expressed, his common sense was truly slipping from him. God, he’s missed you, and he absolutely hates the look you’re giving him. It was one that made him feel like a pure inconvenience to you (even though he certainly was behaving like it).

“Your… boyfriend,” he clarifies, almost choking on the word. The fact that the title was no longer his was already a problem in and of itself, but losing it to another man was something he simply could not allow. “Where is he?”

“Oh, I see,” you say, narrowing your eyes at him as you give him a once over. “You think that you’re going to barge into my apartment and pummel the ever living shit out of my boyfriend?”

“More or less,” he answers, his long strides continuing a bit further down your hallway. “Preferably more.”

You scoff, leaning against the wall with your arms crossed tightly over your chest as you watch your ex–boyfriend scope out your apartment that he’s all too familiar with.

“He isn’t here.”

“So I’ve gathered,” he replies, his head poking into your bedroom.

Sylus did his best to sound nonchalant, as aloof as can be, though his heart rate was through the roof. He saw no signs of any male presence—no messily discarded clothes, no misplaced shoes, no second toothbrush in the bathroom—which meant that your relationship wasn’t as serious as he’d imagined.

And boy, was he relieved to figure that much out.

You straighten off the wall as he enters your bedroom, hurriedly walking behind him as you speak, “Y’know, since your objective for coming here can’t be achieved, you are more than welcome to leave.”

“Did I say that was my only objective?” he simply asks, eyes scanning your bedroom.

A bit had changed since he’d last been in here. You changed your comforter to a floral pattern, and you even matched the drapes to the shade of your bedding. Your attention to detail was something he admired about you, and his attention to detail was something you used to love, though as his eyes fell to your open underwear drawer—you’re growing to hate it. A lot.

“Get out of there!” you exclaim, rushing to shove it closed, only to catch his slender finger in the crossfire.

He winces slightly, lifting his already bruising finger to your line of vision. “You’ve wounded me, sweetie. Kiss it better?”

You scoff, slightly pushing his hand away from your face. In any other context, you would have apologized, but given the fact that Sylus had entered your apartment without invitation and threatened to harm your boyfriend within five minutes of his arrival was enough to make you think that this made the two of you almost even.

A small smirk tugs at Sylus’s lips as he presses his finger to his tongue, soothing the stinging that you caused. Your eyes linger on his mouth for a bit longer than they should, and if he noticed (which he certainly did), he didn’t say anything.

“I see you went shopping,” he mumbles, his eyes falling to your now closed underwear drawer. “That’s a shame, baby. A damn shame.”

You can’t help the scoff that leaves your mouth. “Why’s that?”

“I hate the idea of another man seeing you in such a way,” Sylus answers, tilting his head to the side as he gives your body an agonizingly slow once over, “in such pretty fabric, at that.”

Heat rushes to your face at his implication, and you’re not sure if it’s because you’re uncomfortable or if you’re flustered by his forwardness. You figure it’s a mixture of both, but you mask it with an annoyed huff.

“I can do what I want,” you refute, crossing your arms over your chest. “And if what I want is to buy panties that you’ll never have the privilege of seeing me wear, then that’s exactly what I’ll do.”

Sylus clicks his tongue, shaking his head with the slightest smirk curving upwards on his lips. He finds your attitude to be just as adorable as it is frustrating. With the way you look, arms tightly crossed over your chest with the tiniest wrinkle in between your eyebrows, he’d liken you to an angry kitten.

“If you’re trying to rile me up, you’re succeeding,” he states, drumming his fingers on your dresser.

Your eyes flit away. “I’m not trying to do anything. In fact, I want nothing to do with you.”

He scoffs, crossing his arms over his broad chest. It’s the first time he’s looked remotely upset with you from the moment he arrived. “Your boyfriend may fall for this little act of yours, but I won’t.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Sylus straightens up, his tall frame towering over you. You almost feel antsy under his gaze, but you do your best to hide it.

“I am what your heart truly desires,” he quietly murmurs, his finger tracing from the middle of your collarbones to the valley of your breasts. “And you can lie to him, you can even lie to yourself—but you cannot lie to me. I can see your deepest desires, remember?”

Betrayal is your body’s first instinct. Your breath hitches in your throat the moment the pad of his index finger runs across your skin, and you physically have to fight off a whine from escaping your lips.

In an attempt to salvage the situation, you straighten up, glancing towards your bedroom door. “That’s… bullshit, Sylus. Get out of my head.”

“It’s nothing of the sort,” he replies with a much gentler tone than the one he possessed prior. “And I’ll do no such thing. Your mind is my favorite place to be.”

He studies his reddened finger for a moment, silently deciding to steer the conversation from its more serious direction. “It still won’t feel better until it gets a kiss from its favorite girl, you know.”

Against your better judgment, your eyes betray you by studying the reddened pad of his finger. It shouldn’t be as enticing of a view as it is. You find it to be almost criminal.

“You can lose that finger for all I care,” you scoff, trying not to remember how good it used to feel inside of you.

“So brash.” Sylus forces a pout on his lips, though it doesn’t last long. He presses a kiss to his own finger before he extends his arm to rest on the edge of your dresser, keeping you caged against your drawers.

“You’re awfully lucky that I’m a forgiving man,” he murmurs, his red eyes trained to yours. “You can do almost anything to me and I’d allow it.”

Judging by the way your expression lights up, that seems to give you an idea.

“Really?” you inquire, narrowing your eyes. “Say, if I punched you square in your face, would you allow it?”

“I’m not opposed to finding out,” he answers, his eyelids fluttering as he continues to drink in your beauty. “You know I love it when you’re rough with me.”

That comment forces a flush to your face, and you almost have to pinch yourself to keep your mind from bringing forward all of the memories that proved just how true that statement was.

It infuriates you how easily he could get a reaction out of you, no less than six months after you broke up with him. Perhaps that was why, in a split second decision (one that you’re hardly aware you’re making), your fist goes flying towards his face.

Sylus firmly stops your wielding hand before it can make contact with his cheek. His fingers unwind your fist and bring your hand close, allowing him to press a few chaste kisses to your knuckles.

“Have I told you how pretty you look today?” he asks, his voice slightly muffled by the kisses he’s peppering along your palm and wrist. “So, so beautiful.”

Only he would say such a thing after you attempted to inflict bodily harm upon him. You wish you could rationalize his behavior, but you can’t—that’s just Sylus.

Your body betrays you in every way, shape, and form. Your face is flushed, your eyes are half lidded, and the mere contact of his lips on your knuckles is enough for butterflies to flutter in your stomach.

Grasping onto the last bit of common sense you have, you pull your hand from his grasp.

“It’s time for you to go,” you insist, beginning to slide against the dresser to escape his gaze.

Sylus allows you to create a bit of distance between the two of you, lifting his arm up from your dresser to let you walk away. The last thing he wants is to make you feel suffocated—the very reason you broke up with him in the first place.

He tried to do better, but when it came to you, he couldn’t help himself. He wasn’t an animal, though. He loved you more than words could ever describe, and he’d allow you anything you wanted. And if physical space was what you wanted, he’d grant it to you.

“You know I’d do anything for you,” he quietly says, his voice carrying an unforeseen vulnerability to it, “but I can’t do what you’re asking of me. I can’t let you give yourself to a man who doesn’t deserve you.”

Your eyebrows raise. “How can you be so sure he doesn’t deserve me?”

“I know you, baby. That’s how.”

A beat of silence passes, and he conjures up the courage to continue. “And I’m positive there isn’t a single soul who could possibly deserve your favor,” Sylus reasons, loosely crossing his arms, his toned biceps showing through the sleeves of his black button–up shirt. “Not even myself. I’m man enough to recognize that.”

His answer catches you off guard, but you do your best to maintain your front. You don’t want him to see how his words seem to squeeze at your heart.

“Then why are you here?” you genuinely ask.

Sylus knows he’s backed himself into a corner, and contrary to what you might think, he’d intended to do just that. He wants you to give him the green light to speak every word that he’s longed to say to you from the moment he’d seen you last, and now that you have, the floodgates are open.

“I’m selfish,” he admits, taking a tentative step towards you. “I’m drunk on you, and I can’t bear the thought of sobering up, even after all this time. It’s unfair, it’s horrible, it’s cruel—I know this, sweetie. But… I find my serenity in your eyes, and with you gone, my life is purgatory. The confines of hell must be more pleasant than what it is that I feel when I’m without you.”

Internally, you’re floored. Gobsmacked, even. Externally, you’re looking at him with the same soft expression you’ve worn this entire time.

Met with your silence, Sylus begins to internally panic. He slowly takes a few steps towards you, and when you don’t attempt to maintain the distance between you, his hands move to cup your face.

“Rid me of this life,” he whispers, his mouth so close that you can feel the warmth of his breath fan across your lips. “I can’t go on, not without you beside me.”

You truly hate how easy it is for him to reduce you to nothing but putty. You have a new boyfriend, you’ve moved on, you’ve allowed the love that you and Sylus shared to be nothing more than history.

You wanted to believe that moving forward was the best thing you could do, but if that was true, why is it that your heart hadn’t felt full until you laid eyes on Sylus? It seems to beat differently, like it’s finally come back to life in his presence.

Noticing the softening of your eyes, Sylus can’t help himself. He leans forward and presses a kiss to your forehead, holding both of you there for a few seconds. The sheer tenderness of his action was enough to make you melt, and you were sure you would’ve if his hands on your face weren’t grounding you.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he admits, tilting your head up so that he can look into your eyes.

Sylus was never one for verbal affection (or being desperate for a woman’s favor) prior to you, but he’d make this exception a million times over if it meant he could have you however you’d let him.

You’ve nearly forgotten all of your allegiances, and you can’t even blame yourself for it. You know that indulging in him is like eating a forbidden fruit, and even then, you can’t forbid yourself from its taste—not when you know how sweet it is. What you feel goes beyond want; it’s pure, unadulterated need.

“No response for me?” he asks.

You shake your head, swallowing the growing lump in your throat. You carefully slide out of his grasp and sit on the edge of your bed, his eyes trailing you as you do so.

You’re a firm believer that nothing is real until you’ve said it out loud, Sylus is more than aware of that. He doesn’t want to push you too hard, too fast, too much, but he’s never been one to back down from a challenge.

As you sit, your thighs naturally part and your skirt rides up just a bit, enough for the pink fabric clothing your pussy to be shown. That sight alone was able to elicit behavior that you’ve never once seen from Sylus.

“God, you are a privilege,” he murmurs, taking a few steps towards you. Without hesitation, he slowly descends to his knees before you, his hands trailing up your thighs. “Such a sight,” he adds his eyes flitting to the dampening fabric of your underwear, “such a beautiful sight.”

If his words weren’t enough, the sight of him kneeling in front of you was enough to make you faint. (Or scream. Or cum. Maybe all three at the same time, you’re not sure.)

“Allow me the night,” Sylus pleads, his desperate red eyes finally locking onto yours. His hand moves to brush your hair from your face, tucking it loosely behind your ear. “Just the night. One night to indulge you.”

Lying would be no use, all things considered. He’d already shamelessly eyed the needy area between your thighs, knowing that the arousal collecting there is for him. Your stomach swirls with a mixture of guilt and need, and you honestly feel like you’re in an impossible position.

“Sylus,” you breathe, your heartbeat thumping so hard that you’re surprised your chest hasn’t burst. “This is so wrong.”

He shakes his head as his large, gentle hands move to rest on your knees. “Your pleasure means more to me than a simple case of right and wrong.”

“I wish it was as simple as you make it seem,” you say, a long sigh leaving you.

“Can’t it be?” Sylus questions, his thumbs idly stroking your knees. “Allow me this one night to remind you of how I feel about you, how you feel about me. If you want me to leave you alone by the time morning comes, I will accept that with a smile.”

You’d like to imagine that you’re stronger than this, that the idea of a final night of lovemaking with your ex-boyfriend to get him out of your head for good isn’t appealing—but it is.

It’s something you’ve thought about before (in the dead of night with your hand stuffed down your shorts), but never did you think it could become a reality.

Only now, with him kneeling in front of you, it was.

“Okay,” you sheepishly murmur. “Remind me.”

You know this is absolutely horrible of you to do, but you can’t find the will to deny yourself this. As much as you tried to get Sylus out of your head, you never could. Not long enough for it to make a difference, anyway.

(Perhaps this, a final intimate night between the two of you, will be just what you need to move on for good.)

Sylus knows that his time with you is limited, but he plans to make it the best night of your existence.

(Perhaps if he can remind you of how much he’s willing to give, how much he loves you, how much he’s missed you—you’ll change your mind.)

His large, strong hands trail up as he drapes your legs over his shoulders, pressing a few kisses to your calves and inner thighs. He presses a kiss to the fabric of your underwear, his tongue drawing out to taste the wet spot.

Sylus isn’t sure what’s come over him, but he honestly feels like he’ll either implode or cry at the sight of you right now. To have you again is something he’s dreamt about more than he’d like to admit, and he plans to show you just how much your absence has affected him as his fingers slide beneath your skirt to hook under the thin fabric of your underwear.

“Thank you,” he mutters against your skin, tugging the clothing piece down your legs. “Oh, fuck,” he mutters aloud the moment his eyes land on your heat.

He could seriously cum in his pants right now, and if he’s not careful, he will. His hands lock onto your thighs, pulling you to the edge of the bed to give him better access to your glistening cunt.

“Pussy’s all mine,” he breathes, licking a long stripe up your slit.

You would have replied if he hadn’t buried his face in between your thighs. His tongue laps at your wetness before he wraps his lips around your clit, sucking harshly at it with hollowed cheeks.

A cry leaves your lips at the sensation, your hand gripping onto his white hair as you revel in the feeling his tongue is giving you.

He’s eating you out like a man starved, his own moans rumbling into your cunt, his cock straining against the confines of his pants. Sylus could do this for days if you let him, but after not having you like this for so long, he can’t help himself from needing more.

Within moments, he’s slowly pushing you higher on your bed, still licking at your pussy until he’s physically unable to. He looks up at you with crazed eyes, licking his spit-slick lips as he kicks his shoes off.

“Sit on my face,” he murmurs, moving to lay on your bed. When he’s met with your hesitance, he’s grasping onto your arm to carefully pull you towards him. “I might die without it.”

You’ve never once seen a man so pussy drunk in your entire life, but you’re in absolutely no position to deny him. So, you move to hover above him, your hands resting on your headboard. You hear a satisfied moan beneath you, and he’s soon hooking his arms around your thighs.

“You won’t die without it,” you grumble. “In fact, you might die because of it. Suffocation—”

“Suffocation of this kind might be the best way to go,” he cuts you off, licking a faint swipe against your folds. “In fact, when we’re old and withered, it might be my last ask of you.”

Your face flushes, and you can feel heat rushing to both your cunt and your cheeks. Noticing the coy face you’re making, Sylus can’t help himself from laying a faint smack on your ass, squeezing its plushness as he stares up at you.

“For now, though,” he purrs, pressing a kiss to your inner thigh. “I want you to let go for me. Can’t have you dangling this pretty cunt in my face without letting me taste it.”

As you hesitantly begin to relax your thighs and lower on top of him, he lifts his head up to meet you halfway and gather your slick on his tongue.

“Very good, baby,” Sylus purrs, dropping his head back onto your sheets as he pulls your hips down the rest of the way, “now sit.”

When all of your weight crashes down on him, a soft gasp leaves your lips at the sheer passion behind the movements of his tongue. He almost seems to be more incentivized. His eyes flutter shut as he mouths at your pussy, the moans leaving his mouth in combination with the absolute filthy sounds of his tongue are enough to drive you insane.

Sylus feels like he’s finally left purgatory and has transcended into heaven. With his pretty girl on his face, taking her on his tongue, making the most beautiful little noises—he’s honestly never felt better.

(Well, there is that whole new boyfriend thing looming in the back of his mind, but he’s sure that you’ll take care of that once he’s done taking care of you.)

One of your hands leaves the headboard to grasp onto his hair, your eyes screwing shut as you rock your hips over his tongue. “Sylus,” you breathe out through a moan. “I’m— oh, shit—”

Sylus’s cock twitches as you moan his name, his eyes fluttering shut as one of his hands help to guide the rocking of your hips. With his other, he palms himself through his trousers, his mouth working tirelessly to make you feel good.

Even as self-admittedly selfish as he is, he can’t bear the idea of putting his pleasure above your own—even if the ache is physically eating away at him. With you writhing above him, the sounds you’re making, the look on your face, it’s all too much—even for him.

Your mouth lulls open as you let out the most beautiful whine he’s ever heard, and his tongue slows down, working you through your first orgasm of the night. He eagerly collects your juices with his tongue, his eyes rolling back as he finally presses a final kiss to your swollen clit.

“I can stay this way forever,” he says against your inner thigh, placing a kiss to your warm skin, “you and me,” he places another kiss, “together.”

You shift to lay beside him, out of breath and looking beautifully disheveled. Sylus licks his lips and lies starry–eyed beside you. Soon enough, a huff of laughter escaped his throat, realizing he might’ve said too much there.

Sylus turns his head to look at you. “Was that enough to get an ‘I miss you too’ out of that mouth of yours?”

You let out a breathless laugh, your hand running over your face. “No,” you lie.

That was the best orgasm you’ve had since your breakup, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“You’ve developed quite the attitude,” he muses, rolling on top of you. He slots his lips against yours, licking into your mouth, allowing you to taste yourself on his tongue. “That boyfriend of yours must not fuck it out of you like he should,” he adds, the low volume of his voice rumbling against your skin as he kisses along your jaw, “like I can.”

Before you can think twice, you’re lifting your hips against the bulge in his pants, a soft gasp escapes your lips as you feel the very prominent shape of his hardened cock. With a grunt, Sylus pushes your hips down, his fingers brushing against your inner thighs.

“Such a needy little thing,” he chastises, his hand moving to cup your mound. “First you’re insisting I leave, and now you’re hoping I’ll give you my cock. You’re sending me mixed signals here, sweetie.”

You’re seeing stars, and your hand grasps onto his wrist, feeling the way his muscles tense as he begins to toy with your clit.

“I want it,” you whine, your toes curling as the pad of his middle finger circles your entrance, “you’re… you’re being a tease.”

“That’s right,” he whispers, licking a long stripe up your neck. “If you want it bad enough, you’re going to have to prove it, baby.”

Your head tilts to the side as Sylus pulls away from your neck to look down at you. His fingers move to work at the button of your skirt, tugging it down your legs and tossing it onto the floor of your room.

“How?” you ask.

He presses his lips to yours as his hands tug up your shirt, breaking the kiss to carefully pull it over your head. His large hands palm at your breasts, bringing your perked nipples in between his fingers.

“Pick up the phone,” Sylus answers, releasing your breasts to sit up in front of you, his hands moving to undo his belt.

Your curiosity soon turns into something much more lustful as he pulls his trousers and boxers down his thighs. His shirt goes next, the articles of clothing decorating your floor. His cock looks even better than you remember, but he snaps his fingers in front of your face to gather your attention.

“Sorry, what?” you ask, shaking your head to snap yourself out of your trance.

“Pick up the phone,” he repeats, reaching to your bedside table to hand you your cell.

You take the device from him, looking at it with confusion. You were embarrassed that you hadn’t even noticed it ringing, far too distracted by the sight of him stroking his hand along his length, but your embarrassment soon turns into dread as you read the caller ID.

It is, of course, none other than your boyfriend.

“Sylus, that’s— that’s crazy,” you stammer out, looking between his eyes, his dick, and your phone.

He snickers, flipping you onto your stomach. His hands grasp onto the plush of your hips to pull your ass up. “What’s crazy is the fact that you expect me to fuck you without your boyfriend’s knowledge.”

“You’re above adultery?” you gasp out.

Sylus shakes his head, his hand moving to prod your entrance with the tip of his cock, his other hand grasping onto your hair to pull you back against his chest.

“Obviously not,” he replies, licking along the shell of your ear. “Just want to show him how beneath it you are.”

Your heart slams against your chest as he takes the device from you and answers the call, holding the phone to your ear.

“Let him hear,” he purrs, slowly pushing his cock inside of you. “The noises you make with my cock buried inside you are such a prize. It’d be a disservice to not share.”

A sharp whine leaves your lips as he tugs on your hair, tilting your head to give himself better access to your neck as he bottoms out inside of you. “Tell him what you’re up to, sweetie,” he simply says, sucking a faint mark onto your neck.

On the other end of the line, your partner begins to blab on about his day, though you’re hardly able to listen, not when Sylus is pushing his cock inside of you like a madman. Your body tenses as he stretches you out, the sensation forcing a moan out of your mouth, though the man on the other end of the line didn’t seem to notice.

“That’s it, baby,” he whispers, resting his chin on the crook of your shoulder to press an open-mouthed kiss to your jaw, “taking my cock so nicely. Missed this pussy so much.”

“—so then, I told him… wait. Are you with someone?”

Your heart rate skyrockets as Sylus draws his hips back only to pound the length of his cock inside of you. “Oh, fuck… y-yes,” you choke into the phone, almost breathless.

“Thank you for your confession, my dear,” Sylus teasingly remarks, knowing that your response was a reaction to how good he feels inside of you rather than an answer to your boyfriend’s question.

He presses a faint kiss to your shoulder as he thrusts into you again, using his grip on your hair to push you back onto your stomach. A hand smoothes over the curve of your back, his long fingers hooking around the plush of your hip to remind you that he’s still present despite the situation. He then brings the phone to his own ear, watching with a wide grin as you arch your back to take as much of his cock as you can.

“Our friend can’t talk right now,” he says into the receiver, grunting as your walls clench around him. “She’s gotten lost and found herself on my cock, which is such a positive turn of events, let me tell you,” the pace of his hips thrusting into you only seems to get more intense with each word he says, “considering it’s right where she belongs.”

“W-what? Who the fuck are you? I—”

“I can’t stay on the line to talk much either,” Sylus continues, his free hand grasping a bit tighter onto your hair as he tugs on it to fuck deeper and harder inside of you, his skin slapping against yours with each heavy thrust. “Have to make her cum for all the times you couldn’t.”

You’re lost in a whirlwind of sensations, your mouth gaped open as you moan out with each thrust he makes, your back arched as much as you could make it. You can feel a pool of warmth building inside of your lower stomach, and you let out a cry of pleasure.

You haven’t been fucked this good in, well… six months. That much is obvious to the both of you, given the way you’ve been losing your mind with each forceful push of his hips. He knows your body in ways you’ll never understand, and luckily for you, you don’t need to understand in order to receive the pleasure that he’s desperately trying to give you.

“Sylus!” you gasp out, serving as a warning for how close you already are.

“Mm, I have to go, duty calls,” Sylus says into the phone, releasing his grip on your hair to move his hand between your legs, two of his fingers circling your clit. “Call my woman again and I’ll kill you.”

Tapping the screen to end the call, he tosses your phone mindlessly, and it’s only when you hear it drop against the floor do you turn around to look at him.

“Sylus!” you scold.

He gives you a wry smile as he slowly pulls out of you, rolling you onto your back. “I’ll buy you a new one, pretty. Don’t worry.”

You open your mouth to protest, but when he slowly pushes his cock inside of you again, you’re hardly in the protesting mood at all.

Sylus towers over you, his forearm propping him up as he slowly fucks into you, his red eyes trained to yours. “God, baby, I’ve missed you.”

Almost instinctively, your hands wrap around his neck, pulling him closer to you. There was a hidden intimacy of this position that you’ve always loved. He obliges to your request, resting his forehead on yours as he thrusts harder inside of you.

“You take me so well,” he whispers, pressing a chaste kiss to your lips. “So, so beautifully.”

You mewl at the softness of his praise, your eyes glossing over as he continues to fuck you into oblivion, your walls tensing around him. He hisses at the feeling, dipping his head to press a kiss on your cheek.

He can tell that you’re close, and he knows just what you need. He won’t give it to you so easily, though.

“Sweetie?” he breathes out.

You nod your head before breathlessly replying, “yeah?”

Sylus gives you a smirk as he raises his bruised finger to your lips. “Kiss it better. Let me use it on you.”

Protest is not on your agenda anymore, not by a long shot. You kiss the pad of his finger without hesitation, and you proceed to capture it with your mouth, your tongue soothing the bruising.

He smiles at the sight, a groan leaving his lips as he continues to thrust his cock inside of you. “So pretty, baby. God, you’re beautiful.”

Sylus retracts his finger from your mouth to bring it to your clit, his spit-slick finger rubbing it in beautiful, moan-earning circles. He watches as your eyes almost immediately haze over at the stimulation.

He lowers his head to suck on your nipple, his free hand palming at your other breast as means of stimulating you in any way he can. After a moment, he latches onto your other breast, his tongue swirling around the hardened peak.

“God, ah— Sylus!” you moan, your hands wrapping around his neck.

He nips at your breast before he pulls away, a guttural moan leaving his mouth as he feels you clench around his cock. “Going to come for me again, beautiful?”

You nod your head, rising up from the pillow to press a kiss on his lips, and his large hand moves to cup the back of your head as he kisses you through your orgasm. His fingers gently thread through your hair, giving you the best of both worlds.

“Cream my cock, baby. It’s all yours, always will be,” he mutters against your lips, his thrusts growing slower as he twitches inside of you.

Sylus breaks the kiss to look down at you, a heavy pant leaving him. “Where do you want me?” he breathlessly asks.

As if that were a question you ever responded differently to, he still needed to ask, even though you answered just the same. “In… in me.”

He nods his head as he thrusts inside of you a few more times, pressing an open-mouthed kiss on your cheek as he bottoms out inside of you, stuffing you full of his thick, white cum.

A moment passes in which the two of you simply pant breathlessly to each other, your sweaty foreheads pressed together. It was a beautiful scene by all measures.

“I missed you too,” you finally pant out, a smile breaking your lips. “I missed you a lot.”

He chuckles breathlessly at that. “I missed you even more, sweetie.”

Sylus presses a soft kiss on your cheek before he slowly pulls out of you, traveling slowly to your bathroom before returning with a damp towel. He settles in front of you again, using the warm towel to gently clean up the mess he’s made of you between your legs.

You stare at him with the most lovestruck eyes he’s ever seen, and it only makes him smile. “You tired, baby?” he lowly asks.

Nodding your head, you extend your arms to him, and he pulls you in without question. He lies down on his back, holding you against his chest. His large hand runs over your back while the other one tugs your blankets over the both of you, giving you a bit of warmth.

Not that he needed anything more than your presence. He feels like he’s on cloud nine, holding the woman that he loves, running his fingers over her hair just as he used to.

“I love you,” he murmurs into your ear, pressing a soft kiss on the top of your head. It’s almost concerning how much he loves you, but he can’t help it.

“I love you,” you lazily return the sentiment.

As you cuddle into his chest, you can’t help but wonder what would have happened if he hadn’t shown up today, if he’d left you alone, if he let you move on.

You know it’s crazy to think about.

After all, it’s Sylus. Your Sylus. He’s the only person you’ve ever needed, and now that he’s reminded you of that, you won’t forget it.

note. thank you for reading! please interact if you enjoyed!! <3 i don’t even know what the hell this is—we have possessive, dominant, and soft sylus in one go. but hey, it works for me, so i hope it works for you. pls pls pls give me ideas to write more for this sexy man—i never get tired of him!

✧ masterlist | request

[lostinficanya]

The new trailer is great... Valko seems like a fun guy... he's also nerd ⁄⁠(⁠⁄⁠ ⁠⁄⁠•⁠⁄⁠-⁠⁄⁠•⁠⁄⁠ ⁠⁄⁠)⁠⁄

They made him look so angry and edgy on the first teaser

I really like his voice too >⁠.⁠<

And CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE MUSIC !!!

[lostinficanya]

Every single social media account of mine is currently flooded with the 6th love interest content.

It's insane how people have created so many edits with just the 40 seconds trailer... Now people are posting fanarts too.

And the memes are so funny.

I love the creativity of the lads fandom 🩷

[humanjarvis]

velcro

[lostinficanya]

[deepspacebabyy]

I’m so obsessed with him it’s not even funny

[syluseslittlebomb-deactivated20]

So I had one holiday prompt that I couldn't include in the big holiday prompt fic I posted last week, and I also have been receiving some really sweet and cute ideas that weren't exactly requests, but the ideas were so nice that I wanted to write something for them. I've gathered them into one story that I hope isn't disappointing. I had intended to do separate, cute little drabbles, but I had a bad day the other day and somehow uh, really dark angst happened, and then I used the ideas people sent for the comfort half of the fic? So please forgive me for just... taking it as dark as you can go before including the sweet, cute ideas that people requested. I hope you like the result anyway, although please read the content warnings. Several of the people who sent requests/ideas apologized for doing so, as if sending the ideas was 'too much', but you don't have to apologize for sending asks. My requests are open, and I like seeing everyone's ideas even if I don't end up being able to write for them, or if I tweak them a little to make them work for the story that comes out of my brain despite my best laid plans to stick to an outline.

The river | ao3 | masterlist

It's Christmas Eve, you're at the end of your rope after an absolutely awful year, and you decide to end it all after pushing everyone in your life away. Sylus pulls you from the brink and convinces you to keep going.

Sylus x fem reader, Sylus x mc, hurt/comfort, angst, grief, banter, fluff. CW: attempted suicide, depressed thoughts, NSFW, Sylus penetrating reader (this is not sex ed, do not follow these idiots' example, no discussion of condom or birth control, this is fantasy and we're not going to worry about that in the fic)

Ask #1 You asked to keep sending silly little ideas for you to write so I thought I'd give my own request! After Caleb and Gran (supposedly) die it's pretty much canon that MC refuses help from their friends and isolates themself in certain ways. I always imagine MC sometimes sees Sylus as "the only one they have left" since he is the only one who goes out of his way to check up on MC. But MC kinda grows to resent this and has a moment when their drunk/really going through it and basically ask Sylus why he doesn't leave them be so they can just rot away in peace. Sorry if this is too lengthy or I'm overstepping! Brain worms are getting to me

Ask #2 Okay, so random thoughts here, but do you know that superstition that’s like, “the places where you have moles on your body show where your lover kissed you in a past life”? But like… can you imagine what it would be like if MC had a mole in the exact spot where Sylus bit her during Abyssal Mark (cus I have one there lol) and then that superstition randomly gets brought up, only for MC to show him that mole and Sylus is just s h o o k??? N e way that’s my random thoughts lol (sorry if this is a lot 💀)

Ask #3 I love the way you write the MC and I find myself relating to them at least 99% of the time. Sometimes I just imagine them giving Sylus one of those "Do you like me? Circle yes or no!" Love letters to Sylus because they are terrified of rejection -> i wrote the MC in this story really, really depressed, so if this didn't hit the spot for you in terms of fear of rejection, let me know, and I can include your prompt in another story idea I had before this one that's a lot lighter and sweeter before I got hit by the angst truck that this fic turned out to be. just let me know!

Ask #4 the last holiday prompt! -> idk if anyone sent it yet but from the xmas prompt list, i would love to see what you do with number 8 -> I'm so sorry that this is what I did with it, I hope you like it anyway😭

Thank you everyone who has sent me ideas! If you've sent me a request and I haven't answered it yet, it's because I'm still intending to do something with it.

Here you are. Again.

At the end of a long day. A long week. A long year. 

A long rope.

It’s the dark, this time of year. 

Maybe. 

You’re restless. You’ve passed through the Deepspace Hunters Association doors for the last time this year. Empty days of leave stretch before you.

Normally, it would still be light out, leaving this early. But not now, this deep into the year—it’s already full night, as you leave work early.

The bright lights of the building pour over your upturned face as you look back, just once. You don’t know what for. You’ve successfully severed most of the ties you had built before.

Before everything.

Tara, Xavier. After Caleb, Josephine—they reached out, over and over, and you bit their outstretched hands with your sharp, sharp teeth. 

You snapped enough times that they keep their distance, now. 

They’re still kind. 

Tara still comes, sits on your desk, shares tidbits of gossip during the workday. But she no longer invites you along to karaoke, to after-work drinks with other coworkers.

You and Xav work in sync, as you eliminate wanderers. He walks you to your door at the end of the day. But he no longer offers to lend you books. No longer invites you to the bookstore, or to try new restaurants.

You watch his broad back as he walks away from you, down your apartment building’s hallway. He feels as far away as a star in the velvet night sky.

It’s not their fault. You did this.

You wanted this.

You turn away from the warm light beaming from the Association as you leave early, the Christmas lights glittering in the windows, the holiday party you’re skipping still in full swing in the open, sleek company restaurant area on the ground floor. A division-wide shindig, to celebrate the end of the year, the holidays.

The night is cold. Fairy lights, nets of bright pinpricks in the dark night, cover the trees lining the sidewalk. Decorative light displays stretch across the busy road at periodic intervals, over the canals that parallel the streets, the gondolas and tour-boats festive under their own lights, red ribbons flapping in the cold winter wind.

You think about how they never recovered a body.

Only Josephine’s ashes fill an urn, sitting in a cold niche of a quiet columbarium. Caleb’s urn is empty.

You start walking, fast, along the busy sidewalk. People are out shopping, scurrying to tie up last minute errands before the city shuts down for the holiday tomorrow.

You want to unzip your coat. Unzip your uniform. Unzip your skin, your ribcage. Leave all these pieces of yourself behind, for others to puzzle over. To sweep up with the rest of the refuse left over from festive party goers on the street. You want to dissipate in the cold winter air like your breath with each cursed inhale, exhale.

You settle for beginning to jog to the metro station, your feet carrying you faster, faster, your boots heavy on the sidewalk. You see it lit in the distance, but you can’t stand the thought of being underground right now. Buried alive, with all the other people. You sprint past it. 

You’re graceful enough to duck and weave, not disturb anyone else, until the crowds thin.

You’re running, running, the city is streaming past, like the tears from your eyes. Wet from the cold, because you haven’t cried since waking up, your ears deafening, Caleb’s silver chain glittering in the firelight on the walk up to your grandmother’s burning house.

Tears won’t bring a body back.

You don’t know how much longer you can stand this.

The days, one after another. Alarm, moving through the dark to get to work. Moving through the dark to get back to your apartment at the end of the day.

The pain—your only constant, now. The only thing you expect, have to look forward to, day after blurred day. 

An echoing emptiness, like an urn without ashes. An emptiness that feels so full that your skin could burst with it.

You think about your apartment. The festive city outside its windows. The half-opened bottle of wine in the fridge, the only thing in it.

You veer from your neighborhood. Keep running. You’re sweating under your winter coat, your heavy Hunter uniform. It doesn’t matter.

You run, and run, and run, until you run out of streets, sidewalk.

Just the river, wide and black. There is a bridge, soaring over the water, in the distance. Its lights reflected in the water, along with the urban nightscape. Stars above, stars below.

You could drown in them.

You look at the bridge.

You could drown in it all.

There’s no one left, after all.

Who will miss you?

You slow. Stop.

Your breath is heavy in the quiet air. Fairy lights sparkle here, too. Pretty swooping light displays top each lamppost along the river path. 

You would have gone to identify the body, as you did with Gran. She didn’t look like herself. Not even a sleeping version of herself. They did their best, reconstructing her face. But it wasn’t the stitches, the bruising. It was that she simply wasn’t there anymore. Like a stranger’s body on display. An empty house after the residents have been forced to flee in a night of unimaginable violence. 

But running your hands through her hair, one last time. It soothed something in you. Enough that you could breathe in the cold mortuary air. Could nod. Could watch as they covered her again. As they escorted you out into the bustling hospital hallways, to stand under cold fluorescent lights. To stare vacantly at the wall, until you felt a strange, familiar feeling. You looked up, saw Zayne watching you, at the end of the long hallway. You stared at him, memorizing his beautiful face. His dark hair. His severe, cold loveliness. You let yourself look one last time, and he let you. Through the people filling the hallway, each walking with purpose, they were a blur and he was  across the world, across time, a part of your past that should never have reappeared in your present. It hurt too much, to look at his beautiful, distant face. He left you behind, once. He should have stayed gone. You can’t stand to experience the loss again, the loss you felt every time he listened to your heart, expressionless, a stranger with a beautiful, familiar face from your past, a past in which Caleb was still alive. 

You looked at Zayne one last time, across a bustling hallway in a place full of life, of death, and he let you. You then turned, headed to the reception desk. You switched doctors, hospitals.

You blocked his number, so you’ll never know if he sent you a text, tried to call and ask why, after. He let you walk out. Which is as it should be.

You wanted this.

The water churns under the whipping wind, the fast current. It looks so cold. Cold enough to numb. Cold enough to finally put out the fire that’s been burning in you, ever since you woke up, your ears deafening, Caleb’s necklace shimmering in the flames.

You think of running your hands through his hair. Something the fire robbed you of—it would have been your first time, your last time. He would pat your head. Call you pipsqueak. Ignore your protests to not mess up your hair, to not treat you like a little kid. But he would always duck out of the way anytime you tried to return the favor, tease him, tousle his hair. His pretty brunette hair that always looked so soft. Now you’ll never know how soft it really was.

You look at the water. You look at the bridge. The car headlights meteors streaking along their guardrail-gated orbit.

You think about going home. Waking up tomorrow, Christmas Day. The silence. You think about going back to work. Killing wanderer after wanderer. Wondering which one will be the one to finally kill you.

The days blur. The constant emptiness echoing inside your apartment, inside your ribcage.

You look at the water. You look at the bridge. You imagine running your hands through Caleb’s hair for the first, the last time. A tender goodbye you’ll never have, because they never found his body.

There’s no one left to miss you.

Your phone vibrates in your pocket. You fish it out.

Rafayel no longer calls, or texts you words. He just sends photos, every once in a while. Mundane details of everyday life, rendered extraordinary through his artist’s eye. Paintings he’s working on. A foreign landscape. Leaves glistening with dew. The moon, waxing full.

You haven’t answered in months. You look at each one, tuck your phone back in your pocket.

You look back at the water. Think about taking a photo of the reflected stars, the thin crescent moon in the black waves, think of sending him one last response. But even you’re not that cruel. You don’t want him to realize later, that he was the last one to say anything to you.

You don’t open his text. You block his number. Tuck the phone back into your pocket.

You start to walk toward the bridge. As you walk, you keep your eyes on the path, its edges. Decorative, smooth stones line the walkway along the river embankment. You pick them up, here and there, as you walk. Slip them into your coat pockets.

Eventually you run out of room in your coat pockets, add more to your pants pockets. 

You turn your eyes back to the bridge, looming now.

You think of your empty fridge. Josephine’s empty face. An empty urn.

You’re ready to scoop out what’s left of you, leave it behind on the sidewalk, smoldering as the cold night finally smothers the endless fire, the only thing left inside you. Maybe it will warm someone else, in passing. A last good deed, from you to someone in the world.

A metal staircase, leading up, up, into the black sky, mirroring the dark river, your heavy boots echoing. The cars are loud. If you close your eyes, they could be the rushing waves of an ocean, instead of a river of traffic, above a river of water.

You keep your eyes open. You’re not going to pretend that you’re not doing what you’re doing, now. You’re not at the ocean, its pure salt air drifting through your hair, now whipping around your face. You’re on a busy, exhaust- and oil-stained commuter bridge on the night before Christmas, having cut your ties with everyone you have always known never wanted or needed you in the first place. What’s the difference if a wanderer kills you tomorrow, or if something kills you today? Just empty time, blurry days, photo frames without pictures.

The guardrail isn’t so high as one would guess. It’s an easy step up. An easy step over. You stand, looking back over the city where you were raised. The city that contains all the past versions of yourself, from the moment you were pulled screaming into life from a mother whose face you’ll never know, through to now, an empty shell of a person. If your fellow hunters could see inside you, they’d mistake you for a wanderer and put you down, like the scientists who experimented on you, your own grandmother, did years ago.

Since learning that Gran was one of the people who fucked with your heart, you have often resented that she and her colleagues weren’t successful in finishing the job years ago, when they had the chance.

But now you wonder, standing over a dark, freezing river that reflects what’s inside you now, maybe they did finish it. You just didn’t realize it. Not till tonight, as you look down in the mirror of the rushing water, far below.

Even now, the tears won’t come.

What use are tears, when they can’t bring a body back. When they can’t wash it clean. When they can’t lovingly touch it, one last time, soft strands of hair under your fingers.

Your tears, your heart, your suffering, your existence—useless, for the entirety of a life you can only half remember.

You wonder if it’s the dark, tonight. Why tonight, and not yesterday? Why not six months ago? 

Because it took that long to sever the ties binding you here?

Now you are assured, no one will miss you. It will take days before anyone even notices your absence because of your holiday leave.

You hope that they’ll assume it was a wanderer. Bad luck. Wrong time, wrong place. A modest little plaque on the wall of heroes, even though you know you’re no hero.

In the end, it doesn’t matter why it’s tonight, and not any other night.

No need to be dramatic, pretending there’s meaning in the meaningless.

You put your hands on the guardrail, the metal colder than your freezing hands. You lift a heavy booted foot. Take a deep breath. 

It’s so cold. It will be over before you know it. You’ve read that from this height, it’s the impact, and not the drowning.

You’ve always had dreams of flying. 

You lift your other foot, arms thrown wide for balance, just for a moment. The world feels so big, here at the end. The stars above, the stars below, the doubled crescent moon. You’re ready to drown in it all.

You only have one hope.

I don’t want to be reborn.

You breathe, empty your mind of Tara’s earnest smile, Xavier’s soft laughter, Zayne’s steady hands, Rafayel’s flashing violet eyes. Josephine’s empty face. Caleb’s soft, untouchable hair.

You let yourself fall.

You’re flying. Your heart is soaring. Your heart is seizing. The relief, the terror, mingle. You can’t scream, even if you wanted to.

You’re flying and it’s everything you ever dreamt, until it’s not.

Your body jerks, abruptly. Your hair whips down, lashes your face. You grunt with the impact against… nothing. You’re suspended over the water, drifting in the air. The wind tugs at your stone-weighted coat.

You twist away from the water, craning your neck to look up, up, back at the bridge.

You have withstood the uselessness of tears for almost a year now. But now, you want to cry so badly the pain of the need steals your breath.

You knew he was cruel. You knew he was merciless. You knew that he hated you. You just didn’t realize how much, until now.

You hang suspended over a dark, rushing river, wrapped in scarlet and ink tendrils, looking up into the sneering face of the one person you refused to think about as you made your final decision tonight, at the end of your desolate, half-remembered life.

His evol begins to lift you, away from the merciful impact, the numbing water. You, your past, your heart, the memories and despair and stones filling your pockets seem weightless, wrapped in his power.

His usual mask of bored indifference is gone. He is finally showing you his true face, what he must always feel when he looks at you—fury and disgust.

He says nothing, as he pulls you from the depths, back into the world. As he sets you gently back on your heavy feet on the sidewalk in front of him. His evol evaporates, winter breath in the wind.

He looks at your face with his wine-dark eyes. Looks at the water. Flicks his gaze back to your face.

You will not cry in front of this man. This man who hates you so much he won’t even let you seek the peace of death. Death, which has always been too good for you, but not for the people you loved the most.

You clench your jaw as the fire re-ignites in your chest. The flames you had tried so hard to scoop out, to leave behind.

You don’t want to feel this much anymore.

If you speak, you know you’ll cry. You can’t stand it.

Maybe, with enough repetition, he’ll get bored. He gets bored so easily, after all.

You turn, try to launch yourself over the guardrail again.

This time, it’s not his evol, but his arms that wrap around you, pull you back from the fall.

You struggle, throwing your elbows, kicking, throwing your head back, hoping to catch his perfect nose, break it under the hardness of your stupid, useless skull.

He says nothing, just holds you tighter, wraps one arm around your waist, the other over your chest, his big hand cradling the side of your face, pressing your head back into his own chest, as he hunches over you, an immovable wall of warmth. As you fight to break free of his hold, you are wrapped in his scent—cloves, gun oil. 

Sylus.

Eventually, you tire yourself out—despite all of your strength, it is no match for his. He holds you against himself easily, as you pant, lungs burning with the effort, the sweat warm once again under your Hunter’s uniform. You become aware of a whimpering, the keening of a wounded animal.

It’s coming from your throat. Your eyes burn. You go limp in his arms.

“That’s it,” he murmurs. A voice like warm liquor in your veins. You think he’ll let you go. You prepare, hoping you can get to the guardrail again. Maybe this time he won't be so fast. But instead of releasing you, getting away from you as fast as he can, the arm around your waist moves up, cradling your upper back. He scoops his other arm under your legs, holds you against himself like you’re a delicate princess, if you were anyone else. But because it’s you, he’s probably just holding you like a useless sack of shit that would be too annoying to drop. He begins to walk, his stride steady, brisk.

He looks down into your face. “I bought a dress for you. Silk. A design like stars over a flowing river. That’s the only river you’re allowed in tonight, kitten.”

You stare at him. His breath puffs white in the cold air. The face of disgusted fury is replaced by his usual bored mask.

Why is he doing this to you? He wanted to kill you, just a few months ago. Why not let you do the job for him?

He is the only person in your life who didn’t take the hint. Who kept showing up, after you made it clear that you didn’t want their presence anymore. That you couldn’t handle the ties, because ties become nooses, snapping your neck when the other person leaves you behind.

When he showed up where you were, in a ‘coincidental’ meeting on the street, on a jog, you would turn, move in the other direction. He would match your stride, doggedly pestering you with questions, asking you about your evening or weekend plans, telling you silly stories from the N109 Zone, Luke and Kieran’s latest antics. Sometimes he’d just walk in contemplative silence, thumbs hooked through his belt loops, or jog quietly next to you, never losing his breath, never complaining about the pace.

When you would routinely see him at various restaurants you were headed to in order to pick up takeout, you’d leave your food, immediately turning and hurrying away. When the same food was delivered to your door half an hour later, you’d refuse to answer, letting the confused and irritated delivery man leave. A half hour after that, the same man would be back, yell through the door that he had instructions to leave the food even if no one answered, and then he’d make good on his promise. You were faced with the choice of either letting the food go to waste, or eating it guiltily at your kitchen island.

No matter how many times you told the delivery person of the almost daily packages you received with no return address that you didn’t want to accept delivery, they would always insist that their instructions were to deliver regardless of recipient response. You were welcome to bin the items after receipt, but if you didn’t accept, the packages would just pile so high outside of your door that you couldn’t reach your apartment anymore.

You would accept, and then donate whatever exquisite item was inside to women’s shelters, children’s homes, university museums, soup kitchens, fundraiser auctions. No matter how clear it was that you wouldn’t accept anything from him, Sylus never stopped sending you gifts.

When you were sick, he’d show up personally, barge into your apartment when you were too tired to look at the doorbell camera before answering, a duffel bag gripped in his big hand filled with fever reducing medicine, homemade soup from his home chef, painkillers, hot water bottles, cooling pads, muscle pads, vitamins. He’d lounge on your couch, manspreading, insisting that he wouldn’t leave until he saw you swallow the pills and drink a gigantic glass of water.

He’d wait until you lay back down on your messy bed, until you fell asleep. He’d be gone when you woke again, but your apartment would be clean and your fridge and freezer would be stuffed full of healthy pre-prepared food.

You were half-convinced he was just buttering, fattening his prey before getting bored and mercifully ending its life.

Tonight, you are now fully convinced.

“Did your tongue freeze in your mouth?” he asks, descending the stairs you had just walked up, thinking it was your last time ascending them. “Do you need mouth-to-mouth to warm it up again?”

You scowl at him, at how appealing the idea of Sylus’s tongue in your mouth is, even now. You hate yourself, your traitorous body for being drawn to him, even now. “What’s the point of talking, when you never listen?” you grind out, your throat sore. You hadn’t realized how much your animal wailing had wrecked your throat. At least the tears are no longer so close to the surface that they’re threatening to spill.

“I listen to every word out of your beautiful mouth,” he counters serenely, with that same inexplicable kindness that makes your heart hurt. So at odds with how you know he must really feel about you. “I just listen to more than your mouth in order to hear what you’re really saying.”

“What?” You stare at his beautiful face, the way the lamplight illuminates its sharp features for a brief moment, before the night swallows it again as he moves between lampposts on his way… somewhere. Back the way you just came from.

He spares you a glance. “Your mouth says one thing, while the rest of you is screaming something else.”

You feel the blood draining from your face. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

One corner of his beautiful mouth lifts. “Don’t play dumb, kitten. You’re too smart for it to be convincing.”

You were just falling into the river. You were just about to be free. How did you get here again? In this man’s arms, his smug, roguish smile filling you with the unease of being seen. 

“I mean, it wouldn’t kill you to be a little more honest about the fact that you want people to fight for you, right?”

You begin to struggle again, shame lancing through you, making your body unbearable to be in. You know it’s weak, to have wanted so desperately that the people you were carving from your life would see what you were doing and stop you, place their hands over yours holding the cleaver, gently push it down, down, until it dropped from your grasp—how desperately you wanted them to step into your space, hold you tightly, just like this man who sees right through you is holding you now. You wanted Tara to keep inviting you out with your ridiculous colleagues, to sing your heart out at shitty karaoke clubs, to forcibly drag you to sleepovers and arcade nights. You wanted Xavier to push himself into your apartment, try to bake something horrible in your oven, sheepishly offer to go to the bakery with you instead when the fire alarm inevitably went off. You wanted Zayne to walk through the crowd to reach you at the other end of the hallway after you identified Josephine’s body, to ask to take your hand, to ask how you were doing, even though you knew you wouldn’t have been able to answer. You wanted Rafayel to keep inventing excuses for you to visit his studio, to keep insisting that he needed you to accompany him to expositions and fancy lunches as his bodyguard. 

But none of them did in the end, and that’s okay. You kept pushing them away, because your terror of their leaving was apparently bigger than your need for their presence in your life, and at least if they were already gone, as they inevitably would be, you’d finally be free. 

But the last person you would want to see this utterly humiliating need inside you, exposing you like this, is the one looking down at you right now with deceptively soft, all-seeing eyes.

You know the feeling, this need, of pulling away and pulling away and then being heartbroken when people finally let you is weak, and pathetic.

You may experience weak and pathetic feelings, but you’re not weak or pathetic. Not at your core. You were prepared to do what was necessary, to save yourself from the pain of your emptiness, the fire raging inside your chest. You weren’t asking anything of anyone. You were doing it all on your own. 

Not a burden. 

Never a fucking burden. 

You clench your teeth, buck in Sylus’s arms.

He just holds you tightly, a straightjacket for the insanity that you’re feeling, the insanity of this man, out of all the people in your life, stripping you of your masks, flaying you so that all of your most tender, shameful parts are exposed to both him and yourself.

“Stop that. You’re just going to tire yourself further, when I need you tonight.”

Of course. The quid pro quo. He helped you with the auction, the Aether Core. Now you owe him. He doesn’t give a fuck if you live or die—he just can’t let one of his assets destroy itself before it fulfills his purpose.

You go limp in his arms. Turn your head away from him.

He continues his train of thought. “No, it wouldn’t kill you to tell the truth to your friends, so you decided to take matters into your own hands, huh? Telling the people in your life that you actually need them wouldn’t kill you, so why bother, right, when you can just jump off of a fucking bridge?” His voice sounds like the night you met him. Controlled anger. Disgust. Accusation.

Then there’s something wrong with her.

You thought you had killed everything inside of you already. The yearning for human connection. The kindness of a friend. Family holding you in their arms. You thought you had scooped out most of it, even as some of it rekindled when he pulled you back from the fall.

But the way you’re hurting now, at the memory of his hate, the reminder that the people you love won’t fight for you even if it would be fighting against you, and that this man, for all of his false generosity, never cared for you from the beginning, that his gifts and his visits were all what you knew them to be, all along—a bored predator toying with its prey before using it and consuming it. 

You let your thoughts drift back to the bridge, push your pain away. Feed it to the fire. When he’s done with you, maybe you won’t even have to jump.

“Just shut up, Sylus. I’ll help you with your problem tonight. Just promise me you’ll toss me over yourself, when you’re done with me,” you tell the night, because you still can’t bring yourself to look at him.

He stops walking. The wind is so cold against your face. You wish he’d snap your neck, right now. You’re so fucking tired.

“Look at me.” His voice is low. Menacing.

You watch the water. Wonder how long it would take if you just walked out into it, without jumping. Just walk in with your stone-weighted coat and let the cold paralyze you, the current pull you under.

“Look at me, my heart,” he whispers. The change in his tone, his bizarre endearment, has you turning your head, looking up into his face. “That is one promise I can never make you.” He looks like he’s in pain. You don’t know why. He leans down, rests his forehead against yours, hunching his big shoulders, lifting your body in his arms so he can meet you. His breath is warm against your lips. “Please don’t talk to me like that.”

You want to snort. It’s rich, coming from him—the same man who is telling you not to tell him to shut up, after all the things he said to you as he starved you, strangled you.

“Please don’t tell me to kill you. To hurt you. That hurts me.”

You stare up into his face. See the sincerity in his eyes. The wind whips your hair. He wasn’t upset that you told him to shut up, but that you asked him to kill you? “What does it matter? Aren’t you going to, in the end?”

“Why would I stop you tonight, if I wanted you to die?”

Of course he won’t answer outright. When has Sylus Qin ever answered a direct question?

“Yeah, that’s what I’m saying. Why bother stopping me, unless you just need to use me and then be done with me? I can’t be that irreplaceable. Just get someone else to put on the dress, and let me get on with my fucking life. Someone who you can train to say just the right things, at just the right time, who’ll look good in whatever fancy shit you want to put her in. There’s gotta be easier idiots than me to serve your purpose.”

He closes his eyes, breathes in the cold night air. When he opens them, you have to look away. You can’t handle whatever is in them. “I know I hurt you, when we first met. That I said cruel things to you. I’m sorry.”

You laugh, even as your heart wrenches at this strange apology. Of course he doesn’t explain what offended him so much about your existence at the beginning. Why he treated you exactly how you deserved. Probably just whatever he saw when he used his Aether Core on you. He saw the echoing chambers of your empty, fucked up heart and was enraged that it was you, and not someone worthy, who would absorb the Aether Core. “There’s never been any need to varnish the truth, Sylus. You almost choked me to death the day we met. You should have fucking finished what you started,” you sneer. “Why does no one ever finish what they start?” You think of Josephine, her researcher cronies. Think of Caleb, his promise to return, the last text he ever sent you. Your fucking parents, who you will never know.

You don’t expect an answer.

And yet, you’re surprised when Sylus wordlessly releases his hold on you. Lets you slip from his arms, sets you back on your feet. You settle in your heavy boots, the weight of your coat, the stones in your pockets, grounding you to the earth.

The lamplight shines in his silver-sheened, wind-tousled hair. His cheeks are red from the cold.

Of course. Of course.

No tool is irreplaceable.

You’re not irreplaceable.

You finally said the right thing, to push him away.

This is it. This is it. This is it. 

Your mind returns to the bridge. Your hand is holding the cleaver, dripping with the blood from the last unwelcome tether to your life.

You try to memorize his face, just as you did Zayne’s, but for some reason looking at Sylus’s face hurts you so much more despite having known him for so little time. Just a sigh, in the timeline of your life. The warm glow of his irises. The softness of his lower lip. The pride in his shoulders, his nose. 

Maybe you didn’t want to think of him before jumping because you had fallen in love with him, despite the fact that any affection he offered was counterfeit—the steady way he breathed next to you on a jog, the way he spread out on your couch, his dry humor, his intelligence, his piercing gaze, his kindness that was actually more cruel than if he had just tossed you out and never bothered to look for you again after the auction.

You knew it was fake. You knew it was calculated. You knew that the reality was, because he had told you from the very beginning—

Don’t tell me that you like me. Is this all so you can get my attention?

Clearly you’ve read too many fairytales.

And yet you had believed, in the bright moments of receiving his kind attention, in the fairytale. Just for a heartbeat. A raindrop, splattering on the ground.

You thought that you couldn’t bear to see what it looks like when Sylus finally tires of you pushing him away, and stops reaching out, as everyone else has. 

But with just a few words, you’ve finally managed to do it. He set the burden of you down, and now he’ll walk away, replace you with some other beautiful, breathing tool.

You learn in this moment that you actually can bear it. You can bear anything, as long as you know that very soon, you won’t have to bear anything at all.

“You wanted the truth?” you say, suddenly, the relief flooding through you that the worst has happened, that you’re now actually free. You think of the fabric of the dress, liquid stars over a night river, and wonder whose body it will caress, with Sylus’s big hand on her waist, his gentle fingers drifting across her collarbone, his forehead pressed against hers, for whatever ruse he needs to run tonight, on Christmas Eve.

He grows still. Watches you carefully, as if searching your face for a trick. You look back at him steadily, scooping everything inside you out, letting it splatter onto the sidewalk, here along this dark riverbank.

“Will you give it to me?” he finally asks.

“As a parting thank you gift, for cutting me loose.” You nod. Take a shuddering breath of the frigid air. “Here is me telling you the truth: you should treat the woman who ends up wearing the dress you got with more gentleness than you did me at the beginning. You could have the world eating out of the palm of your hand, if you skip the cruelty at the beginning and just treat people the way you treated me in the last few months. She’ll do anything for you, I think, if you do. Because somehow you made me love you, despite our beginning. I could bear to cut everyone else loose but you.” You laugh, and the sound is like icicles snapping, shattering on the ground. “Thank you for doing it for me, instead. It’s probably the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

You smile at him. 

You don’t know why you’re surprised that he just frowns deeply, brow furrowing. 

Well. That’s okay. You never expected him to be pleased to see your face, smiling or not.

“Good luck, Sylus.”

You turn, begin to walk back the way you came, for the second time tonight. Your thoughts are already at the bridge. You’ve been falling for months now. Soon you’ll finally hit the crystal water and shatter. 

You hope you won’t be reborn.

“You said you love me.” His deep, low voice is carried by the wind.

You stop, turn your head. “Stupid, huh?” you ask, wondering if he wants to pour salt into the wound you just willingly exposed to him.

“Why would you love someone who treated you the way I did?”

You turn fully, face him across the night, one last time. “You’re so fucking funny. I’ve always appreciated men who can make me laugh.” You shrug. “And I’m a pathetic fool. You pretended to be kind, and I lapped it up like the thirsty dog I am.”

He tilts his head, takes a step towards you. “That’s all?”

You take a step back. You don’t need him and his pretty face, his delicious scent any closer to torment you.

You offer him more truth. “Of course not.”

“What else?”

You sigh. “What does it matter? We’ll never see each other again.”

He shakes his head. “Indulge me.”

So salt, it is. You press your fingers into the most tender part of yourself, peel yourself wide open. “Your cleverness. How sweet you can be when you want something—strangely pliant, for such a big, powerful man. The self confidence you have. I could say, do anything and you did so well pretending to never be embarrassed of me. You made me believe, very briefly, that you really wanted to be with me, do anything, go anywhere, just because I was there. It’s quite impressive, really. I can see why you’re so good at business. You’re competent. You’re beautiful to look at.” You pause, shake your head in turn. “But you already know all that. You know why you’re loveable. You made me feel cherished in a way that no one ever has, even as I was pushing you away. But honestly, those are just parts of you. They don’t fully cover what it is about you that makes my heart ache when I look at you. I love you because you’re you. Even hearing your name makes my heart race. Seeing your shoes in my foyer, because they were on your feet. The curve of your wrist, because it belongs to you. I know it’s pathetic, and stupid.” You shrug again. “Can’t help it, though.”

He stares at you. 

You prod him. “Is that enough?”

“How can you ask if that’s enough, when it’s everything?”

You look at him in confusion. “Huh?”

He takes a step towards you, frowning. “Are you only telling me all this because you think I’ve finally given up and allowed you to push me away, because I set you back on your feet?”

You take a step back, as he takes another step forward.“What do you mean ‘I think’ you’ve given up?” You squint at him.

“Did you only tell me all this because you’re going straight back to the bridge to try again?”

You take another step back at the intensity of his face, his question. “What does it matter? You don’t have to worry about what happens to me after this.”

He takes two steps. “You tell me you love everything about me, and then you plan to fuck off and leave me alone again?”

Okay, this was a mistake. You don’t know why he’s mad, but he’s mad again. “I’m sorry.”

You don’t know what else to say. You’ve been sorry your whole life. This is yet another miscalculation. You should have just left. What did you think would happen if you told him how you feel? That he’d be happy about your pathetic heart bleeding pitifully for him?

He strides over to you, his long legs outpacing your own. “If you’re sorry, don’t fucking do it.”

“What?”

He looks down into your face, so close you can smell him again, you can see the fine lines around his eyes as he frowns. “If you’re really sorry for loving me, for ever meeting me—which are the only things you have to be sorry for, then make it up to me by staying. Don’t leave me. Don’t push me away anymore. Just stay, and love me.”

You huff. “Are you really that desperate for help tonight?”

He lifts his hands, places his palms on your cheeks, his long fingers dipping into your hair. “No, I’m desperate for you tonight. It’s Christmas—I don’t give a shit about the holidays, but I know you do. I want to spend it with you. You made me watch you jump off of a goddamned bridge. What would have happened if I hadn’t already been on my way to you?” He sounds so upset. You’ve never seen him like this. The fear is naked on his lovely face.

“What the fuck are you talking about? What does it matter? You said you could get someone else for the dress, for tonight.” You’re so confused. Why is he acting like this?

“I didn’t say any of that. You suggested that I replace you with someone else, I set you on the ground to make sure you were looking at my face, that you were listening to my words when I told you that you’re irreplaceable. That no one else will do. That after watching you almost die, I can’t continue being cautious and trying not to frighten you away anymore.”

“You… what?” 

“You love me. Right? You weren’t lying?” he looks uncertain, like he can’t quite believe it.

You can’t bring yourself to lie. The truth is out. You’re witnessing the fallout. There’s no point in backpedaling. “Yeah.”

He nods, once, decisively. “Okay. That’s enough.”

You sigh in relief. Maybe he’ll let you go, finally, finally.

He checks his chunky watch, the platinum flashing in the lamplight. “There’s still time.”

“Time for what?”

“For my plans tonight. Come.” He closes the distance, sweeps you into his arms again, cradles your body against him like something fragile.

“What plans? Listen—” you start to argue.

“No. Now it’s my turn to speak, and for you to listen.” he squeezes you tightly. “Today was the last day you spend alone. If you can’t live for yourself, then you can live for me, until you remember why you want to live for yourself again. No matter what you say, or what you do to get rid of me, it’s not going to work.”

You can’t even process what is happening. “What are you—?” you begin, but he cuts you off again.

His voice is strained, rough. “You love me. So you have to take responsibility. You have to stay.”

You don’t know what to say. 

I’m desperate for you tonight.

You can’t believe this. He hates you. He has hated you from the beginning. He was so kind to you because he wanted to use you for something he never bothered explaining to you. He needs you for your resonance, your amplification of his powers.

You’re irreplaceable. No one else will do.

Because of your resonance?

I don’t give a shit about the holidays, but I know you do.

He carries you along the wind-swept riverbank, through the frigid night. Stars above, stars below.

You made me watch you jump off a goddamned bridge.

You didn’t think anyone was left to care.

You were so careful, severing ties like arteries, so that you wouldn’t leave the world with more pain than you found it. It was already bleeding so much.

You just were so tired of bleeding with it.

As if sensing the turn of your thoughts, Sylus carries you to the edge of the river’ embankment, where the concrete falls away, drops into the water.

He sets you down again, but doesn’t let you go. His big hands slide down the outside of your coat, dip into your pockets.

He pulls out a smooth stone. Turns it in his hands.

“I’ll never understand how someone so light can weigh so heavily in me,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “But you’re a weight I’ll carry for as long as you let me.”

His ember eyes flick back to yours. He hands you the stone.

“This is your conviction that the world won’t miss you, if you’re gone. You will hold it in your hand, one last time. And then you will throw it in the water.” He wraps your cold fingers around the stone. Somehow, his fingers are still warm.

You grasp it, look up into his face. You see yourself in them. It hurts, to be seen so clearly. You’re so ashamed. “How did you know?”

He closes his eyes, shakes his head a little. Opens them. “I looked into your soul, the day we met. I know you’re too soft-hearted in this life to kill yourself if you thought it would hurt someone else. You don’t carry that spite, anymore.”

In this life.

Anymore.

You can’t bring yourself to ask him what he means. You only know that once again, Sylus Qin has seen inside you, has seen you, in a way no one else ever has.

“But I don’t think anyone would miss me. I made sure of it.”

He huffs. “You’re a fool, if you actually believe that. The people you’ve pushed away still love you. But if you can’t believe that yet, then you can’t pretend to yourself that you’re disposable anymore, if for no other reason than I’m standing here now, telling you that I would miss you.”

You think of Tara, sitting on your desk, nudging a steaming latte she got for you on her way to work toward you, asking if you’ve heard the latest about Simone and Andrew.

You think of Xavier, walking you to your door at the end of a nasty wanderer encounter, reaching out, brushing a bit of mud off your cheek, then smearing it across his own cheek. See, we match now.

You think of Zayne, waiting across a busy hallway, patient, letting you choose to approach him, and respecting you by letting you walk away.

You think of Raf, the beauty he shares with you with every photo, the funny strings of emoji that don’t demand an answer.

“How do you know, that they would miss me?” you ask Sylus quietly.

“I’ve been watching you for a long time, sweetie. Do you think I haven’t seen your friends’ faces when you walk away from them?”

You clutch the stone in your hand. “I don’t think I can change my thoughts, my conviction, just like that.”

“You love me, so you have to try. Throw it. Every time you try to drag it back up, I’ll remind you that you threw it away, and you can let it stay at the bottom of the river.” He reaches up, caresses your cheek with his fingertips.

You want to cry. You want to cry, because you’re so afraid. If you let yourself believe that people love you, you have to stay, for them. You have to feel, every day, the weight of grief, of existence, the pain of being alive, of being inside yourself, your body. The hollowness will return, even with your friends, even with Sylus filling most of it.

It’s like he can read your thoughts as his eyes devour your face, as his fingers tuck a lock of hair behind your ear. “I won’t let you pretend, anymore. You love me, and I will not survive if you aren’t here with me. So you have to stay. We don’t have to accept that life is a curse. We can fight back. Make it something better.”

“I’m scared,” you say.

His eyes are so tender, as he watches your mouth form your biggest truth, set it free in the night. “I will protect you, until you can protect yourself again. There’s nothing to be afraid of, if we’re together.”

You want to believe him. Your heart beats painfully behind your ribs. The moon is a sharp crescent in the sky. 

But you’re a weight I’ll carry for as long as you let me.

“You’ll really stay?”

He finally smiles, a faint Sylus smile that feels like a grin. “I told you. Today was the last day you’ll ever be alone. You can’t get rid of me now, no matter what you do, or say.”

You turn, holding the stone in your cold hands. You think of all the lies you’ve been telling yourself, about your friends, your place in their lives, because you were so tired of living with an unnameable grief, one you carried inside you long before Caleb and Josephine died, but whose loss compounded, made unbearable the original sorrow.

And I will not survive if you aren’t here with me.

You don’t know why he feels this way. Does he love you too? He hasn’t said so. Can he even love you, in the way you love him?

Does it matter? 

It’s enough, that he says he’ll stay. That he wants you to stay alive. That he’ll help remind you, when the whispers drift back in your mind, telling you that you’re just a burden, that no one actually loves you, would miss you when you’re gone. When the hollowness echoes so loudly it’s all you can hear.

You lean back, lift the stone, throw it as hard as you can, as far as you can, into the rushing river.

You don’t hear its splash over the wind.

You turn back to Sylus.

He dips into your pocket again. Pulls out another stone. “Your guilt, for having lived. For having been born.”

You take it from him. Let your mind drift. Feel along the contours of your memories, the jagged, missing pieces, all the way back to when it fades to black. You throw the stone.

You don’t see it sink to the riverbed.

He dips into your pocket again. “Your shame, for needing others. For being human, and imperfect. For not being able to do it all alone. For wanting to be loved.”

You take the stone. “Is it really okay?” you ask, helplessly. There’s no point pretending everything he is saying isn’t true. “To want these things, when I haven’t earned them?”

He steps closer to you. Places his hands on your shoulders, draws you in. “There is no okay, or not okay. There is no crime and punishment, no transgression, no sin. How can it be shameful, to want what you were born to want? Why does love have to be earned, instead of just given?”

You lean into him, press your face into his chest, his thick wool coat soft against your skin.

“I don’t know.”

He reaches into your pocket, places a stone in your other hand. “One for your shame, one for the idea that love must be earned. Throw them.”

You lean back again, and it’s already too far away from him. But you throw each stone, and they disappear under the cold water.

“That’s enough, for now. We’ll take the rest home.” He draws you back into his arms. Lifts you without effort, stone-filled pockets and all. The weight of all of you.  “When you have thoughts of shame, of guilt, of not being loved, we’ll come back. You’ll throw them again. Until they’re all gone. We’ll gather other stones, when other feelings make life unbearable. I’ll come with you, as many times as you need.”

Sylus carries you along the path back to the road that snakes along the river. His motorcycle gleams under a bright lamppost.

He settles a helmet on your head, checks to make sure it’s secure. Puts his own on. You sit behind him, cling to him. Rest your head against his broad back, close your eyes. The motorcycle is loud, and he drives it carefully through the busy, holiday bustling streets, until he reaches your apartment building. He holds your hand as he leads you through the front doors, as he stands quietly beside you in the elevator, his red, warm eyes never leaving your face in the elevator mirrors. He leads you to your front door, waits patiently while you unlock it with your cold finger.

In the hallway, he kneels at your feet, unlaces your tall boots while you look down at him, the soft fall of his silver hair, his big, nimble fingers working the laces.

He then removes his own boots. His coat. He’s wearing a garishly bright Christmas sweater, with prancing reindeer. He hangs his coat on a peg in the wall. He turns, slowly unzips yours. Eyes flicking between the zipper and your face. He gently lifts it from your body, again like it’s weightless, even though it’s still filled with stones. He pulls it from your arms, hangs it next to his.

He pulls you further into your place.

The first thing you notice is the warmth. It’s so warm, like someone came in while you were gone and turned on the heating.

The next thing you notice is the Christmas tree. The one you didn’t get this year, because the thought of the holidays without Caleb and your grandmother was unbearable.

Beautifully, tastefully decorated. Silver and gold, twinkling lights. Its pine scent fills your place.

Sylus moves to a record player on one of the cabinets along your living room wall. A record player that wasn’t here before you went to work today. He fiddles with the arm, and suddenly Joni Mitchell’s River fills your house.

It’s coming on Christmas

They’re cutting down trees

They're putting up reindeer

And singing songs of joy and peace

Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on

He walks back to you. “Is this okay?”

I wish I had a river so long

I would teach my feet to fly

Whoa I wish I had a river I could skate away on

The music flows around you, paralyzing you. You stare into his face, into the warm glow of his eyes. How could you have missed this? The way he’s looking at you now? Through all the long months since the auction?

He tried hard to help me

You know, he put me at ease

And he loved me so naughty

Made me weak in the knees

Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on

The words wash over you, through you. The scent of pine warms you, memories without form filling you with the sense of home, safety, love.

I made my baby cry

I'm so hard to handle

I'm selfish and I'm sad

Now I've gone and lost the best baby

That I ever had

Oh I wish I had a river I could skate away on

He takes your hands in his, thumbs across your skin. “Is it too much?”

You think of how cold it was, standing on the guardrail of the bridge. 

You were running toward the bridge, while Sylus was filling your home with warmth.

What would have happened if I hadn’t already been on my way to you?

You think of him spreading out on your couch, as a fever raged through your body. You think of your freezer, filled with food. You think of the takeout boxes, still steaming, sitting in front of your closed door.

You think of him hanging delicate ornaments on a fragrant tree. 

I made my baby cry

You shake your head, the enormity of what almost happened filling you. The enormity of the choice you made, that you enacted, until Sylus pulled you back from the rushing dark.

You start to shake.

“Kitten?”

“It’s not too much,” you say, teeth chattering. “It’s wonderful. Thank you.”

He stares down at you, seems to make a decision. “Shower. Now.”

You nod, moving away from him, but he follows. 

Inside your small bathroom, he takes up the entire space. He peels off your hunter’s uniform, tosses it beyond the open bathroom door. His gaze flicks from your undershirt, your underwear, to your face. “Do you want me to leave?”

You think of the dark water, an impact that never came. Sylus plugging in the record player, choosing a record with one of your favorite Christmas songs on it. Placing it delicately on the turntable.

“No. You promised you’d never leave me alone again.”

He smiles a little. “I mean, leave the bathroom.”

“No. You promised you’d never leave me alone again,” you repeat.

He stares into your eyes. Nods. Lifts your undershirt. He reaches behind you, unhooks your bra with the same agility that he unlaced your boots. He lifts it from your body, watches you as he lifts it to his nose, inhales.

You shiver.

He tosses the bra behind him. Kneels. Pulls your underwear from your hips, down your legs. You step out of them. He stands again.

He leans over, his ridiculous, festive sweater soft against your cheek, as he reaches past you to turn on the shower faucet. As he messes with the knobs until steam begins to fill the small space. He nudges you forward, past the sliding glass door and into the small shower cabin, letting the hot water pour over you. You turn, watch him through the clear glass. He picks up your underwear, watches you as he lifts it to his nose, inhales as he did with your bra. His eyes close for a moment, and then open. He tucks the little slip of fabric into his pants pocket, sits on the closed toilet, rests his elbows on his knees, and continues to watch you.

You let the hot water flow over your tired, cold body. You stare at Sylus’s face, let it fill your vision, blot out the rushing river, the impact that never came, the idea of everything you would have missed, if he hadn’t pulled you out. Everything you would have missed, in such a short amount of time. What else would you miss, if he hadn’t caught you? If he could give you so much within an hour, how much would you have missed in a day? In a week?

What have you been fighting, this whole time? 

Just yourself. 

You think of the stones at the bottom of the riverbed, instead of your body. Your conviction that you’re not loved, your guilt, your shame, instead of you.

You stare at the man who handed you each one, and told you to get rid of them, instead of yourself. The man sitting in your tiny bathroom, filling it with his big body, his even bigger presence, staring at you, staring at him.

You stop shaking.

Reach for the body wash, lather your hands. Run your hands along your body, under your armpits. He frowns, eyes on your hands. You palm your breasts, dip between your legs.

He lowers his head, eyes still on your hands, rests his full lips on his long steepled fingers.

You finish lathering your body, let the water wash it away. He’s too far away, even this close, on the other side of the glass.

As you turn off the water, he stands, lifts one of your towels from the rack. Holds it out for you. You step into it, him, let him wrap it around you. He turns you both, so that you’re looking in the bathroom mirror, which is mostly fogged.

“Better?” he asks.

You nod, soaking in his warmth at your back, the steam of the bathroom. 

You have a question, a question you can’t bring yourself to say out loud yet.

You reach out with one hand. Trace a finger through the fogged mirror.

Sylus watches you, resting his chin on your shoulder. 

Letters, a question.

Do you like me? Circle yes or no

Sylus smiles again, lifts an eyebrow. He reaches out, takes your hand in his. He circles no with your finger.

You frown, heart sinking, but Sylus just whispers, “Patience, kitten,” and flattens your palm across like. Guides your finger again, just above the erased like, drags it through the moisture in an elegant script.

love

He then gently sets your hand down. Lifts his own, circles with one long finger, yes.

He watches your reaction in the mirror.

You had no idea.

This whole time, you had no idea, even though he was showing you, with every ‘chance’ encounter, his pestering you with questions about work, life, his silly stories about the N109 Zone. His packages at your door. Fever medication, a big glass of water shoved into your hands.

You think of the rushing water, what almost happened. What you almost missed.

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let me believe you still hated me?”

He looks down at you now, away from your reflection in the mirror. His eyes trail your face, down your curved neck. He palms the back of your neck, his thumb drifting along the side, over a mole there.

“Have you heard of the myth that where we have moles is where someone kissed us in a past life?”

Even if so much has changed between you in just the last few hours, you’re reassured that Sylus Qin still can’t answer a straightforward question with a straightforward answer.

You shake your head. “No, I had never heard of that.”

Sylus smiles, and it looks a little sad. He leans down, presses the softest of kisses against your skin, the mole there. “Like most human legends, it’s a pretty lie. Not quite true.”

You laugh. “I could have guessed as much.” You tilt your neck, enjoying the press of his warm lips on your skin for the first time.

He opens his mouth, runs his teeth over where he just kissed you. Bites, gently.

You shiver again. Press your neck into, instead of away from his teeth.

He bites harder.

You gasp.

“I was afraid I’d frighten you with the enormity of my feelings for you, when in your mind, we’d only just met,” he murmurs against your neck, his saliva, the indentation of his teeth hot on your skin.

He bites again, presses himself into your ass through the towel. You realize he’s hard.

You forget about the last part of his sentence. Had you not only just met?

You lift your hands, let the towel unfurl from around your body, let it drop to the floor.

You almost died tonight.

What have you been fighting this whole time?

Just yourself. 

He tried hard to help me

You know, he put me at ease

You turn in his arms. He’s breathing hard, cheeks pink.

“You love me?”

He closes his eyes. Opens them. Shakes his head. “Love isn’t intense enough.”

“Adore me?” You lift your arms, wrap them around his neck. Pull his face closer to your own.

He shakes his head again. “Still not enough.”

“You won’t survive without me?” You lift on your toes, his soft sweater almost unbearable against your sensitive nipples.

He nods. “You’re getting closer. Can’t breathe without you. When I saw you jump…” He swallows, thickly. “You might as well have pulled me down with you, beloved. If it ever gets to be too much again, take me with you. I’ll never leave you alone again. Promise me the same,” he demands, big, calloused hands running up your naked sides, the fabric of his dark jeans rough against your body, where your thighs meet, as he helplessly nudges against you again with his hips, his hard dick behind his zipper.

I'm so hard to handle

I'm selfish and I'm sad

“I wouldn’t have known, unless you told me,” you breathe against his lips. “Promise that you’ll tell me how you’re feeling from now on, and I’ll promise to take you with me if I can’t leave the stones in the riverbed, even with you here.”

His voice is deep, rough like the fabric of his pants against your sensitive skin. “Deal.” He closes the distance, presses his soft lips to yours. Licks into your mouth.

And he loved me so naughty

Made me weak in the knees

His hands drift down your sides as his tongue dips into your throat, as he swallows your noises of pleasure, just from kissing him, his hands on you. He grips your ass, urges your legs around his waist. He carries you out of the tiny, steaming bathroom, manages not to knock you against the doorway, or into any furniture on the way to your bedroom, even as he continues to kiss you, as your hands in his soft hair probably block his peripheral view. He lays you down on your bed, the puff of your duvet. It’s so warm in your place that you’re not even shivering. You watch as he pulls his cheerful sweater and undershirt over his head, tosses them to the floor. As he unzips himself, hastily yanks down his pants and boxers, his socks. He blankets you with his big body.

You wrap your arms around him, pull him tightly to you, arch your breasts into his chest. He leans down, runs his nose along your cheek, inhales the scent of your hair at your temple. You just feel each other, for a long stretch of time. His soft chest hair against your skin, the silken skin of his dick between your thighs where he just leisurely rubs himself against you, as your palms run down the muscles of his back, the line of his spine. You’ve refused to think of him like this, ever since he wrapped his hand around your throat. You couldn’t bear his beauty, through all the long months that followed. You fled, every time your heart raced at the flash of silver as he approached you, met you where you were, over and over and over.

But now he says he has loved you, through it all. That he’ll never leave you alone again.

You let yourself feel him, under your hands, under your tongue, as you lick into his ear, feel him shiver. As you squeeze your thighs together, offering him a tight, snug space for him to keep pleasuring himself, as you feel your own wetness begin to coat your inner thighs, his cock, the longer you feel him on top of you, inhale the scent of his skin, the ever-present gun oil, the cloves, his clean sweat underneath it all.

After a lifetime, or only a few minutes, he leans down, says softly into your ear. “I want you. Tell me you want me too.”

“Can’t you tell?” you ask, bucking a little, squeezing him with your legs again.

He makes a low, pleasured sound in his throat. “I want to hear you say it. You’ve gone through a lot tonight. I need to know you actually want this. That you’re not just—” his breath hitches, as you move your hips again, as his dick slips between your wet, soft places. “That you’re not too tired to say otherwise, not thinking straight.”

“Use your Aether Core on me. Then you’ll know that my body is telling you what my mouth would, if I said the words.” You smile at him, teasing. 

I wish I had a river so long

I would teach my feet to fly

You had wanted to fly. You had settled for flying for a brief moment, before shattering. 

But Sylus is offering you constant flight, under, over, along his crow’s wings.

You think of the rushing water. The tide of cars behind you, the wind whipping your hair. You almost missed this. You don’t want to waste any more time.

He lowers his forehead to yours, breathes, speaks against your saliva-slick lips with his own. “I don’t want to use my Aether Core on you. I want the words in your mouth, in your heart. I want your free will, your freely given consent. I almost lost you because I tried to force you, at the beginning. You believed I hated you, this whole time. Don’t ask me to force you again, my heart.”

You understand. You accept his request, his demand. “I want you, Sylus.”

He exhales, shifts above you, slips his wet cock between your legs, slides into your body with gentle, firm, graceful waves of his hips.

You whine, the feeling of fullness layering into the pleasure of the warmth of his skin, the taste of his tongue. For once, the feelings inside you threatening to burst out of your skin are so good, instead of painful, so pleasurable, that you can barely stand it. 

He kisses you, his velvet tongue big, heavy in your mouth. You suck, whine again as he lifts a hand, palms your breast, begins to thrust into you.

You are filled with him. His warmth. The size of him.

You widen your legs, wrap them around his thick ass. Urge him with your own body to move faster, to fuck you harder. He gives you everything you want. Just the pressure of his body against yours has you coming, the release bright, sudden—you shake with it.

Your pleasure seems to trigger his. He grunts, roots into you, buries his teeth in your neck, bites where he bit you before, over the mole on your neck. The sting makes you clench, and he whimpers, groans, comes with a jerk of his hips.

He slows, still filling you, still pleasuring you, as he lifts his head to look into your eyes.

You stare at each other, breath mingling, warm between you. 

You smile at him. 

He smiles at you. Nudges your nose with his.

“Can we do that again?” you ask.

He laughs, low and surprised. “Yeah,” he says, kissing you softly. “Just tell me, and I’m yours, anytime, anyplace.”

“I’m telling you.” You move your hips, feel his cum drip drown your ass. Feel him gasp at your movement.

“Now?” He’s surprised again.

“Problem?” you grin at him. 

“Fuck no.” He kisses you, hard. Slips out of you. Flips you over, lifts your hips with one big hand, pressing his other between your shoulder blades.

He presses his cock back between your legs, the slide easy and wet, and fucks you until you come again, until he blankets your back with his sweat-slicked, matted-hair chest.

“Was that enough, your highness?” he teases.

“I’m telling you,” you pant, wondering what he’ll do. 

“As you wish,” he murmurs, before flipping you again. Before watching your face as he slowly, leisurely works himself, his cum into you, makes you come again. 

In the morning, the sky through your windows is heavy, dark, gray. You wake slowly. Turn your head, find Sylus’s sleeping face next to yours on the pillow. He’s lying on his stomach. You take in the dark sweep of his lashes, his generous mouth, slightly parted.

You slip out of the bed, use the bathroom. You wander into the living room, gaze at the Christmas tree, its twinkling lights.

It’s Christmas.

Caleb and your grandmother are dead. 

But you’re still alive.

Your body aches from Sylus’s efforts, but it feels good. For once, it feels good to be inside your body. To breathe deeply.

You think of riverstones, sinking deep in the riverbed.

You know that the feelings tied to them will try to rise, clawing to the surface again.

We’ll gather other stones, when your feelings make life unbearable. I’ll come with you, as many times as you need.

Your eyes drift to the top of the Christmas tree. It’s empty.

“I thought we should finish it together.” Sylus’s warm arms wrap around you from behind. He leans over your shoulder, kisses your cheek softly. “Do you want to do the honors?”

You smile, wrapping your hands over his forearms around your waist. “You’re taller.”

“Use me as much as you like, kitten.” He turns, grabs a pretty golden glass tree-topper from your kitchen table, hands it to you. He lifts you up onto one shoulder, easily, and you fit it gently over the highest point of the tree. He holds you against him, as he lowers you. You slide along his body, until he sets you gently on your feet again.

You both stand, admiring it for a moment. It’s beautiful, like the rest of the decorations.

You hug him, look up into his face.

“Merry Christmas, Sylus.”

He smiles down at you, ruby eyes twinkling with reflected light from the tree. 

You would have missed this moment, and all the moments like it, if Sylus hadn’t stopped you last night. You shudder, hug him more tightly. 

You know your feelings will return. That no one person can solve a lifetime of wounds. But you promised him that you’d try. That you’d stay. You can only do your best.

You hear your phone vibrating, reluctantly pull away from him, head to your coat in the hallway where you thought you left it last night, but Sylus stops you. He points at your kitchen island. Your phone is lying on the counter. You look at him in confusion, but go to check it.

You’re shocked at how many missed texts you have.

From Tara.

Xavier.

Your eyes widen.

Zayne, who you thought you had blocked, months ago.

Rafayel, who you’re sure you blocked last night.

Each one is a response from a text you never sent. Telling them Merry Christmas. Telling them you love them. Telling them you hope to spend time with them soon.

None of them shame you, call you out on your behavior of the last year. Even Zayne simply suggests that you try a new bakery, that you’ve been in his thoughts, that he’s relieved you felt comfortable enough to reach out. Rafayel sends a bunch of firework emojis, suggests blowing shit up on the beach for New Year’s.

You turn to Sylus.

He looks steadily back at you, silver hair sleep-tousled, wine-bright eyes glowing.

Your eyes feel hot, and you realize you’re crying, the tears fat on your cheeks, dripping down your neck. 

This is the first time you’ve cried since you woke up, your ears deafening, Caleb’s necklace bright in the reflected fire.

Sylus walks over to you. Leans down, licks the tears from your cheeks with his warm tongue, one after the other. He kisses you, ignoring your suddenly snotty nose, your morning breath.

“If it’s too much, we can take it slow. We can throw more stones in the river. But please answer your friends. You need them. And you’re a fool, if you can’t see that they need you too, if that makes you feel better about your own need.”

You continue to cry as you wrap your arms around Sylus’s neck. As he gently sways with you, to music that isn’t playing. He hums, and you think it’s Joni Mitchell’s The River, but you can’t be sure. You smile against his chest.

A thought occurs to you.

“Last night, you said there was still time. That you had plans for us, a pretty dress for me. What did we miss?”

Sylus sighs, holds you closer against himself. “Don’t worry about it.”

You stop, look up into his face. “What did you have planned, Sylus? Are you sorry we missed it?”

He smiles at you. “Oh yes, so sorry I got to spend all night fucking you instead of going to a holiday concert featuring the organ.” His voice drips sarcasm. “But we can go tonight, if you’d like to make it up to me.”

You laugh, bury your face back into his chest. “And here I had planned to suck your cock while watching a black and white Christmas film marathon tonight,” you say forlornly. You smile into his chest as he chokes. “Oh well, the concert it is.”

He just laughs, rich and deep, and continues to sway you slowly in your living room.

“Merry Christmas, my heart,” Sylus says against your hair, in your pine scented apartment, as snow begins to fall outside your windows, as your phone continues to vibrate, filled with the love of your friends.

Here you are. Again.

You’re so grateful, to be here, again.