Nana

local chubby goth wife || 20 y.o || requests open

[noxturnalmoth]

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~It can't rain all the time~

Hello. You guys can call me Nana. On this blog I write and post about my current or long term fictional infatuations, so feel free to peruse what I have written and thank you so much for your support!

ִ ࣪𖤐.ᐟI write for fem readers!ִ ࣪𖤐.ᐟ

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League of Legends

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All the works I post are mine and not to be translated, copied or reposted on any other platform

[vintagehellfire]

Keep The Rain || Viktor x reader

Summary: Quiet and cosy fall morning with Viktor while the rain falls outside your window.

Pairing: Viktor x gn!reader

Warnings: fluff, mentions of chronic pain, talks of feet (non-sexual), yearning, idiots in love, sickeningly sweet, mildly suggestive language, domestic bliss. Playlist: Keep the Rain

author’s note: Thank you to @a-babe-without-a-name for helping me when I got stuck and to @hivemuthur for waking from a dead sleep due to cat shinnanigans to propose a book Viktor reads. I guess technically no beta, but it was edited at 2am by my tired eyeballs. If something is wrong, no, it isn't (please tell me kindly). ❦

Rare were the moments you got to experience calm mornings, and rarer even were mornings of quietude. The groggy whispers exchanged between the silence of lovers came after reaching for the warmth of one another under the hefty duvet, body heat sealed by the feather down. A language few were privy to is exchanged, a wordless debate over who had the honour to bless the house with the calm ritual of coffee making. 

This morning was a blissful exception; your old hung windows pushed open, curtains billowing against their wooden frame like‌ old ghosts. Chilly, you reach for your lover, ice-cold feet tangling themselves between his calves, arches slotting against the muscle, eliciting a sharp hiss, yet his hands find your waist—retaliation. You jump and let out a giggle through your nose, the air forced out in the quiet way that only foggy mornings knew to draw out. As his frigid skin warms against yours, your eyes droop from sleep, crust in the very corners of them, giving away just how peacefully the Sandman had taken you to dreamland last night. 

He faintly curls his lip, eyes still half-lidded, hiding the treasure of his irises, as he admires you, hair splayed across your pillow, smelling of sage and musk. These were his favourite mornings, when you’d try to force him out of bed with your cold extremities, hiding your silent request behind the promise of proximity. Viktor leans in, nose nudging yours, numb from the cool breeze you’d both invited in the previous night. He knows his joints will pay, and so will your knees, but neither of you have anywhere to be, and it proves an excuse to keep each other close. 

You nudge back, and he understands, your breath desperate for a certain bitter warmth on the tongue. His fingers curl against your waist for a moment, cherishing that which he has in his grasp before he spiders his fingers over your hip, tracing the dip like a space to be worshipped. Three taps before his yawn, I love you in your own silent language. It's an uncommon one that you both communicate ‌between the first crack of the sun over the horizon and the faint curl of steam above the kitchen table. 

His breath, however atrocious, communicates a need; you answer with your own yawn, rubbing your eyes with a balled-up fist before slipping your hands into the morning chill, splaying your fingers across his face and wiping away the sleep from his eyes, tucking a strand of bedhead as if it would do anything at all to tame it. It never did, but it communicates everything Viktor needs to know - a wordless approval, because you know he’ll come back. Turning, he accepts, pliant like a lazy house cat, and he stretches, joints popping loudly into place as he manages to escape your hold. A game of tug of war as the fading sun spot barely kisses the far corner of the bed where the cat lies cosy. 

Reaching for his cane, his steps falter for a moment, a shudder running through him as his body registers the temperature difference, and he hurries to slip a large t-shirt on in hopes it would keep him warm. Another yawn, his right hand coming to cover his mouth as he leans his left hand against the pommel. Grumpy is the word that comes to mind when you look at your darling, and yet you can’t help but love him all the more for it, your heart swelling at how impossibly human he is.

You shift, rustling the sheets as you pull them up to your nose and shift closer to his side of the bed, inhaling the scent deeply. Of course, he notices, huffing a warm breath out from his nose. With time, you come to know it as fondness masked in disbelief, having previously mistaken it as a scoff, until the one morning you caught him looking, stars glazing his eyes over in the love-struck way that only seemed present in childhood crushes or after centuries of pining. Your eyes meet his again on this cool morning, a tired affection pulled over them before he leans in to kiss your temple—I’ll be back, lásko, it whispers to you. 

Viktor’s movements are stiff, but practised, cane clacking against the hardwood, hollow and warm. Left foot, thump, right foot, left foot, thump, right foot. Old buildings never had proper insulation, and sound carried through them with ease — an endless charm. He memorised his route, repeating it every morning for both of you, and when he reaches the kitchen, he opens the cabinets, allowing the hinges to creak in greeting. Fondly, he pulls out two mugs and places them on the counter with a resonant ka-thunk before shutting the cabinet door, rubbing his hand over the wood in thanks. 

Steady hands reach for the tin of coffee you both keep above the stove: Paris Tea - Fruity Black Tea with Bergamot - deceiving, but the aesthetics of it won over any practicality or logic. Water pours into the reservoir, three tablespoons scooped into the basket before the serving pot is secured by the steady hands of the scientist. 

While he occupies himself with the exactitudes behind the science of coffee making, you peel yourself out of bed, slipping on one of Viktor’s large t-shirts, bunching it up to your nose and inhaling. Remnants of cologne infuse themselves into the fabric and waft up your nose, warm spice taking over your senses. Sandalwood cut with the subtle citrus vetiver had to offer, dewy like the long grass on the foggy autumn mornings. You pad over, barefoot, to your wardrobe and pull out two pairs of fuzzy socks, slipping one pair over your frigid feet before a cold sweat starts to perspire from them. No longer would you watch your darling squirm from your torturous teasing; instead, you trade torment for tenderness, knowing he forgot to slip anything over his soles. 

As you depart, a black ball of fur stretches at the foot of the bed, yawning lazily, tail flicking in contentment, just shy of pleased. She peels ‌out of the warmth of the sheets and hops off the bed with a thud, slowed movements approaching the bench beneath your window, a ritual she knows all too well. 

You bring Viktor his socks, silently touching his waist, and he turns to you with a fond smile, an arm wrapping around you before he kisses your temple. The lithe man then sits down on the cushioned kitchen barstool to slip them over his feet, laughing gently as the coffee brews, the small Moka pot warming over the anger of the coil burner.

You love his feet, his Achilles tendon, you love that they carry him despite their unwillingness, and you love them before they connect to the person who uses them to nudge you from under the table. You love how they find yours in the night because the man needs to be touching you in some way in order to sleep. You love them even when he presses one of them to the back of your thigh after he comes in from the cold, his walk from work having dragged on longer, and causes you to shriek and slap his arm playfully. Most of all, you love that he wears the atrocious matching duck socks you bought last year.

“Morning.” He breaks the silence, standing and wrapping his arms around your waist, chest pressing to your back as he nuzzles his nose into the crook of your neck, his lips teasing the ghost of a kiss. His voice is hoarse from disuse, rounded around the edges, his accent heavy on his tongue, warm like whiskey around a fire, honey sweet. 

“Morning.” You answer back in a whisper, voice lost to the morning, head leaning back against the man’s shoulder, eyes falling shut on instinct. Hands rest on his arms, and your lungs draw a deep breath. Years ago, you wouldn’t have considered yourself so lucky, unsure if you’d even find a love like the one you had now, slow and deliberate. Comfortable wasn’t something you expected, but then a lanky Czech scientist with the most adorable cat found a way into your heart, and both made a home. “Rio’s waiting for us.” You add. 

“Mmm.” He purrs, nosing at your neck, lips parting softly against the sensitive skin of your jugular. Viktor was a man starved, but starved for you; he’d remain if it meant getting to hold you like this. 

Cavitation draws both your attention, but as Viktor is about to push himself away, you stop him, tiredly padding over to remove the coffee maker from the stovetop, shutting off the element in his place. A collaborative effort where it needn’t be one. He reaches for the mokka pot and pours the coffee into mugs, handing you yours before gripping his with his right hand, cane in left, and following behind you as you lead him back to the bedroom. 

Some mornings, Rio likes to break routine and follow along with you both, making you feel like a shepherd as you lead the two back to the cosy banquette, steam curling through the air. This morning, she found her spot early, chirping in greeting as you settled on opposite ends of the nook. Blankets tug over shoulders, draping them over each other, noses brushing before the taller leans down to kiss your lips with a gentle dip of his head, cane cast aside soon after to settle against the pile of pillows arranged deliberately to support his lower back. Following suit, you too lean back, mug clutched between two hands, the heat making your hands sweat as you adapt to the contrasting temperatures. 

Socked feet find socked feet and pull your attention from the gloomy morning rain to your lover instead. He nudges past your ankle and slips his foot up to the back of your thigh, toes curling to tease. He offers a tender smile as he sips his coffee, so you mirror his actions, blanket wrapping tighter around you as you take a slurp, careful you don’t burn your tongue. The familiar bitter taste blooms into deeper caramel notes, acidity dulled by the slow, pressurised extraction. Smooth and buttery on your tongue yet sharp enough to wake your old bones, you hum, satisfied. 

Steam curls and kisses the moles on your lover’s face, and you want nothing more than to lean over and kiss them too, because he deserves it, because his eyes complement the changing leaves, and because you cannot believe how lucky you are to share moments of silence with him on rainy mornings such as these. The downpour created the perfect soundtrack to peace, enveloping the moment into a pocket where time stood still.

Rio calls out to you both, her small mrrrap! turning into the low sonorous rumble of a contented cat as she nestles in the nook that your tangled legs create, tiny chin resting on her paws as her tail curls up beside her face. A hand reaches out and scratches just below her ear, nimble fingers teasing out a contented sigh from her.

“How’d you sleep?” Viktor is the first to break the silence, eyes warm and trained on you despite the attention he’s directing towards the sweet girl. 

“Mmm, I always sleep well with you.” You admit before taking another sip of your coffee. “How’s your leg?” The question runs deeper, but you don’t dare pry or push unless your lover relents. Feeling weak was not something he was good at; too used to putting up a front. 

“A little sore, but it’s nothing to worry about today, lásko.” He nudges your thigh again, this time the gesture pairs with a wry smile. The pain is less than yesterday, but I am in immense pain nonetheless is what he means, and you know it, but coated in it is a small I can handle it. You managed to decipher the hidden meanings well after several years. “What about your knee?” He shoots back, arching an eyebrow from over the rim of his mug. 

There was a charm to his bedhead, unruly yet so utterly him, his eyes slowly coming to life with every sip of coffee. The gravely timbre to his voice, accent dripping like honey off his tongue, was welcome, warming up your insides in places coffee couldn’t touch. You pushed your leg out, tentative, testing the waters. Your knee cracked, cartilage feeling more like a rusty hinge than like connective tissue, the synovial membrane failing to lubricate the joint properly. A low chuckle escapes Viktor, and he shakes his head. 

“Displeased.” Another sip of coffee, another bloom of caffeine that sinks into your system, nudging you closer to the line of wakefulness. Your foot returns to Viktor’s thigh, brushing past Rio. Her nose scrunches, whiskers twitching at the unforeseen intrusion into her precious space. A small apology is uttered to her under your breath, a faint smile etching itself across your lips as you reach out to right the wrongs through a few little scratches to her precious chin. 

“We will close the window tonight.” He hums, head thunking against the glass before he lets a yawn slip, the sound drowned out by the pattering of rain over concrete. 

“It’s okay,” you shake your head, eyes following his line of sight, “I like the cool air and the rain too much. It’s not bothering you, is it?” A small twitch of your lips harbours a lovestruck smile reserved just for the scientist before you. 

“Hm? No.” Viktor confirms, eyes slowly flicking up to meet yours. For a moment, he doesn’t know what to do with himself, and so in boyish nature, he slides his foot up your leg, toe poking into the shallow depression behind your knee before it retreats, ankle slipping to meet the soft cushion of the banquette, the ball joint of his foot unwilling to cease contact with your skin. You can’t help but giggle, clutching your coffee mug tighter, placing it against the flat of your chest to ward off the chill. “You seek me out in the night when the window is left open.” 

A teasing smile dances over his lips before he sips his coffee, warmth painting his face as heat blooms in yours, a gentle dusting of colour across your cheeks and over the bridge of your nose. He won’t tell you that he loves to see the way you react to his subtle teasing, that he lives for how flustered you get over compliments when they’re given before noon. 

“You love it.” You shoot back, the arch of your foot framing the man’s thin thigh, toes and heel pressing to peach fuzz skin, polyester fuzz acting as a cruel barrier, arch missing the kiss of flesh beneath. The sock clothed extremity, obscuring some of his moles as you made yourself comfortable, your eyes flick to them, landing on the dark beauty mark in the junction of his thigh before moving up over the small slip of cloth over his groin, to the loose shirt. You trailed your eyes over the creamy white of his neck, connecting his moles like constellations. 

“I love you.” He voices, correcting you. You watch the mole above his lip move as he enunciates the words, following it ardently. He was toothsome in sharp ways, with rounded features contrasted by angular facial structures.

“You would.” The answer makes him laugh, a warm, resonant sound emanating from somewhere in his chest. Next to his heart, perhaps, at least he thinks, because looking at you right now, in the lazy morning, when gloom overtook everything, you were still his sunshine. 

Foot nudges foot, thighs press back against the soles connected, and steam curls lazily between the two of you. The ritual almost feels practised, but no morning is ever the same, especially not when you’re gifted the pleasure of pattering rain. Viktor leans back against the wall of the nook, letting out a small sigh before speaking once again, amber flicking up to meet your eyes with unprecedented warmth. 

“Mmm, no reprieve this morning, is there?” He drags his thumb over the tepid rim of the mug, wiping away a minor amount of condensation that wets his fingerprints, too absorbed in the distraction of you to drink the one substance that would wake him. Your actions were intentionally delicate; mellow even. He came across as too winsome for the way you were making his heart race by such a simple gesture. 

“Mmm, no.” Your foot moves closer to his groin, slipping down his thigh, achilles meeting the bench cushion more firmly than it had initially, sliding towards the inside of his thigh, almost as if you’d dropped all the weight you were holding, letting yourself go. Viktor lets his eyes drop to where your foot teases, far too warm against his bare skin for such a dreary morning. You know how to make him squirm, even unintentionally, and so he reaches forward, fingers splaying across your calf as he yanks your leg forward, foot coming to rest against his hip bone. His long fingers curl around it, tips pressing into the top of your foot as his thumb presses into your arch with pleasant force as he sips on his coffee. It pulls a faint blush to his cheeks, and he attempts to deflect. The moment doesn’t go unnoticed by Rio, who lets out a faint whine, drawing attention to herself as she tries to sleep between the two of you.  

“And here I was hoping we’d have a quiet morning.” A tease, pulling you into his games, and you wouldn’t have it. You challenge him, a smirk gracing your lips as you lean your body forward, chest brushing against your thighs, mug balanced against the flat between your clavicles and the tops of your knees. It was a capricious balance, unsupported aside from the faint touch of your hand to the handle. 

“Who says you can’t?” Vilain* taunting falls from your tongue, and sunshine blooms in your chest despite the weather. If your words weren’t imbued with the warmth that threatened to shatter your paracardium, Viktor might have thought they were more insult than challenge. Still, it was impossible for you to interact with him without some fondness seeping through, even in anger. “You just want a kiss, don’t you?” Viktor inquires, and Rio mrrps from between you both, demanding a kiss of her own, like a collections agent coming to make good on a debt left unsettled. Her paw stretches out and lands on Viktor’s toes. A fond smile stretches across his face, boyish and goofy, tugging his moles geographically higher. His imperfect teeth only added to his charm, puppeteering your heartstrings in a way you tried to loathe when you met him first. 

“Maybe I do.” You shrug, tilting your head to the side, watching your lover like a sly fox with doe eyes, inviting yet utterly false. Dangerous creature you are. You invite him in, your maw wide open, begging for him to place his most vulnerable parts within your grasp, to trust you won’t clamp your jaw shut and tear through him, and you never do. The naive man takes the bait, falling into your trap as he leans in, his chest coming to his knee, mirroring you as best he can. 

His body doesn’t cooperate easily, screaming at him as he shifts and bends in ways that disagree with his bones, but he forsakes that for the chance at love, at proximity, at the pleasure of your touch. He thinks that any sane man would jump at the chance, and that every boy would combust under the weight of it. He nearly closes the distance between you both, breath ghosting over your lips. 

“And for me to read to you?” He asks against your mouth, ready to devour instead of being devoured for once. He’s unable to withstand it this time, his heart already brimming with ardour, and he closes the distance. Viktor, as you’ve come to learn, devours slowly. He tastes, savours, and then consumes. He lets the tang of coffee and morning breath permeate as he moulds his lips to yours, drawing out what he needs, what you need.  

“Mmm.” You hum against his kiss, lips parting to grant him the smallest entry, the briefest victory, a predator rolling over and showing their belly. Your partner seizes the opportunity, brushing his tongue against yours for but a moment before retreating — not tentative nor hesitant, but something else. Soft perhaps. “Yes, please.” You answer, voice gravely, sighing like he was offering you something pornographic. 

Viktor shifts, leaning back and offering you a smile so honey sweet it was sickening – it is a promise of safety that you find in each other, in moments of silence when words aren’t needed and actions suffice. When he stares like that, his amber eyes soft as the fading summer, head coming back to lean against the cool window, you lose yourself in ambedo. It was like this every morning when raindrops would patter against the window and fog would swallow the city.

“Come here.” Viktor spreads his knees apart, and Rio shifts, borderline offended that he would disrupt her rest, moving to settle to his outer hip. He chivalrously lends the spot between his legs to you like a throne, but warmer, free of obligations or decisions, and ever the obedient thing, you oblige. You shift so that your back meets his chest, a warm vibration rippling through him as if to signal his contentment. It’s the moment that maru mori infiltrates your heart and you let out a deep breath, head tilting to the side so that your nose embeds itself into the hollow of his cheek. 

Lithe fingers reach for a tattered copy of Frankstein as you settle in, and lignin permeates the air that already smells strongly of coffee and petrichor, wrapping you tighter into the blanket of solitude meant only to be shared between lovers. Lips meet the slope of your nose lazily as a low brontide resonates from the sky above and clouds darken, forcing you to nestle further into Viktor’s arms at that. You let your eyes fall shut, lips meeting the sharp angle of his jaw. It’s sloppy, wet, tired.

Your hand comes to Viktor’s bad knee, rubbing soothing patterns into the tender joint while your other clutches your mug like a lifeline. Your socked foot nudges his own, comical matching socks next to one another, making you both smile fondly, hearts swelling well past acceptable emotion. Fuzzy ducks stare blankly back at the two of you, not mocking, but perhaps teasing the notion of a love so domestic that it would raise bile in the throats of most, but to you, it brings tears to your eyes. 

Viktor nudges your foot back and secures his arms around you, his mug abandoned beside him, the breeze cooling his coffee, but your warmth is enough for him as he begins to read to you, his accented voice low and more pronounced now that it’s so close to your ear, lips practically brushing against the shell of it. 

“To: Mrs. Saville, England. St. Petersburg, Dec. 11th, 17— 

“You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil forebodings. I arrived here yesterday, and my first task is to assure my dear sister of my welfare and increasing confidence in the success of my undertaking…”

❦ Vilain: French for naughty

ambedo: a momentary trance of emotional clarity

maru mori: the heartbreaking simplicity of everyday things

[noxturnalmoth]

My buddy, my sweetie baby, my deliciously decadent chocolate soufflé covered in custard and whipped cream, JUST uploaded a wonderful one shot.

I absolutely recommend you read it because it's beyond amazing 💙

[sug01s3al]

I finished reading NoxturnalMoth's fanfic 'What could have been' cus i need a happy ending where Silco doesn't bite the dust and I wanted to try my hand at the new look he gets after recovering in CH3 :3

+ a little bonus Silco before his fluffy hair grows back in

(so technically fanart :') idk if they have a tumblr to tag them but I'll put the description I was working with + the link to the fic)

"They were simple and classic Zaunite fashion. High waisted black cargo pants with a thigh harness on his right leg, combat boots, a cropped maroon turtleneck sweater that missed its left sleeve and showed part of his stomach, a fingerless glove covering the rest of his arm up until half way through the bicep. The covered arm also harboring a fingerless glove yet only wrist high, his chest adorned with a harness that surrounded his ribs and upper stomach in two belts with a strap on each side stretched vertically to reach the lower belt behind him, passing through the upper one. He had a cropped leather jacket draped over the back of the chair he sat in, it closed with belts and the collar was a similar maroon to his shirt. All in all, he looked less like a Piltovan like before and more like a classic Zaunite, if anything the new clothes fit him even more, made him look younger. It was as if you had gotten a glimpse of Silco's younger self without needing to look into the past. Dark hair peppering with streaks of silver at the temples and a few on the crown of his head, the eyepatch hiding the fire and ash of his left eye, the few wrinkles, his eyebags and the marred side of his face in a discolored, fleshy gray were the only clue of his age being any different."

https://archiveofourown.org/works/61705366/chapters/157862521

[noxturnalmoth]

So hi yes hello- i will cry?! This is beyond amazing and I'm crying right now. I never thought I'd get art made of any of my fics and here you are providing me with something beyond what I could have imagined. This is absolutely amazing and i love it.

If possible I wish to tag you on the main masterlist, here on Tumblr, and to include a link to your amazing piece 💙💙💙💙💙

[astaroxmalacavilla]

I will never be able to draw him and be like "I am ok with the end result" lol. Still, I think I am printing this one for my studio.

[noxturnalmoth]

Smoking Viktor- my weakness

[redcigart]

Coming Home

Page 1/2 of a mini comic for the Jayvik Bloodborne AU

[noxturnalmoth]

Pomegranates and Ambrosia

Summary: You make it through your life by the skin of your teeth. Working a god awful job while balancing classes you can barely pay for, along with an impossible loan looming over you as if you were Damocles and it the sword.

He is a man of distance, of cold calculation, who pours his mind, body and soul into his work until nothing is left but ash. Burning like a defective phoenix dressed in luxury, surrounded by many, yet lonely like a cuckoo chick in a new nest.

But there must be a middle ground to be made so both parties get their share of the cake, right?

Warnings: mentions of illnesses and near death

Word Count: 8,855

Masterlist: here

Chapter 1 - Cognitive Dissonance

"Fuck me."

You groan, face falling into an open textbook with a muted thud that resonated in the living room of your small dorm.

You knew how hard it would be, any type of subject within the medical field was after all. But sometimes you really wondered why the hell you'd picked a path in life that left you in such anguish.

"I'm a masochist."

Your words sync up with your mind, throat rattling in frustration again.

If people had to describe you, it would be with one single word. Overachiever. Hailing from Zaun meant that you were born with more disadvantages than opportunities, like a table top game character whose ability rolls you've thoroughly failed. Leaving you with severe penalties for the rest of the campaign, until you ultimately die. But even with all the cards against you, you had an ambition burning so bright that it would sooner cause a wild fire than be put out by the constant storms. You focused your frustration, your intelligence, into being the best you could be academically so you could build a better life for yourself and those you love, as well as those you don't even know.

"Others undermine you, let them. Use their ego to soar while they still believe you to be in their shadows."

Your mother had told you when you were just a child, and you took these words to heart and ran with them all your life. From age five to the current twenty three years you've spent on Earth, you've let them guide you like the North Star, always pointing you to your goal like a sailor coming home.

You breezed through school and with enough guts, earned yourself a scholarship to Piltover's Medical Studies Academy, the best STEM program in all of the continent. At the only price of being five hours away from your hometown and your beloved family, your parents whom always believed in you calling you once a week to check up on how you're doing.

You adore your studies, the field of psychology one that your mind has always drifted to since the formative years of your childhood. How wonderful would it be to study the human mind, to know its physical and chemical ins and outs, to analyze every anomaly in order to find ways to help those who suffer from them? To you, the brain, the most complex and intricate machine known to mankind, was the most interesting subject of all. And you wished to understand everything about it to give back to the world.

How much good could one do, how much healing could you prompt, if only you could give the help some needed? How much good could come from stripping veterans of the remnants of war, from helping amputees and others suffering from illnesses to feel better in their skin, from rewiring parents to not perpetuate unhealthy cycles, from helping younger people to bloom into themselves and leave their baggage behind?

So much, is the right answer.

Because as much as it has evolved in the minds of the greater public, becoming a topic many now believe to be important for a better society, psychology still holds some of its old reputation. Of being something shameful, only for the insane. And you wanted to be a part of the reason as to how it is stripped of its stigma and finally becomes accepted as is, a way to help all of those who may need it.

But you will not lie that oftentimes you missed the simplicity of Zaun, the lack of judgment in the folks' eyes, the sounds of nature that animated each early mornings and evenings on the countryside. You miss the smell of Sundays, pies golden like the sun resting on so many windowsills as their aromas fill the streets like fog at dawn. You miss the colorful houses, painted in every color that the human eye can perceive as if the homes were spring flowers, blooming and unfurling their petals. You miss the forest you played in as a child, the red cedars reaching up to the heavens like devouts praying for paradise when their time comes. You miss your mother's cooking, your father's laugh, the neighbors greeting you from their porch and the children running around in the streets playing adventurers with sticks for swords.

Because no matter how amazing it was to make a life for yourself, Piltover's glory was just a gilded facade. Classism and bigotry hidden beneath a thin veil that they pride themselves on, one they call progress.

The capital of innovation has always undermined the smaller, mountain city, despite the fact it supplied Piltover with most of the materials it needed. Leaving its mountains gutted like a pig in a slaughterhouse, poor, forgotten, in the shadows of the great inventions that would come to life from its entrails.

"Be a woman in STEM, they said. It'll be fun, they said. Mama, for once you were so fucking wrong."

Your head turns so you can gaze up to the ceiling, faint traces of previous leaks staining the off white paint.

Another problem, other than the excruciating distance from all you've ever known, is how expensive life is here. Your small dorm siphoning what little money you have left after paying for groceries and the little monthly part of your Academic endeavor not taken in charge by the scholarship. Because of course, the Zaun Academic Funding Program was not nearly enough to get you by in the city of progress. Although you still thank it daily, knowing your mere presence would have been missed from the University had it not been for the 60% it took in charge.

Three years of studies had proved to you that no dream comes without a hefty price, your mental health and wallet taking the brunt of it all. Your body following soon after with the sleepless night, unhealthy amounts of caffeine without much sustenance and your classes balanced with a part time job.

The glamorous student life was simply wool over the eyes of the idealistic little girl you had been, the pied piper leading you right into the maws of capitalistic hell and a very painful reenactment of Dante's travels down the nine circles of hell.

Abandon hope all ye who enter here should be put on the sign leading up to Piltover.

With a sigh you sit up, lazily running a hand down your tired face as your phone rings with an alarm.

Time for work.

So with sluggish movements you get up, picking your bag as your table remains littered with notes and textbooks. Waiting for you like a wife waits for her husband to come back for war, although nothing glorious or honorable comes from you coming back home other than the promise for another day of dragging yourself to and fro class and work.

Simply put: you are exhausted.

Of the loans, of the distance with your family no matter the calls, of the excruciating amount of school work and shifts. Long gone was the bright eyed little girl promising mama and papa that she'll make the world a better place, in her place is a jaded, tired young woman constantly on the verge of a breakdown.

And as you drag your feet across the warm Piltover pavement, shoddy earphones secured with the music blasting directly in your eardrums, the sun glaring down on you in the early afternoon, your phone rings yet again. This time with a notification.

Freud was right:

Claire-Bear: y'all, I think if I re-read the same sentence AGAIN I'm gonna go see professor shoola and smash her face in the lectern

A snort escapes you at the words. You couldn't have said it better yourself.

Freud was right:

Ames: you fucking tell me, the way I want to pursue developmental psych but that shit makes me wanna pull a Britney Spears

Ali-Baba; #freebritney

Claire-Bear: #freebritney

Me: #freeAmy

Ames: y'all suck, not you though pookie thank you yes please deliver me from my suffering

Ali-Baba: OUR suffering. We all chose to get thoroughly fucked by the system of which we are a part of

Ali-Baba: But really I'm about to commit first degree murder. Do we still have our study sesh tomorrow?

Me: If we don't I'm gonna scream y'all istfg. I'm hearing voices in my head when I study alone, I feel like Imma fucking rip into my textbooks with my teeth-

Claire-Bear: gurl, with those extra shifts you took it don't even surprise me. like really. we coulda helped with paying the leak you know? hell, even Ris wanted to pitch in

You sigh, cringing at the words that are both extremely true and nearly shameful to you. Help. Something hard to ask for and even harder to accept, a problem you've had since your earliest days. Independence ran free in your veins like the murders of crows flying past your quaint town, soaring in the skies and between the tall cedars and rocky mountains. A defiance built of the strongest alloys, hammered by stubbornness, shaped by ambition, quenched by ideals and used to defend yourself from the harsh enemy that is the outside world. Like a lone blacksmith drafted for war, you've built yourself up and your walls higher so you can reach your goal, your mind sharpened like a tall and heavy claymore.

All at the price of soldering your armor to yourself and becoming impervious to aid, your sword too heavy for you to carry at times as its weight grew heavier and heavier.

You wanted to feel deserving of it, especially as your exhaustion ate away at your passion like maggots on a carcass. But in building your independence, in working to build yourself up alone all this time, you've overlooked one simple yet intrinsic fact to your situation. A line of code that seemed optional but would have made your system run smoother, optimized you in a way that is now impossible to reform.

You believe that everything you own, or would be given, has to be earned. Through hard work, favors, blood, sweat and tears, it doesn't matter. You cannot be gifted anything lest you are left deeply unsettled, feeling unworthy and undeserving of the service. The feeling poisoning you from the inside out and leaving you in a state of feverish frenzy to repay whatever it is that has been entrusted to you.

And worst of all, god forbid the gift is but a neatly wrapped viper ready to pounce and sink its fangs into you to imbibe you of its venom at the prospect of you owing a piece of your soul after signing a contract you had no idea even existed. After all, many saw opportunity in giving less to demand more. And although you knew your friends would never do such a thing, the fear still lingered.

Me: I'm fine, like really

The words nearly singe your fingers as you type them.

Me: Now that shit's good, I asked the boss to give me back the same amount of shifts as before. I'm set dw

Ali-Baba: …

Ames: …

Claire-Bear: …

Claire-Bear: bruh bffr. but yes, I'm free tomorrow afternoon

Me: nah I swear, pinkie promise. i'm ALRIGHT

Ames: you terrify me, and I work with kids. (free too btw)

Ali-Baba: sometimes I wanna slap you, you're lucky I like u too much for that.

Ali-Baba: but it's settled, 2 p.m tomorrow study sesh in the campus gardens, same spot as always. Istfg Claire if you're 30 minutes late again I'll tear you a new one

Your phone continues to vibrate as you shut the screen, phone shoved in the pocket of your jacket as a heavy breath fills your lungs before you push the door to the cozy café.

Charon, a small café near the banks of the river Pilt and owned by Loris, a hulking beast of a man with the softest heart you've ever had the pleasure to experience. It has been your job to serve clients in this quaint little hole in the wall for the past three or so years, courtesy of Claire who's friend Ris had told her of their need to hire another barista.

The front of the shop was lined with beautiful windows laced with metallic frames twisting in organic shapes, not unlike the art nouveau metal work from back in Zaun. Multicolored reflects coming from the plethora of little stained glass decorations hung from the beams above. The wooden floor was lacquered, shiny and a beautiful shade of red tinted dark brown from the jarrah planks as tables of twisted metal rose from it, waxed copper reflecting the light beautifully as the round, wooden table tops were grazed by elbows, cups and laptops.

Plants and flowers lined the walls in pots between bookshelves that were so tall and so full with tomes that you cannot believe they're still standing. Shapes and colors unorganized, left chaotic by the patrons in a way that made the space lived in. A couple of leather couches littered one corner, a low coffee table in between, overlooked by a plush armchair.

Finally there was the jewel of the café, its beating heart, a beautiful counter with a single register topping it, followed by a display of pastries that your boss has so carefully baked for the day. Behind it all were coffee machines, milk frothers and other classic machines much needed for an establishment such as Charon.

And despite how many shifts you spent here, cursing the need for a salary under little to no sleep and unbearable stress from studies, it was the closest to home you had so far from your family.

"Wow, don't you look like shit?" You hear a familiar voice quip.

"Hello to you too, Ris."

The aforementioned Ris was grinning like the Cheshire Cat, head in their hands as their elbows were planted deep in the counter. Their dyed gray hair glimmered in the multicolored, gentle light filtered by the stained glass, and so did their mischievous eyes. Right one as cold as the arctic, left one sweet like chocolate.

"Aw c'mon, really dude, you look like you've been held captive and forced to watch cocomelon for three days straight with no breaks. Like you look like you're about to pop."

Your body slides within the employee space, stepping into the kitchen and to the right into the locker room. Your personal effects are soon placed in a cupboard, secured with a lock after you put on the maroon apron.

"Well I'm sorry that classes and a goddamn water leak have been kicking my ass, Kimaris."

"Wow, government name? Really?" They sneaker and you roll your eyes, albeit your annoyance doesn't come off as genuine from the way your lips curl into a smile.

"Oh my god don't annoy me before you grace me with a pour over, I beg of you."

You're given a pat on the back as you come back to the counter, Ris immediately grinding some coffee beans and placing a filter over your designated cup, boiling water ready to be poured on top of the fine powder to be made into what would essentially fuel you for the rest of your shift.

"So you're back onto your normal shifts? No more early mornings before class and all that?"

"Yeah." You sigh, smiling gratefully as you're given the hot mug, coffee already sweetened to your liking by your friend. "I just needed the cash to get my dorm fixed, I don't think I'd be able to last more than the two weeks I did if I continued with the extra shifts."

Your eyes gaze upon the cozy café, patrons talking, working, studying or simply enjoying a silent moment to themselves as soft tunes played from the speakers high up on the walls.

"Any new gossip I missed?" You voice to the relaxed Ris, leaning their hip on the counter with their back to the sitting area, arms braced on the wood.

"Not really, today's been fucking boring I'll tell you that. But we had a visit from Mitchell and Jackie this morning, as spry as ever."

You snort at the mention of the cute older couple that came by a couple of times a week for little dates. "Yeah, they're younger than us in essence that's for sure. Man, I wish I was like em sometimes. They're just so relaxed and like- I dunno, content."

"You tell me. I'm over here tryna repay my student loans, and you're being squished alive by them and studies that quite frankly are fucking you up, big time. The youth is miserable, for sure. But it's nice to see the old folks happy, makes you hope you get the same, y'know?"

Your lips find the rim of your cup, slowly sipping on the coffee as you nod.

Yeah, one could hope to attain this level of contentment for sure. Because as it is, you're pretty sure digging your own grave would be a much more fruitful endeavor than to pursue your degree.

Dropping out.

A thought you never believed would ever cross your mind when you were a child but that crystallizes itself more and more as time passes. Expanses, unending school work and the exhaustion of needing to stand for hours after class simply to be able to afford to live certainly took a toll on you. A physical toll clearly visible from the bags, no, the luggages beneath your heavy eyes, stemming from a very flawed sleep schedule granting you little to no sleep each night. And a mental one, breaking the confidence you spent your life building over your abilities, overwhelming thoughts of more work, of disappointing those around you and yourself planting seeds of doubt and despair that would grow into weeds that overrun your mind soon enough.

Your exhaustion only exacerbated by the bias Piltover holds over Zaun, discrediting your hard work and pushing you do be better than better, more perfect than perfect, simply to be given less than what you worked for. All of your efforts disregarded for others more fortunate than you in a frustrating display of mockery that you, quite frankly, had more than enough of.

You began attending the Piltover Medical Studies Academy with your ambition driving you, which then became motivated by spite to stick it to the city of progress, but by the third year you're rinsed. Feeling like you have nothing left to give, running on fumes is what you are. You still hold onto your dreams, like a child unwilling to let the seeds of a dandelion be blown by the winds, cradled in your hands like a precious but fickle thing. But by the gods you were at your wit's end.

Why should you continue fighting in a system rigged from the start? Began echoing in your mind instead of the more hopeful: How should I continue to fight for my voice to be heard in a system rigged from the start?

You were becoming one of the very cases you studied in class, and it was quite a terrifying thought.

"Excuse me?"

Your head snaps up as a low, accented voice makes itself known. The owner, a man seemingly in his forties, looks down on you as his hands brace themselves on the pommel of a cane.

"My apologies, sir." You clear your throat. "Welcome to Charon, what can I do for you today?"

"I would appreciate a simple lungo please, and perhaps one of your pastries." You quickly move around the area to set up the coffee machine, grinding the right amount and setting the filter holder full of the powder along with a mug at their respective places.

"What pastry would you fancy today, sir?" Your call out over your shoulder as you press the button, starting the process of brewing while you walk to the display.

"What would you recommend?" The tone rakes through you like a shiver prompted by the frigid winter mornings of Zaun, golden eyes targeting you as if dissecting your every move.

You bite at the skin of your lips in thought, a bad habit that left your mouth sore and bleeding more than once, as you gaze through the rows of sweet treats. The man was clearly more refined than you, with his three piece suit, the expensive watch around his wrist and the air of authority he carried. So you decided to rule out anything messy that would ruin his clothes…perhaps a slice of pie would be more his style.

"The pecan pie is my favorite item on the menu, if it's to your taste then that's what I'd recommend."

He hums, one hand leaving his cane to rub at the bottom of his goatee, chocolate brown hairs laced with silver grazing his hand in thought.

"Very well."

You give a curt nod and pick up a plate, the tart server soon in your hand to scoop up a piece of the pecan pie and lift it onto its new recipient. A spoon soon added next to the treat which is placed atop the counter while you reach for the man's lungo. You place both elements on a small tray that you'd usually use for busing.

"It'll be 6.80, please."

The man silently fishes his wallet from his pocket and gives a ten dollar bill, lifting his hand as a sign to keep the change, before taking crisp fifty that he places in the tip jar.

What the absolute fu-

"Thank you for your generosity, sir. And enjoy your treat."

"Thank you for your service." He nods to you, his voice velvety as it grazes your ears while he reaches for the tray, his piercing stare widening infinitesimally as you pick it first.

"Don't bother yourself with that, please choose a seat and I'll bring your items to you."

The elegant man straightens as he stands to his full height, having bent in his movement to pick up his purchase, and after giving you an appraising look he turns, his slow gait leading him deeper within the sitting area until he settles for a table in the corner. The click of his cane resounding like a third footstep, anchored in the sound of the first. The seat he picked is lonely, overlooking the rest of the café while being kept between two of the large, decorated windows.

You'd say it's fitting of a man like him, at least from what you know after a couple of exchanges and a quick look at his appearance.

So as he walks closer to his chosen spot, you follow, tray in hand which is soon placed on the wooden top of the copper table.

"There you go, sir. Have a good day, and if you ever need anything else don't hesitate."

"I shall keep that in mind, thank you."

And with the simple sentence, somewhat cold compared to what you're usually used to from patrons, you get back to the employee space, leaning your elbows on the counter.

The gentleman is now sitting, fishing a book from his satchel, one that he opens immediately as he drowns out the rest of the world and focuses on reading. It gives you the opportunity to observe him more, not having had the opportunity to while he was so close to you.

He seems fairly tall, his body is lithe yet the elegant and well fitted, darkly colored clothes give his stature much more strength and contrast with his milky, pale skin. His hair is long, half of it down and the rest pulled in a bun resting on the back of his head, brown and silver as his beard is. Exuding a sense of maturity and authority, he seems to command attention, even when this far, even when doing nothing special.

He felt as if luxury was a material and a sculptor carved him from it with painstaking determination, bringing his vision to life.

Glasses frame the golden eyes that pinned you to place like a butterfly on a board, and as your eyes begin leaving him a glint catches your eyes. There, on his right leg crossed over his left, is a brace. Elegant red leather belts surrounded by metal rods on either side, the knee encapsulated by a thick frame not unlike his ankle. For more support on the joints, you can only guess.

He looks nothing short of regal, and by the way he so generously tipped you, you can definitely say that whatever his profession may be, it's most definitely lucrative.

"Dude, did he just do what I think he did?"

You nod stiffly, eyes trailing to the fifty dollar bill in the tip jar. "He tipped fifty fucking bucks for a three dollar coffee and a three dollar and eighty cents slice of pie."

"Jesus fucking Christ. Do you think if we ask nicely he can pay our debts?"

You snort at the words and turn to Ris, lips cracked widely in a smile. "I fucking wish."

"Man, what I wouldn't give for a sugar daddy."

"Of course you'd say that." You sigh, shaking your head in faux consternation, grin remaining on your chapped, bitten lips.

"Hey! Easy money! Plus if I had to do favors to a hot looking middle aged man like that, trust me I'd be very happy." They croon, half joking, but you very well know that they would do it were they given the occasion to.

You groan and push Ris away from their place next to you, your gaze falling back to the elegant fellow who seemed to frown after taking a sip of his drink, the simple action more mechanical than anchored in tasting a bad coffee. And you can only be reassured in your thought as his lips wrap around the rim of the cup for another sip.

A habitual gesture more than one that pleases the one executing it, which would be what people usually seek when going out for a drink and a treat.

But still, if he didn't like black coffee, why the hell would he order it?

Viktor Kozlov was a brilliant man.

He began as a curious, bright eyed child in Zaun. And while the fates mocked him and gave his body imperfections that couldn't be remolded even if man was supposed to be made of clay, he persevered. In a way, no matter the pain and weaknesses his body suffered he almost thanked life for them for they animated in him a passion that burned brighter than the eternal fire of Zoroaster, than the flames the Vestals kept fed in their hearth.

His body, his mother had repeated time and time again, was stunted so his genius would thrive, so his character would grow, and so his strength wouldn't overcome all of the little obstacles of existence. After all, had he been able bodied who knows how much more he could have done? Unhindered by pain, what could he have achieved?

Everything.

But life needed its ups and downs, easy would render his mind complacent and his body lazy, and so as both a gift and a curse it had given him a malformed leg, and a terrible illness that would count as a ticking clock. A metronome ringing in his head and dictating the rhythm of his life, making him hungry for more, starving to be better, to do better, before his time is up and the music stops.

Viktor Kozlov was an ambitious man.

He used the cage of his body as a way to be undermined so those who walk over him become his own stepping stones. His mind freer than a dove soaring through the skies, slicing the clouds and linking the heavens to the Earth.

As he grew older, from a babe from a boy, from a boy to a teen, and a teen to a man; he kept his need for knowledge, stoked it like a bonfire. He would add each sentence, each term, each new words of wisdom, each skill and other bit of mastery to it to let it burn longer, harder.

Zaun was another way life had found to stunt his genius, but every shackle has a key, and even if his wasn't in his hand he would make it. And he did. He entered the best engineering program on the continent, part of Piltover's famed STEM initiative, under a scholarship and breezed through his classes no matter the dirty looks he was given.

Viktor Kozlov was an confident man.

One of ideals that would not be shaken by the harsh Piltovan classism. If anything, the adversity became his most notable fuel, the one that would come pouring from the city of progress and its citizens like gaz from a faulty pump. The smell of sterile labs and metal, his own personal gasoline, only served to push him further down his path as he strived to complete his doctorate in bioengineering and biomechanical engineering.

He was good, great even, the others feared his genius as much as they admired it. And from enmity, he began inspiring respect into others, breathing it into them like they were all suffocating on the stale air of a condemned cave before he led them out and let them choke on their first lungful of the crisp wind.

His genius, now noticed and revered by his peers as much as it was despised, caught the attention of the Piltover Multidisciplinary Engineering Academy's Dean: Professor Cecil B. Heimerdinger. A man who had, just like him, suffered a downside to his genius in the form of his size.

But no matter how small the man was, he was one of vast knowledge, wisdom and ideas, that he would impart onto Viktor as his mentor, and later on his boss as he took the young man under his wing as his Teacher's Assistant.

He saw the golden eyed boy and detected in him the same greatness he held, and decided he'd nurture it to its full potential.

Viktor Kozlov was a grateful man.

He wore a mask of detachment from the cruelty forced upon him from a young age, never the one to be picked, never the one to make friends, never the one to be seen or praised for anything else than his academic potential; simply because of his naturally quiet nature and his defective body.

But no matter how cold he would seem to others, while remaining polite all the same, he was grateful.

For each praise, even if they weren't necessarily the ones he needed. For each critic, each obstacle, each opportunity, each person that spoke a word to him, each papers he had to read, complete or grade. For each day he was allowed to live, although his body felt more like a personal hell than a sanctuary.

But he was especially, eternally grateful for his best friend, Jayce Talis, whom he met his penultimate year at the Academy.

A simple transfer into his class although he was a year behind, a duo formed out of necessity for a project, which then became an unprecedented partnership. The man was Viktor's polar opposite, a ray of sunshine in his own right. He was outspoken, warm, welcoming and faired much better in the spotlight than he.

But oh did they share a vision.

Jayce became the body Viktor never expected to have and an extension of his own mind. Ideas sparked, plans were followed through until completion and his last two years of studies passed faster than he could blink, leaving him to become a researcher at the faculty as he awaited his friend's graduation. Friend whom he employed, mentored, just as the Dean had done for him. A debt repaid, a friendship cemented in metal with tools and soot.

The both of them pursued the betterment of the lives around them and achieved greatness. With the help of the younger man's girlfriend, they secured funding for their dream: a company of innovative medical machinery and prosthetics, centered around erasing the stigma left on those needing treatment, on rendering said treatment accessible to any and all who may need it regardless of means.

Affordable, a way to reclaim agency over broken bodies and hopeless souls despite the hungry talons of society wanting to monetize pain and disability.

Thus, Hephextus Inc. was born.

But the truth of the matter was that Viktor Kozlov wasn't great. No.

Viktor Kozlov was a lonely man.

No matter how confident he was, his self-esteem was lacking in everything else that didn't come from his thirst for knowledge.

Stemming from being set apart throughout his childhood, that he would never have enough time to grow into something important, something bloomed within him. Something ugly, slipping through the foundations of his soul and feeding on the little seed of doubt he held, bursting through the walls as he got older. Wrapping around the beams and columns like pesky vines.

The idea that no matter what he did, nothing would matter in the grand scheme of things in the end. The whisper of "you've no right to have what you hold now, you haven't earned it", the hiss of "even if you achieve greatness you'll be sitting upon your throne alone and destitute, an empty shell of a man", the screams of "you'll die soon, why do you even try?".

And even after his lung transplant was successful, giving him a new chance at life without the prospect of premature death, the other voices remained.

Viktor kept everyone at bay, he had bore witness to betrayals and his good heart used one too many times. So he locked it in a safe, melted away the key and forced himself to forget the code just like many had forced his hand without remorse.

His politeness was shrouded in cold distance, like a pleasant winter's day once the sun has set. He never dismissed, but he always remained at arm's length. A presence felt and seen but never touched, a ghost, an apparition. The whisper of a man.

After all, how can one be hurt by others if others cannot reach them?

His mother and father, God bless them, were the only ones with a double of the keys at first. But even they had to leave, their time had come before even his. And from then on the safe was kept in a room, locked away from the world, deep inside his psyche.

Professor Heimerdinger was the first to find his way there after two years of complete loneliness, he had fashioned a key with great craftsmanship and stepped inside the room. But never strived to discover the contents of the locked box.

Jayce was the second and most intense. He had burst through the gate with a strength that rivaled Hercules', yet he carefully built a new one with parts of its predecessor and closed it once he was inside. As for the safe, he took the Dean's key and melted it into a smaller one to open the lock as the older man pulled away from his protégé, the code simply coming to him from the echoes of Viktor's heart hidden deep inside. Yearning for kinship and seeing more than a friend, but a brother in the powerful man.

Sky Young, at first an intern at Hephextus Inc then his secretary several years down the line, entered like a sigh in third place. Lock picking her way inside with gentle grace, with her quiet observation, her pertinent line of thought and her careful questioning. A balance to Jayce's nature. She had been kept out of the safe, simply content with remaining in the room with the other man who held the key to Viktor's deeper emotions.

Mel Medarda, now Medarda-Talis, was a stranger case. At first she was given the key to the room by Jayce, and would open the door to peek inside but never step in, not more than a moment. The Genius understood then that they were not dissimilar on certain key points, mainly that of keeping people away, and welcomed her in. They would clash at times, nearly violently, her vision of his ideal based on numbers and graphics rather than people and their plight. But he appreciated being challenged and so did she. He and Jayce made her see the bigger picture, albeit by different means, and she would teach him about the more administrative tasks he had to entertain as CEO.

But three was such a small number, especially when only one truly knew of his soul. The voices were right, after years of walking far ahead of everybody, no matter how good the few that stayed were, he was completely and utterly alone.

Jayce, as COO, was the face of the company, with his golden, boyish smile and his confident and joyful countenance he had to be. He got the interviews, the shows, the conventions, the front pages of magazines, he mediatized their dream, secured their funding and kept the relations with any and all that were needed by their enterprise.

And Viktor, solemn and secluded, remained in his lab or in his office, building, designing, and signing as the chairman. Seldom going out with his friends, barely leaving the building at all as he remained from the early morning until late at night. Avoiding others like him like the plague, he navigated the shark infested waters of the fame granted by Hephextus Inc., ignoring sycophants, turning down shady deals and risky alliances. He'd come back for a handful of hours, his home cold, morose, dreary, a reminder of all that he had locked away, all he was forced to abandon and couldn't fix nor find anymore.

The one true reason why the cold, minimalist and monochrome environment was considered his home at all was a beautiful sphinx cat, Rio, who had become a part of his life a handful of years ago. Soft skin, gentle purrs, round blue eyes that beheld him with love, a nigh silent companion waiting for him whom he didn't understand and that didn't understand him either but kept him afloat all the same.

His dream had been achieved at the price of humanity's most important gift, connection.

"You know, V. You really gotta go out more. I mean you've always been pale but twenty years as a glorified hermit made you nearly transparent. I won't be able to look at my best friend soon enough." The warm tone of Jayce's voice made itself known as the man entered the office, half teasing yet with a strong underlying current of worry, startling Viktor from his schematic.

"Zatraceně-" Dammit. He breathes out, sighing as the thumb and index on his right hand pinched the bridge of his nose right above his slipping glasses. "It is good to see you too."

"When was the last time you went out, like not at all for work or anything else professional?" The chair on the other side of his desk creaks at his friend's weight.

"I went out for groceries last Friday." Gone was the pressure of the svelte man's lithe fingers near his forehead, his hold now focused once more on the mechanical pencil that had escaped him at Jayce's explosive entrance. With a ruler in the other, he continues to meticulously plan out and annotate what he is to do.

"Doesn't count, dude." A snort echoes in the silent room whose only source of sound used to be the scratching of graphite on paper.

"It does, it was me going out for something that was not professional."

"Viktor, I swear to-" And incredulous laugh escapes the tanned man, black locks swaying at the shake of his head. "Okay, how about this- when was the last time you went out for something that was not necessary?"

The pencil stills on paper, tendons flex and relax as Viktor considers Jayce's question. He knows his friend most likely has a very close answer to give him, but wishes to torture him with the realization that he's essentially more machine than man with the lifestyle he has adopted.

"I believe…It might have been your and Sky's birthdays."

"So, from July to October, would you look at that over three months. We'll have to drag you out for your own birthday, as always might I add, then for Christmas and if we're lucky you'll accept to come out for New Year's Eve without much fussing. Then it'll be at least a month for Mel's birthday, if we manage to force you out of your fortress of solitude. Then it won't be for another six months. Jesus, Vik, you need to go out."

The CEO takes his glasses off and rubs his face.

"I am perfectly content with my life the way it currently is."

"Right, that's why you look like you've been taken straight out of The Walking Dead."

"Really flattering, Jayce." He grunts, annoyed yet unable to disprove any of the words the taller man utters. Knowing them to be the truth.

"But I'm right! Come on, take a break. It's Saturday of God's sake you're not even meant to work, everyone's on weekend!"

"I don't seem to remember criticizing how you spend your down time." Is all the svelte man can mutter before the mechanical pencil and other tools are put back in his pencil case by his friend.

"Because my down time is actual down time, V. I won't take no for an answer, take the weekend off, go walk, take a breather, see the outside. We're not getting any younger, don't waste your second chance at life by spending it in a prison and make good use of these lungs."

No matter how frustrated Viktor might have been at Jayce's interruption, if there is one thing he knows its that his friend is always right when it comes to his health. He'd been here when the sickness was still eating him alive, rotting him from the inside out, he'd been here when he was hospitalized and given news that should he continue to refuse transplant, Viktor would only have months to live at best. But Talis was also there to press his friend to get the surgery, he was there waiting for him as it happened, and there when the smaller man was healing from it.

And clearly, Viktor Kozlov was quite awful at taking care of himself with his minimal food intake, his dismal amount of rest and the very little time he took for himself, so it was the larger man's job to guide him down the right path.

Just as he was now.

"Stop working like you're still on borrowed time. I promise it'll do you good."

Damn those big hazel eyes, the man knew how to use them to get just about anyone to crack with their earnest sheen and the shift of green and brown moving like the red cedar leaves of his hometown shaken by the wind.

"Alright, stop looking at me like this."

"You'll do it?" Hope tainted his words.

"Yes Jayce, I'll go take a break. But only for today, not the whole weekend."

"That's enough for me. Thanks, V, I promise you that you won't regret it."

And that's how Viktor found himself limping his way around town. While he didn't particularly fancy the amount of people surrounding him, he had to admit that the soft sunlight alleviated some of the bone deep exhaustion he held since his earliest days.

He wandered without any real goal, simply letting his legs take him wherever they wished him to go as his mind took in the scenery of the city he has been in for over twenty years. Not knowing much of it despite the time spent there due to his unfortunate habit of restricting himself to the places he had to be in, the Academy and his lab and dorm then, the Hephextus Inc. building and his home now.

Saturday meant children, and oftentimes parents too, were out and about. Enjoying their day off and trading relaxing in their comfortable living spaces for a more proactive and enjoyable trip. And albeit the crowd made him anxious, the engineer found himself appreciating the energy others displayed, as if living vicariously through them.

His feet led him to the shore of the Pilt, stores littering the side of the cobblestone street as he took in the saltier air, mixing perfectly with the sweetness of the sun. But even through his mindless ambling, he felt his leg begin to protest at movement, demanding rest in a way that was so usual yet always frustrating. So he turned his gaze to his right, watching signs and windows to decide where he would rest his weary body for but a moment before going home.

Charon.

"What an interesting name for a café." He hums to himself, unknowingly approaching the building. His soul called to the organically shaped metal lattice within the glass of the windows, one so reminiscent of the metalwork back in Zaun.

Yes, this would do just fine.

As he pushed his way inside, a chime rang soft like rainfall, uncovering a well lived interior decorated with what he could only describe as nostalgia incarnate. Tall, thick bookshelves filled to the brim, thriving plants, copper tables, stained glass and beams above his head procuring a certain peace within him along with the smell of coffee and sugar, leather from the worn couches as well.

How peculiar that such a small hole in the wall would feel this homely to him. But then again, he was never one for the more popular places even when he was younger.

A few clients littered tables and seats, talking amongst themselves or enjoying their lonesome peace, but what caught his eye were the two employees at the counter. A taller, silver haired one seemingly teasing their shorter friend who was seconds away from collapsing on the counter, the exhaustion in her eyes one he knew all too well. A sense of forlorn bitterness tainting dead eyes within their faraway stare.

A kindred spirit, he could wager.

So with slow, deliberate steps he saunters to the one who seems to share his plight, even if a little. After all, he were to sit at a café it would only be polite to order something for himself.

"Excuse me?" He starts tentatively, unwilling to cause a fright to the already distressed looking girl.

Yet she tenses all the same, eyes quickly looking up to him with such speed it nearly pulled a chuckle from him.

"My apologies, sir." She clears her throat, clearly embarrassed at being caught off guard. "Welcome to Charon, what can I do for you today?"

It was nearly adorable really, how she cleared her throat to come back down from her reverie and back into the world of the living, building back up her facade of professionalism after being startled from her daydream.

And so, to put her out of her misery and back into neutral territory she could breathe better in, he answered.

"I would appreciate a simple lungo please, and perhaps one of your pastries."

It was more out of habit than necessity or appreciation that he had ordered the bitter drink really.

Viktor, for all his distance, all the cold calculation and removed politeness, despised bitterness although it very much was something he had grown used to from life and from himself. Stripping himself of the little pleasures of life had become habitual, maybe even comfortable, and stemmed from his years at the Academy. When spending more hours working than living, he had learned to forgo the pleasure of sweetness for the sting of the acrid tar. The same one he drank more than water, the same one that felt like a description of his existence, the very same one that had once corrupted his lungs.

So he could at the very least make the pain go away with a sweet treat, right?

The woman turned away to prepare his beverage. "What pastry would you fancy today, sir?"She had called out so softly over her shoulder, winded as if the smallest of movements demanded enough energy from her that it could leave her crumbling.

"What would you recommend?"

Shuffling within the small space of the bar area, the employee gazes at the display, eyes sometimes shifting to him. Whether our of recognition or calculation he doesn't know, but it certainly feels less uncomfortable than he is used to. Never one to be in the spotlight, he appreciated the consideration of the shifting look. Pastry, himself, himself, pastry, he'd wager that the lady is putting a tad too much thought into what he'd get before her bitten lips open again.

"The pecan pie is my favorite item on the menu, if it's to your taste then that's what I'd recommend."

Viktor grazes his beard in thought, something certainly unusual. The man devoid of worldly pleasures hesitating at the prospect of a slice of pie. But, it certainly wouldn't kill him to enjoy himself now that he's here, and he'd feel guilty for wasting this exhausted individual's time. As well as disappointing the inner Jayce nagging at his ear to let himself be just for a day, just for once.

"Very well."

A pie. How…unusual. Something more filling than the usual quick sugar fixes he'd get once in a blue moon, something to be eaten slowly, plated as it is currently by the girl's dexterous hands. Her body flying in the bar as she places the small plate and his coffee on a tray.

"It'll be 6.80, please."

He pulls out a crisp ten from his wallet, one that makes the barista's eyes widen a fraction before she places it in the register. The gaze freezing in surprise once more as he places fifty dollars in the glass jar sitting atop the wooden counter.

"Thank you for your generosity, sir. And enjoy your treat." The girl lets out, nearly stammered incredulously but controlled not to let him see just how shocked she is at the generous tip.

"Thank you for your service." And just as he was about to reach for the metal tray containing his purchase, she reached for it first.

"Don't bother yourself with that, please choose a seat and I'll bring your items to you."

Yet unlike the usual pitying stares and forced helpfulness many would display at his disability, something that would make him bristle and snarl internally perhaps even externally had his day been frustrating enough already, this seemed to be simply out of consideration. Professional, casual, a habit that he'd be remiss to shrug off.

So he straightens, back unfurling a bit more so his full height is presented, even if such movement causes strain upon his abused vertebrae. And, after turning around and observing the sitting space within the café he decides on the quietest spot, a table situated at an angle. Lonely, forgotten, calm, something perfect for a man like him.

As he slowly ambles towards the seat he'll be taking, he heart the padding of feet behind him, the barista placing the tray upon his chosen table as he settles himself upon the assigned stool.

"There you go, sir. Have a good day, and if you ever need anything else don't hesitate." Is said with a small, kind smile, one tired enough to make him want to crawl back into his shell but also appreciate the mundane gesture not rooted in manipulation nor anything edulcorated from within his usual circles.

A simple smile from someone doing their job.

"I shall keep that in mind, thank you." Is all he answers before she turns and walks back to her spot behind the counter, his hands already fishing a long forgotten book from his satchel. Perhaps today was the right time for him to pick it up once more.

Quiet chatter animates the café, from the patrons, from the barista and her friend currently, seemingly, teasing her about something. It all strangely felt nice, a forgotten and nigh forbidden feeling in his mind for all it's worth. But..perhaps he'd come do such a thing again, in this very same place.

His bad leg crosses over the better one, one hand reaching for his coffee as the other picks a page by its dog eared edge to come back to the passage he left the tome with. The bitterness of his beverage makes him gag, something he's grown used to but never grown pleased by, the bite always and forever feeling like bile sliding down his throat rather than an appreciated grit. But he doesn't let himself show much of it other than a frown, something his face had grown used to producing at the offending drink, at the offending people always crowding his space, at the offending acridness which he has let control his life for many a year now.

Sweetened only by his dream reaching for the stars and spreading to the people.

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[vespervines]

And I loved and I loved and I lost you

[redcigart]

But Jayce.. I am from Old Yarnham…

More Bloodborne AU.

[shuploc]

Early morning Viktor

[hivemuthur]

Favours Between Friends - Ch.4.

viktorxfem!reader explicit: Modern AU, omegaverse, alpha Viktor x omega Reader, rom-com, fake dating, author has a very vague understanding of omegaverse but there's a lot of terminology. Finally arrived at cringe but free.

Ch.1. | Ch.2. | Ch.3.

word count: 12,2K (they boink a lot, sorry)

warnings: slight angst, talk of cancer and infertility, otherwise: scenting, dry humping, blowjobs (I have to stay true to myself ok), alpha/omega dynamics in full bloom with Viktor on the dominant side of course, rough (-er than usual) sex, a tiny smidge of degradation if you squint, nesting, as Krys said: breeding kink but Nat wrote it, knotting.

author’s note: As I mentioned I have stuff happening this weekend, so instead of Freakday we are celebrating Thirstday. @doggrowth thank you for beta reading and steering me back into the classic omegaverse tropes trenches. Ah, and of course, he purrs :3

AO3

—

Fuck, Viktor thinks as a wave of nausea rattles his bones. He wakes drenched in sweat. Shit.

He knows at once. There—on the rumpled sheet—the little white square, peeled and curled like a dead moth. His damp clothes lie scattered on the floor, still reeking of last night’s panic. And in memory, vivid as a bruise: your neck, bared, breathing slow against his mouth.

Instinct moves faster than thought. He’s dressed, packed, and out the door before his brain can form a sentence. Each step down the corridor feels like walking on broken glass. The note he leaves on the pillow is courteous, but the panic coiled beneath the ink is anything but.

At reception he forces signatures, keeps his spine straight while every muscle screams run. Minutes later he’s on the move, the resort smearing past.

In the cab, a blaze of anger overtakes him—at the sheer naïveté, the stupidity, the indescribable idiocy of the whole endeavour. A plus-one, he scowls inwardly. But when the last shards of clarity slice through the fever, Viktor realises it’s he who stacked every mistake. The thought is so harrowing he lets a soft whimper slip, earning the driver’s glance in the mirror.

“Sir, want me to pull over?” the man asks, clearly afraid Viktor’s going to puke all over his backseat.

“It’s fine. The sooner you get me home, the better.”

He shuts his eyes while the weekend unreels behind the lids. You were perfect—or at least trying. He was the one who thought he could out-logic biology.

How fast his brain clocked you as something to guard, he cannot fathom. Claire was a speed-bump; he’d have rattled past her. Instead, he’d ended up snorting your wrist like it was cut with diamonds. Instead of knocking himself out with an extra melatonin dose, he’d lain awake dissecting your scent into elements. Instead of waking on time, he’d been late—blockers forgotten—and you’d liked the way he smelled. That had felt good, watching you unravel for him.

Then, rather than a colleague’s pat on the back, he’d decided it was appropriate to take your fucking hand: that gentle palm, finger-pads leathered with test-tube burns, tendons showing under skin.

One flute of champagne to drown it—too shallow. Instead of skipping the dance, he’d followed the siren pull of your bittersweet skin and buried his nose where neck meets shoulder; nearly ended himself right there.

Afterwards, instead of a penitential ice shower—or, better, explaining and going home—he’d accepted your arms. And it had worked, briefly. You were a cold compress on a burn, a stitch in a cut, a meal to the starved. Until his wandering hands, desperate for more of that addictive perfume, tore away the last defence. Patch off, hormones on. Simple math.

Uncanny, yes, that losing the suppressants and a few hours’ proximity flipped your cycle—yet not impossible. Two days together: awkwardness, stress, and, artificial or not, attraction. Biology only needed a crack; he’d handed it a canyon.

He could plot it on a chart: his own half-life inability to suppress. The constant ghost of your scent—thin, but enough to stir sediment. Lack of sleep. Stress. Alcohol. You, being brilliant and kind on a loop. Your neck. His near-rut collapse. The god-forsaken, well-meant scenting. Patch lost, your scent turning syrup-sweet, everything he’d dammed crashing back through the breach.

It’s all very simple, yet still, Viktor can’t believe it has come to this.

As the world smears past the cab window, he prays it was a false alarm. Just a temporary wobble in whatever balance your body keeps, not an unprecedented heat. He prays he’ll be the only one to pay—alone, aching—for wanting a warm body that isn’t his to claim, and that the disruption he’s triggered in you will vanish the moment he’s out of sight. Here’s to hoping.

Because what hits you first, is the temperature—a cloying layer of warmth that swaddles your whole body, pours down your throat, settles in your marrow like liquid iron. Then pain—familiar, yet your brain is still too far behind to clock it. It feels like waking inside the worst flu of your life: muscles packed with wet sand, bones leaden, skin stretched too tight, begging to be clawed off.

Your teeth ache, as if each one were trying to work itself loose from the jaw. Fingers throb—blunt, swollen and useless. Your belly knots hard, a fist inside a fist. Even your hair hurts, scalp buzzing with tiny, angry needles. At first you blame the buffet, a glass too many, yesterday’s adrenaline curdling into vile hangover poison.

Then the ache strikes—low and insistent. A hollow opening between hips, greedy and raw. Your eyelids flicker open, bleary; the sheets smell like last night, like Viktor, and your heart slides down a lift shaft.

There, on the mattress: the patch, peeled and rolled into a sad little tube, dusted with stray fibres. Beside it—where Viktor should be—a folded note, stark against the crumpled linen.

Forgive me, but despite all effort, our attempts failed. I am heading home—I should be on my own. Please let me know when you return safely. —V.

You stare at the handwriting until the letters wobble. Then you scan the room, half-expecting him to materialise from a shadow. Nothing. No clothes draped over a chair, no cane leaning against the nightstand. His door is locked; your knock dies unanswered. The bathroom is scrubbed of him, as if water washed every trace down the drain. Only the note remains.

Another cramp claws up your spine, hot and mean. You think of options: brace through it, flood your body with blockers, slap on a new patch. Too late; the engine’s already revving. Heat roars in you—worse than ever—stoked by an alpha who smells like a deity and spent the night mapping you with his mouth.

You fall into the sheets and inhale what scraps of Viktor linger there. The earth is dry, honey burnt to a shell. It isn’t enough. A raw, keening sob drags free of your chest.

So you let it. Mourn your past self who thought this moronic idea wouldn’t backfire. Let the tears come—undignified, just hot and wet and wrung from the pit of your belly. You cry until the worst of the pain ebbs, just enough to think again. To see clearly what’s been in front of you this whole time.

About one thing, Viktor was right—you need to be alone too. But before that can happen, you need help getting there. So you fish your phone out from under the sheet, wipe it clean on the duvet, and tap Vi’s name. She answers on the first ring.

“Hey genius, what’s up?” she says.

“Hi,” you whisper. “Could you… come and get me?”

“I’m on my way. Send a pin.” That’s it. No questions. No noise. Just the small click of her ending the call.

Two hours later, the knock on the door is brisk. Vi slips inside and closes it quietly. She takes one look at you, puffy-eyed and still wrapped in the sheets, and her mouth presses into a thin line.

“I’ll pack,” she says.

“I’m sorry,” you croak.

“Don’t be stupid.” She grabs your overnight bag from the floor. “You got anything in the bathroom?” You shake your head. She nods. Efficient. Gentle. Checkout is a blur: signatures, key cards, hotel staff with polite smiles you can’t return.

When you step outside, Caitlyn is leaning against the driver’s side of Vi’s car. She doesn’t say a word, just opens her arms. You fall into them. She holds you tight, hand flat against the back of your head like she’s trying to shield you from the whole damn sky.

She loads your bag into the boot, then slides behind the wheel. Vi herds you to the backseat of your own car, tucks a blanket over your knees. You curl into a bean, forehead pressed to the cool window.

The road unfurls ahead, double yellow lines swimming in heat shimmer. You tell yourself it’s fine. You’ve done this before. First heat alone? Hardly. Not the last, either. You’ll manage.

Neither of you speaks, and yourself, you are too busy breathing through it—each mile a small act of endurance, each bump in the road pulling a thread through your spine. Vi drives with quiet focus, while the outside slides by in soft colours and smeared light.

When the cars finally pull up outside your building, Caitlyn steps out first and opens the boot. She passes you your bag with a soft “Here,” and presses your shoulder once before retreating.

Vi lingers. She watches you hoist the strap, watches the way your body dips under the weight, and you can see it in her face—the way she’s deciding whether or not to say anything. With teeth sunken into lower lip, she sucks in a breath, and—

“Do you want me to—?”

“No.” It comes too sharp, frayed. You sigh. “Sorry. Thank you. I’ll call if I need anything. Does that work?”

Vi nods. “Works.” She exhales through her nose and rubs her hands along your shoulders, brisk but gentle. “Yeh, that works, genius.”

With the most effortful smile of your lifetime, you mutter, “Thanks.”

You get to your flat nearly blind. Vision blurred, muscles trembling, bones creaking. First thought: off. Off, off, off. The clothes—sweaty, clinging—feel like insult more than fabric. You wrestle it all down with a snarl, peel yourself out of the pants, the shirt, the bra. Every seam a battle. Every thread a needle.

The bathroom tiles burn cold under your feet. You drag yourself into the shower and turn the tap left. Heat slams your back like a red-hot palm, but you hold still, eyes squeezed shut. You need the scald, the slackening. Muscles loosen by degrees. The fog helps. For a moment you could almost trick yourself into thinking you’re not falling apart.

You towel off, stumble into the bedroom, and fall face-first into the mattress. Unnested sheets are unforgiving. You make a low sound that isn’t quite a sob and roll onto your back, legs splayed, skin steaming.

Then, your hand reaches for the phone. Even though everything in you boils over, you can’t help your fingers. They type the text before you can kick your mind into working properly and you find yourself staring at a message sent to Viktor: Home safe. Hope you are too.

Not even a minute passes before your cell rings—it’s him. The phone nearly drops on your face. You wait for your throat to unclench before picking up, praying to every god you know your voice doesn’t sound like you’re clawing at the walls.

“Hi. What’s up?” It comes out choked.

“Why are you home so early?” Viktor’s voice scratches at your ear, hoarse and wrecked, not all that different from your own.

You draw all the force you can to keep yourself from cracking, speak on an exhale: “I didn’t feel like staying for the wrap-up.”

“Do not lie to me.” His tone cuts through, soft but sharp.

“So you... ah—“ you pant, trying to breathe around the spike in your belly, “can lie to me, but I—fuck—can’t lie to you?”

He groans low. “Will you forgive me?” The words tumble out, rushed. “I thought—” He swallows, and you hear it clearly in the speaker. “I thought there’s a chance it would spare you if I left.”

Your head falls back against the mattress, eyes squeezing shut. “Well, you know what kind of path is paved with good intentions, don’t you.”

Viktor sounds like he’s just winced. A beat. Then, careful: “And how... are you?”

“Ah, you know—the usual.” You shift, cramp shooting up your spine. “Contemplating a little impromptu self-sterilisation.”

He says your name. Pained. Pitied. “Is it the usual, or worse?”

You whimper, dragging a hand across your face. “Oh God, Viktor.” It spills out raw. “It’s so much worse.” You swallow against the dryness of throat. “I feel like I usually feel on day three. You?”

He doesn’t answer right away. Then: “Worse. It rebounded badly.” A long breath. “The patch—”

“I know.” Your voice softens to a thread.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be, please.” You groan. “It’s me. Your deadline, I—it was my stupid idea and my stupid pride that led us here.”

He hesitates. You hear him breathing like he’s running. “Do you need—” He cuts himself off. Restarts. “—anything? Can I help?”

“How?” You press your knuckles to your lips. “Don’t you have enough problems of your own right now?”

“It would solve one of them,” he says, cracked and low. “I know it’s not real, but I—” He exhales hard. “I need you safe. I can’t stop thinking. Or I can’t think, I do not know which one it is.” A pause. “Just tell me you have people to take care of you.”

“I don’t want people.” You press the phone into your cheek. Of course you could call Vi, ask her to sit out the fever with iced towels and soft jokes, and she would say yes without blinking. You could swipe for a stranger, barter heat for an hour of borrowed kindness.

But the thought tastes like chalk. Too sanitary. Too lonely. The ache wants teeth, wants hands that already know the map of your spine, wants deathly sweetness you breathed all night—the scent that screams life. Every rational thread tears loose, floats off like ash. All that’s left is the want, bright and brutal and singular. “I want you.”

A splash of water. Viktor curses softly, then stutters: “Text me your address, I will—”

“No.” You push up to sit—it hurts. “Viktor, you shouldn’t,” you say and hear him sucking in a breath. “It’s easier for me to come see you. I wouldn’t forgive myself if—”

“It’s not how it’s supposed to be,” he says, resigned.

“Well. nothing has been so far. It’s safer. Just promise you won’t move.”

There’s a sigh of surrender. “Take spare clothes,” he says, voice rising, urgent. “Take—goddamnit, just hurry up.”

You stumble over your own legs. Pick up whatever random ‘spare clothes’ Viktor mentioned, claw at the key bowl to fish out the car keys and run downstairs, tears stinging your eyes. No idea what he means. No idea what’s going to happen, or rather—a million ideas, none of them you are brave enough to dwell on.

When you get there, it takes exactly one ring for Viktor to buzz you in. And then, once upstairs, instead of knocking, you rest your forehead against the wood, and breathe. Try to. The lock clicks.

Viktor’s scent hits you like a thick, heated blanket thrown over your shoulders. It blooms into the room, pushes back the ache, the fog, the gnawing loneliness jabbing like a second set of ribs.

He stands framed by the doorway, backlit by the dim hall light. Shirt half-buttoned, sleeves shoved to the elbows, collar limp and clawed open for breath. Sweat beads at his hairline and eyelids, catches the lamp-glow, slicking dark lashes together. The angles of his face look carved sharper than yesterday—cheekbones ruthless, mouth bruised from his own teeth.

You mean to say Hi or I’m here, anything civilized, anything other than—

 “Hold me.”

It breaks from your chest, soft and raw, already climbing toward pleading. No filter. No dignity. Just need.

He pulls you inside by the wrist. It’s swift—door slams shut, cane tossed onto the coat-hanger, your bag sliding to the floor with a thud. Then arms—whole miles of them—wrap round you, hauling you into the cloying safety of his chest, his neck. And oh—there it is, your favourite sound. As if relieved to have you, he hums long and croaky, the side of his throat sending a sweet purr into your temple, seeping straight into your brain. Hands span your spine as if he could press the ache straight out through your skin. The thrum inside you finds its twin in him; your body seizes—and then lets go. Silence, deafening. You could swear your back is steaming.

You breathe him in as a palm rests against your forehead and smooths down your scalp. “You’re burning up,” he murmurs.

Already beguiled, drunk on sheer proximity, you let him pull you, steer you wherever he wants. Until you realise—instead of being led straight to bed, you find yourself in his kitchen. And instead of fucking you on the table, Viktor pours you a glass of water and puts on the kettle. “Mint tea,” he explains. “We need to cool you off a bit.”

Seeing you standing there, dumbfounded, he nearly laughs. It’s maybe not a first, but the first in a while—having someone eat him alive with their eyes, holding back a plea to get obliterated. To say it’s entertaining is to say nothing, but Viktor is fighting his own little battle.

Accepting that dignity is no longer for him, he adjusts the crotch of his pants and sits. Cane set on the table like a barricade, he licks his lips, then says, “I’d like you to be comfortable. Do you understand?”

You nod. You keep nodding, as you set the glass down, half-full. Then, you keep nodding while crossing the short distance and straddling his lap. And Viktor lets you—he will be good to you like this, he decides.

When your weight settles against his cock, a breath puffs out of him. He’s about to tell you this can also be just a favour. That it can mean nothing. That you can laugh it off in a day or two when the storm passes and part ways like the colleagues you are.

Before he can produce any of those reasonable phrases, your face pushes itself against his. It’s a needy, cat-like rub, rough and slow, your mouth hanging open as you inhale him. His eyes fall shut.

He can feel arms around his neck, tight, your body already melting into the shape of him. His tautness—your pliancy. Your thighs press and shift against his, and the pressure only makes things worse.

You’re falling—boneless, animated by something that has no neural pathways. He smells like everything you missed, everything you denied. And he smells like you, too—your scent, woven through his skin, still clinging to the threads of his hair.

His nose grazes your throat, then lower, to the divot of collarbone. A thumb hooks under the shirt collar and tugs it wide, the seam groaning. His mouth finds your shoulder—just lips, no teeth—and he grunts, cut and ragged. Open-mouthed. Starving. “God, you smell so good,” he whispers.

Before he realises what he’s doing, his hands are sliding lower. He gropes your ass like it’s something he’s owed—full-palmed, urgent, pulling you hard against where he’s tumescent. “Yes,” you gasp, fingers curling in his hair as you guide his mouth to yours.

And Viktor opens—filthy and willing. He lays his tongue out flat, and you meet it halfway with yours. Now you’re tasting one another in the deep grooves of his palate. For him it’s summer distilled: oranges split open, apricots soft to bursting, rain-soaked peaches still wearing their skins, right down to the faint arsenic bite of their stones and the dark soil they grew from. Sun, but the cancerous kind, storm that brings floods, earth scathed, feeding on carrion—all the danger and thrill and madness of living.

The flavour hits him like a narcotic. His nails bite through fabric into the meat of your ass when he rocks you against him. Every nerve inside him howls fuck me. Gorgeous creature, fuck me, eat me alive and I’ll fuck you and eat you alive until there’s no seam between us.

He catches your lower lip between his teeth. You answer by twisting your fist in his hair and dragging a guttural sound out of him. Your hips grind harder, more, damp cotton sliding, sticking, gathering heat where your bodies meet. Each rub marks a darker patch on his trousers. The shape of your cunt presses through cloth, obscene and perfect, and his.

He releases your lip—it reddens. Fists the hair at your nape, tipping your head back, baring your throat. The place that begs to be torn by canines throbs, inviting. A wrecked sound claws out of his chest; he drags his mouth over his teeth, blunting the bite, swallowing the instinct. But he keeps the grip, hard enough that you twitch and shove yourself down on him.

“That’s it,” he rasps, voice gravelled with rut. “Fuck yourself on me.”

“Yes—yes, yes,” you mumble, the words dissolving into breath as you yank his hair until the sting jolts his hips up. His hand leaves your nape; two fingers press past your lips, curl over your cheek, then slide free, slick with spit. He drags that hand down the ridge of your spine, beneath the waistband, between your cheeks, and sinks one finger into the tight heat of your ass—so snug he exhales a shattered praise against your mouth.

“Oh, so deprived, poor thing,” he coos, thrilled. “You’ll take anything, won’t you?”

The sound coming from your throat is nothing human; Viktor swallows it whole, tongue chasing the echo until fire licks the back of his throat—whatever noise leaves you now belongs to him.

It’s freaky and raw and impossibly good. He kisses you hard with forceful tongue and eyes open—and it’s so vulnerable and intimate it scorches. Heat coils low, unspooling like ice flash-melting under a torch, racing down your thighs, up your chest, until white steals the edges of vision.

“Look at you,” he husks against your cheek, voice a rasp of wonder and tease. “Grinding like you can’t stand the hollow. Does it hurt, clever girl, to be empty?”

You whimper, hips pushing harder, chasing. “So desperate—using your alpha before you’ve even earned it. Go on then, show me how pretty you are when you come,” he murmurs, inhaling at your throat.

You gasp, clamp around emptiness, thighs locking, and somewhere in the crush his lower spine pops; it drags a gasp from him that feeds straight into your climax. Shaking apart on his lap, your pulse is a bright flare against the dark, and Viktor holds you through each ragged wave, whispering rough endearments into the seam of your mouth—good, just like that, aren’t you just lovely.

With your muscles loosening, shame seeps in. Hunger falls back just far enough for reason to edge into your hormone-fogged brain: God, you all but devoured him while he was only trying to keep you hydrated. Your gaze wanders, casting for an exit.

Viktor chuckles. “Are you—” he begins, and your eyes squeeze shut, bracing for the word you’re sure is coming—done?

“—alright?” he finishes, voice gentle, eyes all kindness again.

A teary laugh slips out of you. “Yes.”

He gathers you close. “It’s all right. Come here.” A slower, deeper kiss follows—steadying, unhurried. He tastes good. Safe. His thumb coasts over your lower lip. “You’re going to be trouble, aren’t you?” he teases, half-smile breaking the tension.

“God, you must think I’m an animal. Maybe Dan was right about me—”

“Stop.” His tone slices the thought clean. “I will not have that.” He cups your cheeks, thumbs stroking the damp beneath your eyes. “No animal—just a beautiful creature.” He draws a breath through his nose, steady. “And remember—I understand this. I know how it feels.”

Only then do you notice the kettle screaming on the hob. Sheepishly, you scramble yourself up from him, trying not to stare at the wet stain you’ve produced in his crotch. Colleagues, favours, it all blurs. “Alright then,” you mutter, and let him make you the goddamn tea.

Thoughts rattle; you almost laugh at yourself. He’s good at this, and you’ve barely begun. Momentarily sated but nowhere near calm, your gaze keeps drifting to the slope of his groin—admiring the shape of him and, more bewildering, his composure. Anyone else would have bent you over by now; Viktor makes sure you cool off. If someone had told you it would go like this, you’d have laughed in their face. But the reality—being held without being broken—defies every word you have.

He slips an arm around your shoulders, the other braced on his cane. “Come with me,” he says, as if you require convincing. You fist the damp front of his shirt and follow, trying not to lean on him. His neck looks delicious. Desire swells again, blooms, as you realise he’s steering you down the corridor toward the bedroom—an air saturated with him, undiluted. This is where he spends his weekends, where he sleeps, reads, sweats, drools into his pillow. The very walls hum with him, and each step feels like wading deeper into the pulse of his scent.

Once you reach the foot of the bed, it all curdles into gluttonous urge—to bite, to lick him all over, to snort the powdered glass of epidermis off his sheets. Amber-thick, sap-slow, copper-sharp—you gulp this air, and it granulates on your tongue, swells into something you can almost chew on. Every breath is a dose; every exhale, surrender.

Viktor’s cane clicks away. His palms settle, bracketing your shoulders—steady, unhumanly gentle. Fingers find the hollow beneath your skull, coax your chin up. One-day stubble grazes first, a dry spark over soft skin; you shiver, the sting flowering sweet behind your knees.

Then his mouth closes on yours, and it’s just endless depth. Tongue sliding in like warm liquor, searing a path you taste in colour: gold turning to iron, iron smelting to night. It spirals, pulls until you’re hollowed, until you are only pulse and flavour.

He drinks you in long strokes, and the need that usually sleeps behind his eyes breaches the surface—black, ravenous, incandescent. Your hips tilt of their own accord, hunting friction; his answering groan wraps itself around each joint, lights every fuse you didn’t know was waiting.

When he finally lifts his head, breath ragged, his scent has saturated the room—resin and storm and something darkly, deliriously patient. Gold of his irises eaten to the brim, his hands return to collar your neck. “Undress me,” he croons, then licks a broad stroke from your cheek up to the line of your hair.

Branded, first with the heat of his mouth, then with breeze blasting pheromones all over the wet patch, you strip the shirt from his shoulders. Underneath it is the brace—an exo-skeleton of matte carbon frame hugging sternum and ribs, sleek, almost elegant. Even though you know this might be a breach, you want him naked. You want all of his skin draped over yours. “Can we take this off?” you ask, voice pitched low with hope.

Viktor nods. “Here.” He guides your fingers to the magnetic latches at his sides. Two clicks and a soft pneumatic sigh, and the contraption loosens, folding away from delicate tissue. The marks beneath are tender: redness where pressure rested, pale surgical scars arcing beneath his ribs. You pause, hands hovering over nacre marks.

Viktor catches your wrists before you can trace them. He presses your knuckles to his cheek, eyes half-lidded. “Later,” he murmurs, soft but certain.

Instead, you run your fingers down his chest, nails raking. He shudders, his stomach sucks in and glues itself to his spine when you reach the waistband.

You ease it down, rolling fabric over the jut of hipbones, descending with it. No underwear—just soft cotton guarding him. Inch by inch, crown to root, he comes free: flushed dark, veined, the silky skin damp where you’d ground against him. The densest heart of him blooms there so thick you taste it before you breathe it.

Your pulse gives a hard, grateful kick. He’s beautiful—brutal and elegant at once, the heavy line of him begging the hollow of your throat. Drool bleeds in your mouth for the chance to seal around him. You want to lick the salt from the slit, map every vein with your tongue, tuck him so deep the world can’t see either of you.

The trousers pool at his knees. You rest your palms on the flat of his abdomen, nails scratching lightly through the fine hair trailing downward. A hiss leaks between his teeth; his belly flexes, trying to retreat, but you follow, sliding to your knees on the floorboards.

Mouth open, eyes glossed, you press your cheek to the base of him and inhale. Slow. Thoughts abandoned. Your breath shudders back into your lungs like you’re siphoning oxygen straight from his skin.

Viktor’s hand finds the back of your head, fingers threading—trembling. The sound he makes is raw, unguarded, as if you’ve dismantled him with nothing but breath. Your knees creep forward; palms cup the curve of his ass, guiding him closer, deeper into the cradle of your face. His cock drags across your cheek, your nose, your brow—heavy velvet, pulsing under the thin sheath of skin—and you breathe again, longer this time, mouth and nose both, until your vision blackens.

The moan he spills is more than grateful; it’s ruin dressed as praise, and it’s yours.

“God, you smell like sex,” you murmur, lips brushing the silk-hot flesh. It vibrates against him, and Viktor releases a startled, half-delirious giggle. You glance up: cheeks dewed with juvenile blush, lip shining. He cradles your jaw, as if bewildered by himself.

“Do that again,” he purrs, hips nudging forward.

Another slow inhalation, a pull of air drawn right at the root. Then you nose along the seam of his balls, heavy, over the damp crease of thigh that smells of sweat and sweet rot of the body on edge—up, up, until you kiss the notch under his crown as if it were mouth, pressing him back against the flat of his stomach.

Palms framing his hips, thumbs stroke the bones like fret marks on a beloved instrument. You lick once at the underside, vein-slick, feel him jump, feel your own pulse answer.

“Are you trying to make me beg for you?” He aims for a tease but comes out weak. “Because that’s not going to happen.”

You smile—it could. You tuck it for later. And then, at last you take him: lips stretching, heat sealing, your tongue cupping the length through a swallow. Your mouth becomes bottomless as you let this sacrilege of a man into the soft dark corridor of your throat. His breath shreds when you feel the weight glide deeper, feel the blunt head nudge against the brink of comfort and invite itself farther.

He tastes like rain on copper roofing, like peach skin split under thumb, like resin melted over firebrick—sweet, acrid, elemental. Each drag of your tongue ripples through his thighs, earning a stuttered curse, a praise wrapped in a groan. “F-fuck—your mouth,” he gasps, half-laughing, breath heavy. “Enjoying yourself, aren’t you?”

You hum, eyes closing, keeping this image of him for yourself. Heat soaks your skin, slick pooling between your legs as the rhythm settles: close, draw back, hollow your cheeks, sink again. Every pass slicker, greedier, addiction sedimenting on your palate.

Viktor’s hand claws at your hair for anchor; the other strokes your cheekbone in silent awe. His voice fractures around your name—"I’m close,” he whispers, a warning that canonizes—while you press on, throat opening, until your nose meets the soft thatch at his base and you breathe him there, utterly claimed by scent and salt and trembling skin.

He shudders, from head to toe. Reality contracts to the slide and the thunder of blood in your ears. There is nothing else—only him, only you, only hunger perfected in the yawning darkness between your lips.

In Viktor, something splits. A tearing-open—instinct clawing up the spine, demanding to mark, to seed. Heat detonates at the base of his skull; every scent gland flares, flooding the room with his euphoria. Muscles seize, vision flashing white. Slick heaven of your mouth, the convulsive suck drags every pulse of him forward.

He groans—no language left, only sound—and drives in, shallow and helpless. Orgasm rips through him in hot, feral bursts. He feels it leave, thick and bright, feels you swallow greedily around the first spurt, and begin to ease back, lips stretching wide. His body misreads your throat as the place it was born for, and the base of his cock swells—hard, sudden, threatening to lock him inside that velvet vice. A startled growl breaks from his chest; he fists your hair, pulling you off him.

“Knot—hnh, can’t stop it,” he rasps, hips jerking once more. You open for him, tongue red, catching the final ribbons as they land—offering sight as proof of possession. The image brands his hindbrain: white streak against scarlet, your eyes blown wide, pupils eclipsing everything.

“Perfect,” he whispers, unbearably soft, fingers trembling against your cheek. “Perfect, merciless omega.”

He sighs. The world tilts. He’s half-hanging from your grip on his hips, breath shredding, pulse in his ears like drums in fog—animal and unmade. The storm in his head though—it’s quiet.

You watch him, curious. The thick root of him swells, pulsing right in front of your face—wanting somewhere to lock, somewhere to sit and drain. An old, deep part of you unfurls at the sight, almost prays for it: plug me, keep the seed, make it stay. Heat squeezes low, instinctive, greedy.

“Does it hurt,” you murmur, brushing the pad of your thumb along that engorged ridge, “when it’s like this?”

He laughs, breathless, the sound skittering up his ribs. “No. Feels strange, though—wrong without a home.” His palms open toward you, invitation and command braided into one. “Come here.”

Clumsily, you rise. Drape yourself over him, kiss him with his cum still on your tongue, so he can taste both of you at once. Shameless, you breathe into his mouth: “More.” And how could he say no—he’s high on you. It lives on him now. Gets into the hair on his arms, the base of his throat, the roots of his neck.

“Show me,” he says, fully aware everything is backwards. He should be pinned in your space, trapped in your nest, fucking you fast and mean to blunt the first wave. Instead you’re here, reaching between your legs and—oh—

Your hand comes back slick. Heat-scented fingers smear sweetness over his lips, across the sharp of his cheek.

It scalds and soothes in the same breath—purifies him of every sin and stains him with new ones, steadies his pulse while spiking his need, empties him out and overfills him at once.

But above everything, it feels right. A lovely purr spills from his throat—he lets you anoint him, lets the slick paint his lips and jaw, and then seizes your wrist, drawing your fingers to his mouth. Licks the remnants—slow, devout—until you are clean.

“As I thought—trouble,” he murmurs, releasing you with a wet pop. His teeth find your lower lip, sharp and possessive, then he breathes against it: “Strip.”

You step back, obedient. Viktor lowers himself on the mattress, propped on one elbow, cock already stirring back to life against his thigh. The fragments of you he’d catalogued—slope of shoulder, curve of breast under the dress, the ribbon of spine he traced last night—begin to assemble into a full map.

Undressing while being watched and watching someone undress is awkward, but he hopes you’re both miles past embarrassment. You tug your shirt over your head; in the instant your vision is blinded by fabric, he inventories skin for future claims—the dip of your waist, the notch beneath your ear, the wrinkle at your belly when you bend to shimmy out of your trousers. A dark wet patch blooms on your underwear; he swallows hard.

The bra falls away last, lace peels off skin. Your breasts settle—heavier, lower, perfect—tempting him to lie back and let them drape over his mouth, suffocate him. His cock twitches at the image. You’re beautiful, he thinks.

“You are gorgeous,” he tells you.

And you—shameless creature who just sucked him dry—try to tuck the rush of blood to cheeks under bashful smile, but he sees anyway. Viktor’s gaze stays fixed, hungry and gently awed, as though he’s seeing art and appetite at once.

He extends one hand; you set yours in it, and he turns you slowly—show me—one quarter, then another—he catches a glimpse of a scar on your lower belly, tucks it for later. At halfway he stops, palms settling on your hips. He leans forward and sinks his teeth into the curve of your ass, a bruise that borders ugly. You squeal, arch back into the bite. His laugh is a hum against flesh; one hand dips between your thighs and comes away drenched. Slick strings in the lamplight, painting his knuckles.

“Look at this,” he teases, spreading the wet across your inner thighs until they shine. “Insatiable thing.” There is nothing but pleasure in his voice, and pride.

He pivots you to face him, chin resting on the rise of your pubic bone. Eyes upturned, fervent. “You looked so pretty riding me in the kitchen,” he says, breath warm. “I want to see that again, clothes off.”

You gulp your anticipation down, drop to your knees, ease the rest of his trousers down. Another brace there—dark Velcro latching to his calf and thigh. You hesitate. He catches your wrist, gently. “This can stay,” he murmurs. “It helps me with balance.”

Your nod is immediate. Palms settling on his shoulders, you straddle him on the bed; his cock slides through your heat, slicking its length. You kiss him, mouths open, and his arms lock around you, tight, tighter with each pass of tongues. My omega. He almost tells you.

You follow the movement of his hand as it reaches into the bedside drawer and comes back with a foil strip—condoms, ridiculous amount, accordion-folded like cards in a winning hand. The sight punches through you, sudden and molten: jealousy, raw as fever. Some cool, rational corner tries to explain that any unattached alpha might keep a surplus on hand, that it is not betrayal, but the thought dissolves before it can settle. You watch him tear one packet open with his teeth, balance the latex on the flushed crown of his cock, and something inside you gives.

Home, your body insists, the word roaring through bone and blood. Everything about him fits: the scent—just lovely. His hands that touch the way you always imagined someone might, someday. The voice that turns honeyed when it shapes your name. His hair, so soft. His mouth. Kissable. Him—kind.

You want his bite. You want his name on your body forever. The thought makes you lubricate down to your thighs.

Without thinking, you catch his wrist, stopping the roll of clear latex.

“No,” you breathe—raw, pleading. “Breed me. Keep me.”

The words don’t sound like any version of you you’ve met before, but they are the only truth left standing in the wreckage of need.

Viktor blinks through a gasp. His cock jerks once, but when he speaks your name it’s with a tenderness that destroys you. “Darling,” he murmurs.

The condom stays half-rolled; he cups your face, studying you as if there is mythical best in your skull he has to banish. “You don’t know me. At least—not well,” he says. “You don’t want a baby with me—and there’s a very good chance we’d conceive today.”

“I—” The syllable fractures. Mortification spikes: of the two of you, he ought to be the one lost to instinct, yet you’re the one begging, and for what. Panic swims up your throat. “Yes. I mean—no.” Crushed with shame, the heat of it licking at your skin like punishment, the words tangle. “I’m sorry,” you whisper, hiding behind your hands.

“It’s all right.” His tone is a balm. Gently, he pries your palms away and kisses each knuckle. It’s absurd—you sit spread across his thighs, drooling onto his lap in abundance. Utterly obscene, and yet he’s soothing you as if nothing could be more natural.

“I just—” He pauses; you stop breathing—all braced for him to tell you this is just... a favour. “I want to take you out first. Let you decide, when it all clears, if you still want me.”

A breath shudders free, carrying a tear with it. “You would?”

“Yes,” he says—soft laugh, sure nod. “Of course.” His thumb brushes the tear away; then he cranes his neck and kisses you—slow, reassuring, a promise held between lips rather than teeth.

You dissolve—relief spilling through muscle and marrow. The fear that you’d tipped the balance vanishes under that kiss. Shoulders unlock, lungs open, warmth pours back into your limbs like blood allowed to flow after a tourniquet.

Your palm glides down his cock, unrolling the latex to the base; it snaps home, glistening where you’ve webbed him with slick. Viktor’s hand dips between your thighs, gathers more—two fingertips slipping through seam, coating themselves, then stroking the sheathed head until it gleams.

He settles both palms on your hips, thumbs splayed over the flex of bone, and guides you forward. The crown nudges your entrance—heat meeting rut—and then silence. Your eyes flutter and for a moment it’s all black. In darkness, greed roars loudest as the famine between your legs needs to feed. You sink, take him all at once, and his groan you feel echoing in your chest, rather than hear.

“Fuck,” he breathes, unbidden.

The plethora of blood forcing its way through your head is deafening—it aches so sweetly to be stretched, it’s almost sickening. Sunken, shocked by the feeling of being filled so quickly, you pulse—only exist around him, nails digging into bony shoulders.

His fingers cinch your waist—iron rings disguised as hands—then guide you up. The parting burn is a scream under the skin, but the emptiness lasts only a blink before gravity drags you down again. You bounce, rhythm jagged, and he meets each descent with a grind that feels less like friction and more like welding—tissues fusing, atoms locking. Bruises bloom under his touch, delicious. Any marking you get, you take.

“Perfect,” he says, voice threshed raw. “A true bitch in heat, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” you whisper, not hearing what you’re agreeing with. “Yes.”

Thighs flex, knees bite the mattress—every rise destroys you and re-makes you, every drop a punch of fullness that rifles your organs into new orbits. Wet gathers and splatters where bodies clap; the sound is vulgar percussion beating inside your skull. His cock drags over a spot so deep it feels like spine, like marrow, like origin. Each impact lights a fuse behind your ribs.

And Viktor watches, rapt—this dark vessel he means to pilot, the lethal body he aches to tame and claim. He reads the mutter of your mouth, smells the want you haven’t voiced. Fingers dig deeper into your waist. “Ask me,” he rasps. “Tell me again what you need.”

Your pupils shrink, flare. Instinct snakes through every muscle—yes. Hands dive into his hair; gratitude, surrender, demand. Fogged reason knows it isn’t real, knows he isn’t yours, but the hunger is louder: “You. I need you.”

Viktor hums, pleased. “And what do you need me to do?” he purrs—almost mean, mocking on the surface, but the tenderness in his eyes betrays him.

“Fill me up,” you murmur against his mouth. Then, clearer, raw, as your eyes fall shut: “Breed me.”

“Yes,” he hisses, voice gone to gravel. “Moje krásné děvče, chceš být moje?” Yes, my beautiful girl—do you want to be mine? Thumbs hook deep in the crease of your thighs; he drags you down until you seat flush, the stretch singing in both bodies. He steers your hips, slow grind into hard thrust, setting a rhythm that has your womb blazing.

“Beg me,” he snarls, rapture bright in his eyes.

Laughter—giddy, wild—spills from you. Arms loop behind his head, biceps bracketing his ears; you bite his lower lip and breathe, “Please. Breed me. I want you—only you.”

Something flares in Viktor’s belly—a fucking full-blown Leviathan of lust. His moan is wreckage. He clamps you tight, mouth buried at your throat, breath branding skin. “Chci tě,” he growls—I want you. “Nechám si tě.” I will keep you. Knowing damn well you will understand nothing.

Sweat beads, runs, collects in the hollow of his spine; your skin skids against his, slide so easy it feels natural. Heartbeats hammer out of sync—two frantic animals locked in a single cage.

Your insides flutter around the barrier, fucked-out brain convinced it’s bare flesh, whispering yes, this one, keep him. Sanity dies somewhere at the bottom of all this—abandoned until it’s putrid, as you give in to the fantasy of his cum dripping down your thighs.

Release tears through you first: a spiral low in your belly, tightening, then snapping—pulse after pulse gripping him. You ride the tremors, hips stuttering, but he doesn’t let you slow. A sharp slap to your ass sparks fresh ignition; you gasp and keep moving, every glide a raw stroke over sensitive flesh.

His speech slides out in broken, filthy shards, consonants guttural against your ear: “Kurva, jezdi na mně. Tak mokrá. Vezmu si tě celou. Už…”—Fuck, ride me. So wet. I’m taking all of you. I’m—until it dissolves into a rough cry. He thrusts, bottoms out hard enough to rattle bone, and spills—body seizing, pulse throbbing deep as his teeth close on your chin.

Once more, his cock thickens at the base, a sudden swell that locks him in place, wedging so full you gasp. Your body clenches, forced to hold every inch while he tremors beneath you. The urge to rise meets immovable heat; you’re pinned, sealed together, heartbeat to heartbeat.

Interlaced, slackening under you, he finds your lips—grateful, kissing your bruised mouth like you’ve hauled him back from oblivion. “You really are something, aren’t you?” he murmurs, voice spun with awe and exhaustion.

“I was right,” you pant, lids low, fingers brushing through his hair. “You are good at this.”

He chuckles, abashed and falls on his back with a long, blissful sigh, heels of his palms pushing into eye sockets. “God, it’s been ages since I’ve done this with someone,” he says.

Mere mention of someone has you twitching. He feels it, but there’s no escaping now. “Come here. Come lie down with me.”

You drape yourself over his chest, cheek to the damp plane of muscle, and feel his heart hammer wild under bone. He’s tired—pulse galloping, lungs dragging air in ragged drafts—yet he still rolls, bringing you onto your sides, conjoined.

“How are you?” he asks, voice low, fingers combing idly through your hair.

And how are you? Shredded. Blissed-open. Full of cock still swelling. Half outside your own skin, wanting to shake your own shoulders and prove this is happening.

You flex, subtle, and feel him thick inside—plugging you, as though the imagined seed could take root this very instant and bloom into a tiny replica of the man breathing sin into your hair. None of that will happen; everything is backward. The thought knots your throat, heat pricking behind your eyes. Crying would be absurd—unattractive—and yet the tremor is there.

“I’m good,” you manage, forcing a smile against his chest. “You?”

“I am,” he breathes, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead, then another, until a gentle splay of lips dots your skin. “Incredibly well.” A hand settles at your crown—soothing, kind. “What are your feelings about the condoms now?” he blurts moronically, the words tripping over themselves. He hears the idiocy instantly; his mouth shuts a beat too late.

A breath, uneasy. “Ambivalent,” you whisper.

Viktor says your name. Tilts your chin with two fingers, just enough to bring your eyes to his. “You do know we can’t,” he says—softly, but with a gravity that makes your chest cave.

“Yes.” Your voice barely holds. Brows knit as you try to force the tears back into the lacrimal lake. You want to be rational. To show him that you understand. But your brain is all turned over with hormone cocktail boiling your veins soft. “I don’t know where this is coming from,” you say, and Viktor gives you a look.

He lets out a quiet, baffled laugh. “You wouldn’t want to have a baby with me, surely?”

No. Of course you don’t. You don’t want a baby with a man you’ve just dragged through the gutter of your fear and insecurity. A man you barely know, beyond the way he works with his hands and the way he talks to you like you matter. A man who made you tea instead of fucking you on the table.

But when your mouth opens again, it isn’t reason that comes out.

“You’re kind to me,” you say, shuddering. And the second it slips, your eyes cloud with water. Viktor’s widen, stunned. He blinks like you’ve hit him in the chest.

“Darling,” he murmurs, and cups your face. The pads of his thumbs rest gently under your eyes, waiting, not wiping anything away.

But that’s only one of the bottoms. Under the first one, there is another, and the knocking on it becomes more insistent every second. Your mouth opens before you can stop yourself. “I don’t even know if I can have one. A baby, that is.”

His gaze drops to where you are lacking, and you know instantly the 360 you gave him had you catalogued down to the hairs on your toes.

“What happened?” he asks. His palm comes flat over the pale crescent on your belly—warm skin, vulnerable, shockingly soft. Under his thumb he feels a tiny quiver, like a pulse lost then found.

You hesitate, eyes flicking away, and in that instant he sees how hard you’re holding yourself together—muscles drawn tight, pride laced through your spine tight like a bowstring.

“I had ovarian cancer,” you say at last. The words are too calm; the edge frays only at the end. “From suppressants. One ovary’s gone. The other is…” A shallow breath. “…not in great shape.”

A bloom of heat—toxic mix of anger and grief—flares beneath his sternum. Instinct drags him forward. He folds you to him, almost clumsy, arms locking wide across your back, trying to shield what’s already survived the worst. Your face tucks beneath his jaw, fragile and damp, his hips slot deeper between your thighs, as if proximity might knit a decade’s worth of wounds.

He hadn’t been there. Not for sterile corridors, scalpels, slow poison drips. He pictures you curled on a narrow bed with no one to press a cool cloth to your brow, and fury scalds him darker than rut ever could.

“I’m sorry,” you mutter into his neck, a hitch of laughter that breaks on salt. “We should probably make a list of banned bedroom topics.”

“No.” He eases back just enough to see your eyes—brow knotted, mouth smeared with trembling bravado. “No, darling—don’t hide it.”

“It’s old news,” you insist, brushing at tears like they’re ash. “I know this is all backwards. If you don’t want—I know nobody wants a faulty omega, and you probably—”

His laugh bursts out, sharp. “Faulty?” He sounds almost aghast. Warm hand presses flat to your abdomen, fingers splayed in quiet claim. “This? You think this makes you less?”

You blink—stunned, unsure.

“Why wouldn’t I want you?” he asks—low, as if the answer matters more to him than to you. “You survived. You’re here. You are extraordinary.”

The words pour out certain, as if he's naming a simple fact of physics. He bends, touches his forehead to yours, exhales. “Wonderful,” he repeats. His thumb traces the curve of scar once more, careful, almost grateful. The weight of his gaze keeps you still.

Then, softer—half-breathed, half-prayed—he adds, “You smell like home. Like summer—I love summer. I can’t not want you.”

“Viktor, Jesus,” you breathe, overwhelmed. “I know we both smell nice and are possibly not entirely sane right now, but you can’t say that to me and then withdraw—do you understand?”

“I do.” He nods. “I do. Here—” His hands capture yours and lay them flat against either side of his shaky rib-cage, where pearly scars ladder the skin. “I had SCLC. Five years ago. You were still studying. And this is why I can’t suppress.”

“My God, Viktor,” you whisper, tracing bone. “How?”

“Genetic mockery,” he says, mouth quirking. “It’s fine; it doesn’t look like it’s coming back. They caught it early, and I managed surgery with minimal radiotherapy and chemo.” Your brows knit, mouth tilts into a grimace of pity; he cups your face, suddenly solemn. “I’m telling you because—well—I carry obvious scars,” he murmurs, “and you could call me faulty all the same.”

You don’t argue; only nod. Hands still braced over his lungs as if you’ve been handed a bag of gold, you say, “Another morbid thing we have in common.” Your fingers stroke once—so reverent it makes him shiver—then you look up. “An odd foundation for anything.”

“Maybe backwards is the way,” he answers, touched. Kinship incarnate, he thinks—astonishing, the turns the universe takes. “Forward never brought anything to fruition in my case.”

“I’m sorry about your deadline,” you whisper, eyes fixed on his chest.

“Well,” Viktor sighs, “it is what it is. Jayce says we can afford the delay. And I’d complain a lot more if I had to spend the time alone. Hardly terrible when it comes with two days of fucking a lovely creature.”

A smile ghosts across your face. “Hardly terrible,” you echo. “Lovely creature. Careful—I might start getting ideas.”

You rub your nose alongside his jaw—scent him, not because it’s needed, but just because you can. Twenty long minutes tick by while the swelling softens, easing him from your body. The slip-out is strange: half-relief, half-loss, a cooled absence.

He stretches long, then stands. “I’ll be right back.” Footsteps retreat toward the kitchen.

You roll onto your belly, glance around the war-zone of sheets and discarded clothes. His trousers lie crumpled near the foot of the bed, shirt draped on top. Not enough. You slide off the mattress, pad to the wardrobe, crack the door.

Inside: shirts hanging, jumpers folded, a small drift of not-quite-dirty laundry in between-washes limbo. You sniff out the pieces that hum loudest of him—wool jumper, two soft cotton shirts, faint salt threaded into each fibre. Back to the bed, you stack them into a loose heap; pillows bolster the walls. A shallow den, improvised but perfect.

You crawl in, tug one sleeve over your shoulder like a blanket, bury your nose in the hollow of a collar. Layers of scent braid together: two-day musk in the jumper, today’s salt-and-skin in the pants, the new mix of both of you ghosting the warmed sheets. You inhale and the muscles in your back unspool; the room might be a forest, a kiln, a quiet heartbeat. All you know is it smells like him—safe.

In the kitchen, Viktor hunches over the sink and gulps straight from the tap, water bursting cold against desert-dry throat. It sluices over his chin, into the hollow of his clavicle, and he wipes it away with the back of his wrist—smelling of you.

A short, disbelieving laugh bursts out. Hours ago he’d have defended his solitary ruts like a point of pride—proof he could keep the world at arm’s length and still survive. Now the idea of riding another one out without your mouth feels not heroic but senseless, almost bleak. Independence suddenly looks like an empty room. He pours a glass of water, palms the faucet off, breathes deep, then turns back toward the glow of the bedroom.

When he steps in, he finds you curled, surrounded by pieces stolen from the floor and his closet, and burrowed into the mound at the center of his bed. An improvised nest: his scent steeped in cotton, your heat welded to it. Something in his chest does a strange flip. He sits on the edge, rumpling a pillow, and you huff—an offended little gust.

“Did you just huff at me?” A brow arches, amused.

“I did not,” you shoot back, though the glare you give him says otherwise.

It sparks a bright, restless flicker he hasn’t felt in years. This is the other secret pleasure of having an omega close: the cockiness, the little shows of teeth. You shoot challenge, he fires back; energy ricochets between bodies, comes back changed, sharper, better. Something in him—lazy too long—snaps awake, eager to chase, eager to be chased. The loop has only just started humming, and already it feels like power pooling in his veins.

He catches your chin, bites your lower lip just hard enough to make heat bloom. “Drink,” he orders, nudging the glass to your mouth. You drain it in three gulps, throat working. “Good. Now—all fours, please.”

You obey, and again—Viktor’s heart flutters at the speed of it. The second your knees spread and your palms plant, his cock jerks—hard, immediate—at the sight of you: back dipped, hips high, cunt drooling for him already. Breedable. An obscene heat coils in his belly; he has to remind himself of the condom this time.

“This is how you should’ve presented the moment you stepped through my door,” he says. He palms your lumbar spine, slides his hand to the nape of your neck—collects a fistful of hair, and twists it around his knuckles like ribbon, tugging until your spine arches sharper and you balance on fingertips and knees.

“Instead, here you are, disobeying already,” he muses, voice silken with menace. “First a huff. What’s next—annoyed sigh?”

You glance over your shoulder, lashes heavy. “That depends on what you do next, doesn’t it?”

He feels a devilish thing inside him uncurl—stretching like a predator roused at dusk, joints popping, head rolling on its neck. Heat riots in his gut, floods every vein with a single order: bend, mark, put back into place. He wants the sweet crack of your poise, wants your spine to bow because he said so, wants you to leak hotter at the first snap of his voice. Instinct roars for discipline—the ancient pulse to collar a misbehaving omega and leave her humming with obedience and need in the same heartbeat.

He laughs, low. Free hand slides between your thighs, another tightens at the base of your skull. Two fingers push inside you—wetness grips and drags as he sets a steady thrust. Warm liquid coats his knuckles, slides down to his wrist. He flexes, scissoring, stretching. “How about I violate you a bit first—hm? See if that earns a sigh.”

You look at him sideways, eyes already swimming. “More,” you rasp, and Viktor digs teeth into his lower lip.

“More?” he chuckles—dark, delighted. “You’ll beg properly before I let you graduate to cock.” His grip adjusts, drawing a soft gasp from your throat. A third finger joins, thrusting slow, tormenting.

“Yes, fuck me,” you moan, hips jolting into his palm, head hanging from his grip.

“God, what fun you are,” he breathes, watching your eyes roll half-shut, lashes fluttering. “Feel that.” His cock brushes against your thigh—a proof, throbbing and leaking joy of his own. “This is how happy you make me.”

“Oh, f-fuck,” you hiss. Fist in your hair tightens, jerking you back until your shoulder blades kiss. Slick drips from you in slow threads, warm as spilled honey over his skin, your gasps climbing higher—but Viktor is still devastatingly slow.

He bows close, breath grazing the shell of your ear. “Do you know what I want?” A small thrust punctuates each word. “I want you aching so hard you don’t dare huff at me again.” He spreads his fingers wider, splays them, forces another ripple from your throat.

He can taste your scent in the back of his throat, rich, tangy; the need to claim you buzzes under his skin, louder than blood. He forgot the power of a willing omega—forgot the way compliance can feel like conquest and gift all at once. Having you like this, wet and open and murmuring for more, is better than any memory. It tilts him sideways, invisible fist cramping up his lower belly.

Wrist snapping faster, he works a rhythm that borders brutal—flesh meeting flesh, a wet slap that syncs with every sharp exhale you fail to swallow. Your knees skid an inch; he drags you back by the hair, forces the curve deeper.

“Listen to that,” he murmurs, voice smoke-rough. “That’s how hungry you are.”

The slap-slick of his hand echoes, until sound and sting braid into one blurred pleasure. Your nerves spark, thighs trembling; each surge of wetness coats his palm, wrists, the insides of your thighs. It’s filthy music, and he conducts it without mercy.

“Please—” The word rasps out of you. “Please, Viktor. I need—”

“Need what?”

“I need you to fuck me,” you gasp, dignity dissolving like sugar. “Now.”

A satisfied rumble rolls from his chest. “Will you be good?”

“Yes, I will be so good,” you say, brows all knitted. Your swallow is so loud Viktor has to hold back a snort. He slips the fingers free; they leave with a lurid sound and a fresh spill of slick. Your body clenches on emptiness, furious. “Fuck, I hate this,” you whimper.

“Come now,” he shushes you, presses the coated fingertips to your lips—slips them inside. Your cheeks hollow, making electricity spark on his skin. Then, he tastes you on your own tongue—just licks it right up, sucking at the tip.

You part with a pop—his hand releases your hair, and your torso eases back onto the mattress, ass up—and when he raises to reach for the condom, there’s a pause. Possession slides its tendrils into the grooves of Viktor’s brain—he wants more. It howls against all the pains and aches his body usually carries, now dimmed. He looks at you spread, wet, sweaty. Your ribs expand with every awaiting breath. All his, aching for him.

His palm shakes as he tears the foil—reason’s last thin thread—and rolls latex down the thick, aching length. You’re still writhing, hips twitching like a live lure, every soft whimper making his insides coil.

He settles one hand in the crease of your thigh. The other glides down your spine, spreads wide at the small of your back—sheened with sweat that isn’t only yours. Heat slicks your bodies where they meet; the room tastes like salt.

Then, cock slides in like it was always meant to—splits you open, and the world turns slippery.

Yes.

His head tips back; lashes slam shut. Home. For a moment everything inside him goes bright, all sense rattling loose, the heavy pulse locked inside you a singular tether to reality.

“So… fucking… needy,” he grits. You clench—impatient, hungry. A soft sound snags in your throat.

“Would you rather huff now, my dear?” His voice is a frayed wire. “Or be bred?”

It burns through him; just the image—your body dripping white from him—sends a savage tug low in his gut. He never cared for this fantasy before—never held it so close. Now it’s a new drug. Makes his balls pull all the way up, aching to spend the laden weight.

“Please, Viktor, I—”

“Please, what?” A thrust—hips slamming, flesh smacking wet.

Your breath punches out, a stuttering moan. “Please, fuck me. Keep me, oh fuck—” you breathe, struggling. “Fill me. Breed me, I need you.”

He jerks inside you, smiles. Drags back until the ridge of his crown almost slips free, then drives in again, deeper, harder—moulding, so your cunt knows only the shape of his cock.

“Fuck—yes, like that,” he mutters, words thick in his mouth—astonished. Your knees skid on rumpled cotton; his thighs slam yours forward, back, forward again. The bed squeals. No neat rhythm—just staggered punches of flesh against flesh, breath collapsing into grunts.

Slick runs hot and sticky, dripping off his balls, threading down your belly. And it feels fucking incredible. In it, Viktor finds something he thought he’d misplaced forever. Each thrust drives him back inside his own skin—imperfect joints, latticed lungs, all of it—but suddenly sensible, necessary. Meat grinding, breath scraping: he’s both animal and architect, hammering at the gate and holding it all the same. Every expansion of ribs feels like he’s re-stitching himself to the world, sinew by sinew, using your body as needle and thread. Nothing ornamental, no fine work—just thudding, wet fact, and the relief of being absolutely, brutally alive.

His spine bows, hands move—one finds your hair, the other your clit—or rather, his. Wicked fingers worry you in rough little circles, no pattern, just frantic want. Every time your cunt clenches, he curses—half-laugh, half-whine—so raw it sounds broken. “How does that cock feel, hm?” he asks, voice an impish whisper.

“Good,” you moan, throttled by the clutched pillow. “Fuck—amazing. I want you. Iwantyou, fuck, please—”

He answers with a snap of hips, pace punishing, thighs slapping the backs of yours. Every clash feeds back to him in tremors; sweat slides down his temples, stinging his eyes. You tighten—again, again—milking him, and the edge rushes up his back like live current.

“That’s it—take me, my clever girl. Only me,” he says hoarse, near-laughing at how great it feels. “I want your belly round and your breasts heavy, do you understand?”

“Yes.”

Yes.

Kindness shouldn’t bruise like this, but it does—delicious, chosen. Every rough stroke says you, specifically you; not any omega, not just any body. He uses you the way a potter works clay: fingers hard, intent clear, heat necessary. It isn’t impersonal; it’s possessive, reverential, and the contrast swells inside you—behind eyelids that flash white, between thighs that clamp and beg. Greed thickens, wet rises; your whole core pulses on the thought that the man who drips kindness from his touch is the same man dragging you open beyond what you thought possible.

“More,” you choke. “Don’t stop. Please, don’t—”

He yanks your hair, bends you like a reed. Mouth at your ear, hot stream of nonsense: “I won’t, wilful creature. Not until you break—” Words disintegrate into grunts. You’re past language too, just pulse and the thud of his heart against your back.

There’s keening as the spark explodes—everything inside knots, teeth, stars. You seize around him, slick flooding out in fresh gushes. “Viktor, fuck—”

“Yes,” he moans, ragged, loud—and drives so deep you swear you taste him on your tongue. “Full of me—ah—” It’s fragmented. Nearly spent. “I will take care of you. Fill you, breed you, love you into oblivion—fuck—"

It drags him under. Hair released, but you don’t fall— his arms cinch tight, palms crushing your breasts. He slams in, holds you with a raw groan—

“Fuck—yes—you,” he chokes, words spilling like sparks. “Perfect—for me—keep, keep me—“

Everything whites out. He empties in thick, pulse-deep surges—each contraction like marrow siphoned through bone—blinding, violent, perfect.

Then—he swells. So tight, so close, you can feel the twitch of his balls where your thighs cradle them. Tied to you by a possessive knot at the base, he breathes heavily, sweat dripping from his chin to your shoulder—slow and hot. He licks the salt from your skin, grateful. You wish it was teeth, rather than a tongue.

Weight hums through his arms that suddenly feel too weak to hold him upright. You ease both of you down onto the mattress: Viktor sprawled over your back, his ribs pressed between yours. His stomach billows in long purrs against the hollow of your spine, arms slipping beneath your belly to keep you welded together.

“Where’s my sigh?” Viktor mutters, his mouth tickling against your ear.

“I can barely breathe, let alone sigh,” you laugh into the sheets. Then, quieter: “You ruined my nest.”

“I am terribly sorry, my darling.” The darling part crawls through you like a ray of sunlight. He rolls to the side, spooning you, one leg hooking over yours. “It was a very nice nest.”

“Don’t mock me, you bastard.” You swat his thigh. “Look at you, knotting like we’re married.”

He’s glad you can’t see the blaze climbing his cheeks. “You should feel complimented,” he says, voice hitching, “and—it’s nice. I get to smell myself all over you.”

He gathers your hair, bares the slope of skin, licks a slow line, then sucks at the point where neck meets shoulder. You arch before you can stop yourself. His palm settles on your forehead, holding you in place.

“Not yet,” he murmurs, though the urge to bite sings in his teeth. “When it happens, I’ll make it special, I promise. Will that suffice?”

“It will,” you breathe, eyes closed. “God, I want to see you.”

“Give it fifteen minutes,” he says, voice warm. “For now—let me leave you a souvenir.” As if your skin isn’t already blooming with finger-bruises and stray bite marks, he sets his mouth above your clavicle, nurses a juvenile hickey into living colour. A poor man’s claim, hidden below tomorrow’s shirt.

It feels right—soft, intimate, a compromise between barely knowing and soul-shredding sex. Very him, you think, and you’ll wear the promise like a proud little secret under your clothes.

“I can’t believe you let me just straddle you the first time,” you whisper and there it is—a sigh. Long and content. Viktor adores it.

“Oh, that was only because you took such sweet care of my cock first,” he teases, fingertips scratching along your scalp. “And—” A pause, then a swallow—“it’s rare for cycles to sync like this outside a bonded pair. I’d forgotten how fragile a person feels, torn up by hormones.”

“So you were being… nice?”

“Is that odd?”

“God, I want to kiss you,” you say, craning your neck. He captures your jaw and props up on one elbow—clumsy, your bodies locked, the knot pulling at your entrance, annoying—yet the need for him eclipses the ache.

His lips are dry, but soft. He licks under your cupid’s bow, then eases his tongue inside. Eyes closed, he purrs—a lovely sound, comfort incarnate, dissolves in your mouth. The angle keeps it shallow and sweet—an awkward click of teeth, graceless, but honest. Sweat cools on his skin, settling into salty film. The swollen base inside you shifts when he adjusts, jolting a shared moan.

You are being held by an alpha who feels like he’s yours. And for the first time, you understand what omegas can have—what they should have. It fixes nothing of what you’ve been through—but makes it ache less. Makes it settle in your chest, accepted.

Forty-eight hours blur into a feral, sun-streaked reel:

Viktor bites without warning—shoulder, hip, the pad beneath your thumb—then fusses over hydration like a mother hen, pressing glasses to your lips between rounds and watering his houseplants with the same diligence. He answers the door for takeaway in nothing but a half-fastened brace and a shameless grin. He falls asleep purring on your chest; wakes you by palming your ass, licking the shell of your ear, or simply blowing a rude puff of air against your cheek.

Between fucks his grip stays iron—spanks land when you test him, threats of next time I’ll take your ass hanging in the room like storm heat. Dinner first, you keep reminding him; promise, he keeps answering. His spine pops when he stretches, hair curling tighter the wetter he gets. He studies every bruise and blossom on your skin like field notes, then spends long minutes mouthing your scar, whispering praise before sliding down to eat you out until your vision whites. He spits your own slick into your mouth, kisses it sweet, and laces your fingers with his while you come shaking on his lap.

You trade stories in the breathless valleys: childhood scraps, lab mishaps, the songs that make you pace a room. He laughs more than you thought he could—sharp, bright, unguarded. You nap tangled in half-dried sweat, wake, fuck again, shower—he produces a shower stool with triumphant glee—then fucks you into oblivion on it.

By the end, confidence blooms ferocious. While he’s dozing, you clamp your teeth at the juncture of neck and shoulder, suck hard and slow until a deep violet brand rises where no collar will hide it. He startles, touches the mark, then smiles—wide, sincere, a man astonished by how much living can fit inside two overturned days.

When the frenzy recedes—need cooling to a deep, bearable ache of bodies having been used and abused lovingly—you stand in the doorway in your spare clothes. Both of you showered, dressed, wrung out but peaceful. Parting feels ridiculous; your chest pinches.

You clear your throat, extend a hand like it’s a board-meeting exit. “Thank you. For helping me.”

Viktor’s mouth twitches—he looks like he’s about to burst out laughing. He clasps your hand, squeezes once, then yanks you in and seals his grin against your lips. “Will you do me a favour?” he murmurs, warmth ghosting your mouth. “I am going to dinner on Friday. I need a plus-one.”

A laugh punches out of you, bright and spent. “I suppose I owe you one, don’t I?”

“Yes, a big one” he says, grazing your cheek with his thumb as if you’ve already said yes. “Good. I’d hate to attend alone. I’m scared of waiters.”

“Consider it done,” you tease, and Viktor, once more—bites your lip. “Always happy to return a favour.”

[vintagehellfire]

Viktor as a scrunkly bunny. Idk the brain worms got me

[noxturnalmoth]

Pomegranates and Ambrosia Masterlist

Summary: You make it through your life by the skin of your teeth. Working a god awful job while balancing classes you can barely pay for, along with an impossible loan looming over you as if you were Damocles and it the sword.

He is a man of distance, of cold calculation, who pours his mind, body and soul into his work until nothing is left but ash. Burning like a defective phoenix dressed in luxury, surrounded by many, yet lonely like a cuckoo chick in a new nest.

But there must be a middle ground to be made so both parties get their share of the cake, right?

Warnings: age gap, psychoanalyses, injuries, power dynamic,

Sugar Daddy! CEO! Viktor x Broke! Psychology Student! Reader

Chapter 1: Cognitive Dissonance

Chapter 2: Empathy (soon)

Viktor Masterlist: here

Arcane Masterlist: here

Navigation: here

[hivemuthur]

He purrs, ok?

[buckrogers2491]

I don’t feel well

[noxturnalmoth]

If we don't get that on the dvd

[hivemuthur]

Favours Between Friends - Ch.3.

viktorxfem!reader mature: Modern AU, omegaverse, alpha Viktor x omega Reader, rom-com, fake dating, author has a very vague understanding of omegaverse but there's some terminology, dubious science. Cringe and clawing to be free.

Ch.1. | Ch.2. | Ch.4.

word count: 6,8K

author’s note: Hi! Grab a Freaktor while I socialize. @doggrowth once again proof read, thank you :3 We are still blueballing a little, sorry about that. Happy Freakday.

AO3

—

He slams the balcony door hard enough to echo, just in time to muffle the sound that wants out so bad it nearly slices his throat open—a breath half-choked, half-swallowed, feeling all too loud. The air outside had helped. A little. But the memory lingers. The curve of your mouth, the tremble of fingers. The smell, more than anything, is what won’t leave.

Thirty minutes under cold water does nothing but raise goosebumps and shivers. He scrubs his nose like a fool, like he can erase what’s already been catalogued—planted in the grooves of his mind like a tick, insistent and parasitical. Naturally candied with a tart complication, like dark fruit steeped in something herbal. Something grown, not made. The kind of scent that can’t be copied. Fruit that begs to be licked with a flat tongue. 

It stays with him through the brittle patchwork sleep that finally takes him. When he wakes, the sun is up and climbing. He reaches for the phone on the bedside table: Heading for breakfast, I’ll save you a seat. Timestamp: twenty minutes ago. 

Viktor curses—softly, but with feeling. The idea of you alone down there, waiting, animates him. He moves with more urgency than he’d like to admit. Cotton trousers, light shirt, toothbrush in mouth while dragging fingers through damp hair. He nearly stumbles pulling on his shoes, and halfway to the elevator he swears again—doubling back to grab the scent-blockers off the sink, fingers fumbling the bottle into his pocket. 

The dining room is white noise. A buffet stretches across one wall—continental style, warm dishes under domes of steel and rows of carefully portioned vegetable cubes. When he sees you near the end of the line, ladling porridge into a bowl with faintly slumped shoulders, he finally exhales. You are safe. Good. Then, he scowls. 

This is just a favour. Two more days, a few hours in a car, and it will be over. Maybe things warm up between you. Maybe they don’t. Either way, it’s nearly done. 

You don’t turn until he’s almost behind you—but it’s not his footsteps that announce him. It’s the ghost of him, thick and low in the air, sliding in under your awareness until the very essence of his skin slaps you across the face and then holds. 

It doesn’t come in loud. It blooms. Spiced, but not warm. A cold burn—thick amber and dark honey cooked down to their bitter heart, resinous and slow, the taste of a kiln’s heat on the back of your tongue. The deeper it goes, the older it gets, damp and green—forest after rain, bark gone black with sap, the steadiness of roots that have never known an axe. Wild, reluctant to human touch. 

And somewhere in that layered thrum is overripe fruit split open in full sun, lush and leaking, sweetness edged with something natural and metallic—iron under skin, promise under patience. It doesn’t overwhelm; it occupies. It doesn’t fill your lungs. It claims them. 

It’s directive. Instinctual. Your biology lights up with the information: Alpha. Yours. Now. You are absolutely, hopelessly fucked. No—you are un-fucked, and that’s wrong. 

You want to. You can see it, taste it: his hands, like yesterday, but more. Bruises bleed behind your eyelids—thumb-shaped, crimson, precious. Fingers in your hair, violent, steering your head anywhere he wants: down, back, open. A wet swipe of spit to cool the heat on your lip, then a rough-tongued kiss to set it burning again. Every pulse point thrums like nerve laid bare and aching; you swear you can feel his teeth sinking straight through skin to rind, leaving crescents of ownership. 

Your thoughts fracture into flashes: knees scuffed on carpet, the thud of your spine against a door, fabric rucked to your waist while breath saws in and out between clenched teeth. His voice—low, ragged—saying your name like a command he’s waited millennia to issue. Because you are not humans, you are old beasts, finding each other at last. Your own answering noise—half-whine, half-growl—surprising you with how ready, how raw it sounds. 

Nothing orderly remains; need arcs through every nerve, crackling, reckless. You’re past choosing—only gathering, gathering, gathering him, greedy for pressure, for weight, for proof. One more breath and you’ll split like a pomegranate under a knife: slick, ruby-bright, spilling everywhere he touches. 

“Hello?” An intruder enters your vision. A hand waves. A voice—familiar, but nowhere near what your imagination just supplied. “Are you in there?” Viktor asks again, and you let out a sigh so loud a few heads twist on their necks. 

Embarrassed, you blink, swallow, try to gather the dripping remnants of your dignity. “Why didn’t you take scent-blockers?” you ask, sharp. Your voice sounds raw. You hope no one else hears the way it scrapes. 

“What? Oh—is it so bad? I apologise, I overslept, and—” 

“Take them. Please.” That’s all you manage. You snatch your poorly stacked bowl, turn on your heel, and walk. 

You don’t breathe again until you’re halfway to the table. And even then, it’s shaky, poisoned at the root. 

Unreal. Like nothing you’ve ever smelled before. Now you understand. Now it clicks—why Viktor’s always scentless, why the impossible pills and astringent soaps. If that’s what he’s walking around with under the mask, no wonder he scrubs it clean. 

You have no idea if he smells like sex that could kill to anyone else. Maybe, maybe not. But to you—God. It’s a circle of life and death and rebirth, rolled in honey and set on fire. He smells like fucking that doesn’t just wreck you—it rewires you. Like a sin you’ll kneel for. 

Camille? Dan? Claire? Even Mel, goddamnit. They can all stand next to each other and shake hands on their palatability. On their diluted, pasteurised, over-the-counter sweetness. 

Viktor smells like God. Like molten creation. Like the first spark catching in a dry field. Like something your body’s been waiting to worship since it first bled. Peak performance. Poison. Predation. You are completely, absolutely, unspeakably out of your depth. Jesus Christ, you need to get a grip. 

He gives you a window, merciful bastard. Fifteen minutes pass with you breathing and meditating the image of Viktor fucking the soul out of your body back into its box. When he comes back it’s weaker, but you can still catch him on the air. 

“I am really sorry,” he says, setting down his tray opposite you, raising both hands in surrender. “I took the blockers. They should be working by now—or at least starting to.” 

The skin on your face feels tight. And he has the gall to look both remorseful and amused. “This is not funny, Viktor. You ever call me out on smelling strong again, I will laugh you in the face.” 

“Well, it’s your scent that breaks through the blockers, not mine. You only got a whiff of mine because I miscalculated the alarms,” he says, all innocent. 

You remain stern. “What the fuck do you use that it manages to block that?” It comes out sharper than you meant. Viktor’s brows draw together. 

“The same brand as yours,” he says carefully, clearly trying to patch the breach he’s just caused. “I think it comes down to stress. You’re on edge here—that’s probably why your meds seem faulty.” 

“Oh right. I forgot. You’re the king of composure. Good for you, Jesus.” 

He speaks your name, reaching a hand across the table and stopping just shy of yours. “How bad is it? You… don’t like it?” 

“I—” you hesitate. “No. It’s good,” you admit. Awfully good. Disastrously good. “It’s just… unexpected.” 

“Can you describe it?” he asks quietly. Hopeful, almost. 

“I really have no idea where to begin,” you say. And Viktor looks almost wounded. Oh God. No. How do you tell him without exposing yourself? How do you convey the fact that you know exactly what his teeth would feel like sunk into your shoulder from scent alone? How do you not tell him without hurting him? 

“I see. Forgive me—I didn’t mean to overstep,” he says, hand retreating back to his cutlery. 

“It’s very complex,” you blurt. “You smell like a lot of things. Sweet things. Old things. You smell like… you’re good at this.” 

He perks up. “At this?” 

“Viktor,” you plead. “Please don’t make me more embarrassed than I am. I beg you.” 

Beg me more, Viktor thinks. He smiles—knowingly. And allows himself one last breach. “Sorry. You look nice when embarrassed,” he says. 

And it was worth it—the look on your face, which he keeps for himself. Stacks it for later, when he’s alone and boiling with fever, and there’s no one around to tell him he smells good. 

You finish the rest of breakfast in fits and starts—little forkfuls between long silences and nervous glances. Viktor returns to his food, calm as anything, as if he hasn’t just rearranged your endocrine system with a single compliment. When you finally stand to clear your tray, your legs feel stiff. Like they’ve forgotten how to walk after spending twenty minutes clamped shut under the table. He catches your eye on the way out and gives a short, almost imperceptible nod. You wonder if he knows what he's done to you. You hope he doesn’t. Or that he does. 

Later, in the main conference hall, the crowd thickens. You and Viktor drift in on the tide of attendees, anonymous for once—just badges and names among hundreds. The energy is high, jittery with caffeine and ambition. Most people are here to be seen. Notebooks open, pens at the ready, but the scribbles aren’t for posterity; they’re bait for conversation. It’s not about whose work is better—it’s about who has the loudest questions. 

You spot Dan’s name printed on the rotating panel schedule near the door. Slotted mid-day. You weren’t planning to sit in, but Viktor steers you toward the room anyway with a murmur about good manners and due diligence. You want to protest, but don’t find it in you. Not when he sweet-talks you like this. 

By early afternoon, the panel room is full. The usual crush of bodies, tote bags, lanyards. People cluster near the walls, holding coffees and feigning interest between furtive glances at name tags. It’s a networking event disguised as a knowledge exchange. 

Dan’s session arrives. He’s polished, poised, exactly what you remember, the only addition is Claire flanking his left. Polite on the outside, teeth underneath, both of them. You tune most of it out—until the Q&A starts. 

A woman in a navy dress stands up near the back. A hand shoots up. “But isn’t that short-sighted? The Heuristic Stability Under Volatile Inputs model accounted for retention even under load variance. You’ve traded long-term resilience for speed.” 

Your heart kicks. You know that paper—it’s yours. 

Dan smiles—thin, unfazed. “A trade, yes. But one based on lab conditions, not practical ones. We tested against that benchmark, actually. Saw significant decay after just seventy-two hours.” 

Another voice joins in. “But that model wasn't designed for output—it was a stability scaffold. That was the point.” 

Dan shrugs. “A correction, yes. A solution, no.” Then, like it’s an afterthought, he gestures lazily into the audience. “But I’m sure the lead on that project—” he says, his hand cutting through the air like a scalpel toward your row, “—can speak to it better than I can.” 

There it is. You can feel the shift in the air before you even move. Dozens of heads turning. Heat rising in your cheeks, your spine locked straight. He hasn’t said your name, but he might as well have shouted it. 

And then—anchor. Viktor’s hand slides between your shoulder blades. Gentle. A grounding pressure. He traces a slow circle. Then down. His hand grazes your palm. A quiet nudge. And he leans in just enough to say, “Eat him alive. I know you can.” 

It washes over you—his voice, his warmth, the subtle pressure of his fingers lacing in yours. Like a benediction. Not a push, not even a nudge—just a hand offered in the dark. And with it comes something startlingly clear: he believes you can. That’s all. That’s enough. 

You squeeze his fingers once. Anchor, response. Then draw both your hands to your lap, his palm resting on top of yours like a promise you don’t have time to unpack. 

“Respectfully,” you begin, steady, clear. “The decay rate wasn’t a flaw. The model was built for rapid recalibration under volatile inputs, not indefinite preservation. That was made explicit in both the methodology and the use-case definitions.” 

Your voice threads through the room with careful precision. No stumble. No apology. 

“In an unstable environment, retention must adapt—not persist. We wanted the system to forget just fast enough to relearn correctly. The drop in retention isn’t a failure, it’s a form of guided forgetting. Otherwise you reinforce error along with signal.” 

There’s a pause. Then a murmur of agreement—someone in the back: “That makes a lot of sense.” And you just press on. 

“Optimising for throughput alone dismisses long-term adaptability. And in systems where inputs evolve—say, biometric sensors, adaptive prosthetics, even behavioural tracking—we needed a memory scaffold that prioritises correction, not just accumulation.” 

You glance toward Dan. “Stability isn’t static. It’s responsive. That’s what we built for.” 

There’s another pause after you finish. A stillness. Then—one clap. Crisp. Unhurried. Another follows. Then another. And then the whole room erupts into applause. 

It doesn’t feel real. You blink, unsure what to do with your face, your body, your hands. The adrenaline starts to uncoil slowly from your spine, but it leaves you flooded—electric and cold. Thrilled and terrified. Like you’ve just jumped from somewhere high and are still waiting to hit the ground. And then—fingers, again. Warm and solid. A gentle squeeze around yours, exactly where they’d been before. 

Viktor leans in, voice just for you, low and razor-edged with satisfaction. “Well done,” he murmurs. “I almost pity him.” 

You don’t remember leaving the panel room. Or maybe it leaves you—crowd parting, noise thinning, sunlight bleeding in from the tall hallway windows as you walk somewhere Viktor’s hand gently guides. When he lets go, your palm still tingles with the echo of his grip. 

You part by the door to your room. “Rest,” he tells you, and you nod like you’re not floating three inches off the carpet. You’re not sure what you’re more worn out from—defending your research, or the praise after. You make it back to your room, close the door behind you, and let out the most obscene little laugh. It bursts out before you can stop it. The bathroom is free; Viktor must’ve chosen snoozing. You thank whatever gods handled that piece of mercy. 

As you go through your routine—shower, fresh patch, scent blockers—you replay it all in dizzying fragments: the call-out, his hand on yours, but mostly the invasion on your senses. That last part sticks the most. And the timing of his quiet support. He believed in you. Unquestioningly, instinctively. Like something in him just knew you'd deliver. 

You sit on your bed with damp hair and no shirt, a towel clutched in one hand, staring into nothing, hopelessly undone by the memory of his voice in your ear. I almost pity him. You don't. Not even a little. 

Bathroom free, you text Viktor and slump yourself onto the bed. 

He sets the phone aside and doesn’t move. Just sits on the edge of the mattress, elbows on knees, staring into the wall like it might offer instructions. But it doesn’t. It only reflects the static building behind his eyes. 

There’s a sensation blooming beneath his skin, slow and inescapable, like heat sealed under wax. Something old. A pressure that rolls in behind his ribs and coils in the base of his spine, knotting with every breath. Everything feels too close. His shirt, too soft. The air, too still. You, too much. 

He forces himself to stand. Walks. Mechanical. Closes the bathroom door behind him and exhales through his nose like he’s just been spared from drowning. 

Water. Cold. That’s what he needs. He doesn’t strip first. Just steps under fully clothed, letting the weight of soaked fabric drag him back into himself. 

Your scent has faded from the air, but it’s still pressed into his memory. Lodged in his chest like a note struck too deep. He smells it in the crook of his elbow, in the skin beneath his collar—ghost traces that have no business lingering, but do. 

He peels the shirt off, shivering, jaw tight. Starts again. Colder. Longer. 

The tile under his hands feels foreign. So does his body. A slow-blooming dissonance begins to spread, marrow-deep. He’s not out of control, not yet. But he can feel the shift—chemical, involuntary, a system going off-script.  

When he steps out, his teeth clatter against each other, but at least some clarity returns. He rubs himself down with the towel until his skin stings, like friction might force the edges of himself back into place. Shaves. Brushes his teeth. Stares into the mirror. 

Gold irises blink back at him, dimmer than usual. One eye slanted more than the other. He looks… off. Tired. But intact. Halfway there. 

Why is this so hard? 

He’s followed protocol. Religiously. Tight sleep schedule. One coffee a day. Meals at regular intervals, even when he didn’t want them. His room here is calibrated precisely—18 degrees overnight, 20 in the day. No booze. No sugar. No scent triggers. 

It should be enough. 

He glances around the bathroom, as if it might offer explanation. But even this space is pristine. Your part, too. There is no trace of you. Not a single belonging left behind. Not a stray strand of hair on the sink. Not a hairpin, a sock, a t-shirt left behind for him to roll in it like a dog. Nothing to upset his system so much. 

You’ve been careful. Considerate. Completely unthreatening. 

And yet, something inside him is howling. Lungs tightening around memory, muscles jerking in subtle flinches like they’ve been trained for another kind of contact. His skin can’t seem to forget. 

He exhales once more, long and steady. Half done. Just a gala left. Then Sunday, and he can put this all behind him. Just a favour, he tells himself. He can manage a favour. Even if it’s burning a hole in him from the inside. 

So he puts on his tux—wool abrasive on worried skin. Combs his hair, and picks up the cane. Conquers the distance stretching between your rooms and knocks with the silver handle. Three taps, spaced evenly—polite to a fault. 

You open the door and he’s there, looking down, fingers fussing with a cufflink that’s already straight. “Ready?” he asks. 

“Not even remotely,” you reply, and that makes him look up. 

When he sees you, something in his jaw forgets how to hinge. His gaze doesn’t skim—it latches and crawls. Not at your hips or your hemline or any of the standard zones of male interest. His attention traps on your shoulders, bare and clean under the soft light of the hallway. The base of your throat between them, where your pulse ticks steady and shy. The dress isn’t anything special—simple lines, thin straps that are more a decoration than support. A sheer scarf is looped loose around your waist and arms, a shield for when you feel too exposed. 

His silence forces your hand—you pull the chiffon up, wrap it higher. Over your arms. Over the space he’s scanned and documented in his brain. 

“But yes,” you say, softer now. “Ready.” 

Your eyes drift down to his chest, linger there. The tux is sharp, pressed to death. He wears it like he doesn’t belong in it—like the fabric tolerates him only because it’s afraid not to. Lapels peak like dark wings. His collar cuts neat at his neck, wrapped in a bowtie, just beneath the fall of his hair. You note, distantly, that it’s combed. Maybe even damp. 

“You look very nice,” you say. 

“You as well,” Viktor replies. “Look very nice, that is.” 

“Alright then.” Stepping into the corridor, you bunch your dress at the side to keep from tripping and glance back at him. “Shall we?” 

Viktor blinks, like he’s been called back from some distance. He offers his arm. You take it. 

The touch is nothing—elbow to hand, sleeve to palm—but it might as well be a live wire. Your blood stutters beneath your skin, thudding unevenly in your throat. You set your hand in place and order your muscles to behave. Don’t lean, just walk. 

You step into the gala and the room hits like sunlight on snow—dazzle, glare, no mercy. Brass from the band slides under your skin, champagne fizz mingles with perfume thick enough to chew. Waiters drift like bright fish, trays tilting, glasses chiming. 

“Shit, this is quite serious, isn’t it?” you mutter, blinking at the glare of chandeliers. 

“You’re doing great,” Viktor answers, voice pitched for calm, though his jaw knots under the soft light. 

“Are you alright?” 

He clears his throat, nods once, caught. “Yes. Not a fan of crowds, remember?” 

You squeeze his wrist—small anchor—before the room swallows you both. People eddy around, tugging you into polite whirlpools of conversation. A couple dances, slow, self-important; the terrace smokes and glows with exhaled nicotine. Despite the air-conditioning, heat drapes every shoulder; the breeze from ceiling vents feels like someone else’s breath. 

Viktor never drifts. He flanks you, palm hovering at the small of your back—never skin on skin, but weight enough to keep you from skidding off the world. Alone, you’d have dissolved. Dan flickers at the periphery—profile, grin, gone again. You refuse to follow. 

Instead you watch Viktor. Black tux cut lean, bowtie straight, yet defensive, like a blade tucked at his throat. Hair combed, and yes, indeed—still damp at the temples. Under all that starch there’s the quiet burn of him: collar tight against tendons, shoulders tense as if the fabric might split if he took a full breath. Handsome in a way that startles—elegance welded to fragility, steel wired through glass. His gold eyes track the room but keep defaulting back to you, as though recalibrating every time you shift. 

He looks less like a man in formal wear and more like formal wear decided to grow a man—tailored darkness, seams holding in something bright and dangerous. 

After what feels like eternity frozen in resin, the fork-clink slices the room to hush. Stage lights flare; the committee chair clears his throat, paper in hand, vowels ringing off crystal. Your heart answers with its own percussion—steady, yet brutal. 

Viktor’s palm settles on your shawl-draped shoulders, heat seeping through mist of chiffon. He gives one slow rub, thumb tracing the knot of muscle where neck meets spine. Then his mouth ghosts your ear. “Just as before—make me pity every one of them,” he murmurs, voice ironed flat. “Everything tilts to you.” 

Odd phrasing, so very Viktor: precise, elliptical, meant only for you. Wind in your sails. 

You stand. No stumble. Dress skims the floor, hem behaving. Up the short staircase—no trip, no heel betrayal. Your hand closes around the award: small glass spiral catching every spotlight, weightless yet planetary. A faint hitch when the microphone finds your breathing, but you swallow it down. 

“Good evening,” you begin, voice steady, crisp. “I was told to keep this brief, presumably so the champagne stays cold, and the speeches stay tolerable—both noble goals.” A ripple of polite laughter; the ice breaks. 

You glance at the sculpture, then the crowd. “This little helix represents a great many things—chief among them the quiet conversations we forget to have. The wearable we developed doesn’t aim to cure or extend, only to translate. It listens for the chemical tremors of pain, thirst, panic—needs our loved ones can’t always name at the end.” 

Pause. Let them feel it. A waiter coughs somewhere in the wings; cutlery stills. 

“My team’s mantra was simple: dignity is not a luxury good. If a handful of sensors can give a patient one calm evening—let a daughter sleep knowing her father isn’t silently suffering—then that’s worth more than any graph I could show you.” 

You tip a smile sideways, self-deprecating. “And if the device occasionally reminds a physician to bring water before paperwork, well—no harm in keeping us honest.” 

A low chuckle sweeps the rows. “One last thing.” You lift the glass spiral a fraction higher. “My mother taught me that good work is a thank-you paid forward. Tonight, this is my receipt. Thank you.” 

Applause floods the hall—soft at first, then gathering weight. You exhale, shoulders unclench, stomach remembers gravity. 

You bow once, wave, awkwardly, hand quick and stiff, and step off the stage. That’s it. Every shred of composure you banked for this night is spent. Adrenaline backfires, rushing as you clear the lights. A small crowd waits: hands out, mouths moving, congratulations you barely register. 

In the sea of faces you spot your dinghy—Viktor, steady as a pier post. You mutter absent thank-yous, shoulder through. His arms open the moment you breach the ring of people, a shield ready-made. You drop into him, tight and breathless. Face to his neck, arms around his waist. The cane digs your spine but no matter, because the sound that breaks from him—  

It warms you up, envelops you whole. Born deep in his chest, travelling all the way up to his throat, a low hoarse crackle bounces between your sternums. Alpha purrs for you, because he’s pleased—and your heart does a backflip. 

Then, as if it weren’t confirmation enough, his mouth finds your ear: “I have no idea who gave you the right to be so brilliant, but you carry it flawlessly.” 

Before you can fathom what he’s just said, flash blinds you—white and sharp. You jerk, scan, and find the source: a photographer, shoulders raised in apology. “Sorry. Could I have a picture?” 

You blink yourself back to straightness. “Yes—yes, of course.” 

Viktor starts to step aside, but the man lifts a hand. “No, please. Together first, then one of you alone.” 

So Viktor stays, arm sliding to your waist again, holding you close. One shot. Another. On the third, he eases, tilts, presses his mouth to your temple—a hush of heat and breath. 

“Perfect,” the photographer says. “How should I caption the picture? Just a quick note for the university paper.” 

“Uh—this is my… my…” 

Viktor offers his hand, calm as a winter pond. “Viktor.” A beat. Then, quieter: “Partner.” It hangs, both light and weighty—lodging somewhere between monumental and meaningless. You can’t decide which terrifies you more. 

It’s as if, from the moment you entered this room, you’ve stepped outside your body and watched your life happen from elsewhere. Only now—when the hands patting your back ease, flashes dim, and people return to enjoying their evening—do you surface. 

Viktor clinks his glass of champagne against yours, and before you can stop him, he drinks. Not much—just a polite swirl at the bottom. He plucks your flute from your hand, sets both empty glasses on a passing waiter’s tray, hooks his cane over his arm, and reaches for your hands. 

“Are you in there?” he asks, searching your eyes. 

“Barely,” you whisper, staring right through him. “Only thanks to you.” 

He looks like he wants to say something but stops himself. Instead, his gaze drifts across the room—alive with movement, voices, glasses emptying and refilling. “Would you like to dance?” he asks. 

“Viktor, you don’t have to,” you breathe, startled, heat rising to cheeks and chest. 

“I want to,” he says—and looks, for a moment, like he’s surprised himself. “If you do too, that is.” 

You nod. Accept the offer. It’s nothing, you tell yourself. Just a favour. And you’re likely drunk on all of this—stress, meds, scant amounts of alcohol, the sheer shock value of the weekend. You’re not ready to rule it a success—you’ll see on Monday what your body has to say about spending three days in close proximity to Viktor. 

It’s not really fair or just: in a perfect world, people meet, and either move on or form a connection—and whatever blooms out of it has time to develop properly. Slowly. 

Your growing thing, whatever it is, has sprouted at impossible speed—mutated, covered in stretch marks after violent expansion. 

And you don’t even know if any of it is real. It’s probably not. On Monday, you’ll return to reasonable distance, polite nods, the occasional pub quiz. 

So you accept what’s given—even if it’s just for tonight. 

You’re swaying. Or rather—he is, and you follow. The gala hums around you, velvet lights and sugar-drenched laughter, but it’s all far away. Right here, Viktor holds you, hands steady at your waist, and for a while, you think it’s fine. 

Until his arms tighten—clutching, like a rope pulled taut. His brow nudges against the side of your head. Then lower. Resting—no, burying—into the crook of your neck. The shift is subtle. Most people wouldn’t notice—you look like lovers, dancing—but you know. 

His breath hitches. Heat rolls off him in waves, and the moment clicks into place. 

One flute of champagne. That’s all it took. That, and whatever other mistakes he’s been making instead of holding the line. You don’t know all the personal science behind it, but you know this: his body is tipping. His scent-blockers are losing ground, and you are back to feeling the echoes of his natural smell. Instinct is clawing through the cracks. 

"Viktor," you murmur, hand rising to the nape of his neck. The skin there scalds your palm. "You’re burning up." 

He shudders. Then swallows hard. Voice wrecked against your collarbone. “I need to—”  

Inside him, something splits. Clean down the centre. One part of him wants to stay, to press his body flush to yours and forget what time it is. The other part knows better. That part screams. Get out. Now. Go. Be alone. Be safe. "I need to go back to my room," he whispers, barely. 

“Say the word and I’ll drive you home.” 

That lands. The way you say it—so steady. So kindly. He can’t stand it. “No,” he breathes. He peels away from you like it hurts. “I can’t be close to you.”  

When confusion clouds your features, Viktor winces at his own inability to articulate. “I wouldn’t—,” he cuts, desperate to clarify. “It would just… be painful.” 

“I know that,” you tell him, gentle. 

And that’s the worst of it. He wants it. Wants it more than anything. But instead, he turns before he can make it even worse. Walks. Too fast, too obvious. Presses the elevator button again and again, fingers trembling. When the doors open, he steps inside like he’s fleeing a fire and lets the mirror catch him—cheek resting against the glass. Cold. Grounding. Not enough. God. What a nightmare. 

Everything he wanted to avoid—happening. He’s not there yet, but the trajectory is bad. If he doesn’t calm down, he will be. He’s just hot. The lights. The wool of his tux. The fucking champagne. A cold shower will fix it. That’s all. Just too much heat, too much pressure. 

He shoves his way into the room, doesn’t pause. Steps into the cabin, shoes and all, bowtie strangling him. Yanks at it like it’s a noose. Water hammers over him. Five minutes. Maybe ten. Maybe eternity. 

The pounding helps, for a while. Then, there’s a knock. Not loud. Just… soft.  

"Viktor." 

He barely hears it over the spray. Turns the water off. Another knock.  

"Viktor?" Muffled, worried. 

A whine, pathetic and pitiful tears from his throat and doesn’t even sound like him. Wet and heavy, he drags himself to the door, hand braced against the tile. Forehead thuds the wood. “Please,” he says, “go away. I’ll be fine. It’s just a flare-up. Nothing definitive yet.” 

“Let me help you.” A pause. “I’m so sorry.” 

He flinches like you’ve slapped him. “It’s not your fault I’ve been irresponsible. Please, let it be. I know how to handle it.” 

"Viktor," you insist. Steady now. “Let me scent you. It will help. Please at least crack the door open.” 

His fingers curl on the handle. Every instinct says no. Let me help you, you’d said. And right now, it’s the only thing he wants. A favour from a friend. 

The door gets unlocked, and you let out an audible sigh of relief. But that is all—Viktor doesn’t do anything else. He steps away from it and waits. It creaks when you open, and it becomes ajar, enough for a cat—or a hand—to slide in. You offer your arm, considerate as ever, and say softly, “See if that helps first. If it doesn’t, I will leave you alone, I promise.” 

Viktor could cry, yet he feels so awful. He takes your arm with his wet hands and runs a thumb on the pulse point—it thunders, successfully pumping the rest of the disruptive chemicals out of your bloodstream. 

A coward behind a shield of composure and spear of lust, Viktor brings your wrist to his nose and takes a gulp of what feels like the first fresh air he’s inhaled in ages. Ever, maybe. And then, things just happen to him. 

His nose presses itself into the springy tissue under the crease. Home. The concept wraps around him, bringing him back into the lucid world. His teeth skim the surface, just lightly; then he presses his mouth to your arm where the bone runs under skin. No teeth, almost a kiss. He hears nothing, sees nothing, feels only a gentle tug of sweetness at his insides, melting away everything that has coiled tight. 

Unknowingly, he pulls you further in. Takes your palm and inhales again. Bites again, this time harder—the firm, leathery cushion of a muscle that animates your smallest finger. You hiss, but it’s not a sound of displeasure. He makes himself an oxygen mask from your hand—presses the base of the palm into his chin, lets your fingers hug his cheekbones and inhales at the hollow. There, he stays, for an infinite number of breaths, until his body slumps in on itself. 

“Better?” you ask, and Viktor lets your hand muzzle his mouth—your thumb rests in the corner of his eye, fingertips reach out to his temple and jaw. He can only nod, he can’t speak. 

“Come out to me?” you bargain, and he doesn’t know how to say no. You’ve just saved him. He steps out and realises he’s still soaked, dripping on your floor. 

“I’m not sure I can do this,” he says finally, and you deprive him of your palm to cup his face. 

“Yes you can,” you tell him, earnestly. “You are doing amazing.” You pull him inside, gently, touch sliding to his neck. “Viktor, I need to get you some dry clothes.” 

“No,” he shakes his head and grabs your wrists. “Don’t go.” 

“I’ll be just a moment,” you promise. “I’ll be right back, I swear. Where did you put your clothes?” 

“My bag,” he breathes. 

“You didn’t unpack?” 

“No, silly, it’s only two nights,” he tells you. Your thumbs rub his temples, and he exhales. It’s hard to part from you now, but he’s hot and cold at the same time. He doesn’t want to be naked with you, not like this. 

“I’ll be right back,” you tell him and let go. Viktor just stands drilled into a spot and you linger in the periphery of his vision, picking up something from your bed, then running back to his room, through the conjoined bathroom. 

Tears prickle your eyes as you squeeze out of your dress and pull on a sweatshirt and cotton pants. God, he’s so poor. So fragile. And it’s all your fault. Viktor probably doesn’t remember now, but all you can think of is the deadline he can’t miss—and how you’ve made it possible that he’s going to. 

You sprint through his room. Normally, you would pry, curious about what he’s brought, but he’s alone in there, wet and cold. So you lurch at his bag, pull out the first jumper and the first comfortable-looking pair of trousers, and rush back—only to find him on the floor, propped against your bed, snorting up your bedsheet. 

“Viktor,” you say, kneeling beside him. “Oh you poor thing, I’m so sorry.” 

“No,” he murmurs. “I am sorry. I’ve ruined your night.” 

“You didn’t ruin anything. You’ve been amazing,” you say, your hand coming to rest on his forehead. It’s warm, hair damp. “Do you need help undressing? I’ll call for an ice pack.” 

“No, don’t call anyone,” he asks. Confused, brain all fuzzy, Viktor swallows and blinks. “I can undress. God, I’m so hot.” 

“I know. Come on,” you say, reaching for his hands to help him up. You give him a shred of privacy by turning away while he claws off his heavy clothes and slips into what you’ve brought him. 

“Done,” he says, tone tired. When you turn, he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, hunched. “Just scenting, yes?” 

“Absolutely. Just scenting.” 

His arms stretch out for you. You take the offered palms and let him guide you where he needs you. 

And Viktor—oh, he needs you everywhere. He needs you safe, and himself safe through you. Just scenting. Just scenting, which starts with him pulling you into his lap. Just scenting, when your thighs bracket his hips, arms circle his neck, and you say nothing when his hands slide under your sweatshirt. 

He falls back with you on top of him. Rolls you to the side and traps your hip beneath his. Hands roam your back to get your blood going, circulation stirred to pull more of the scent out of you—and there it is, back again. 

It explodes in the back of his throat—all the complex flowers bloom and fade, fruits bear from the withering. You are the fruit, and he tears your skin open with his nails to get to the pulp. 

Frantic animal, he gulps, inhales, rubs. Takes, takes, takes—and in all this consumption he’s so enthralled, he doesn’t notice your startled gasp when your hands slide under his sweater and discover the brace. No matter. 

He’s dissembled by you, piece by piece. By your shoulders, naked under clothing, where they fit into the hollows of his palms. By your stomach and thighs pressing forward, as all of his skin drinks your scent like scorched earth drinks rain. It works—fuzzes the edges of his panic until the blunt scratch of his nails becomes just his hands, open, tracing between your shoulder blades. Then, it’s only touch, blind—his fingertips trail your muscles, his foot, idle, dorsum sliding beneath your arch. Eyes shut. 

With his face slotted into the curve of your neck, Viktor presses his thumb to the hollow where your collarbones meet. It fits there perfectly. He gathers the sweat with it and licks it from his own skin. Wonders whether his tongue would fit there too—if he tensed it, shaped the muscle to a hard point. 

It is done before the thought acquires shape—he licks the nectar straight from the miniature bowl nature has made for him. 

“Viktor,” you whisper, breathy, and it reaches him through the fog. He’s exhausted suddenly. Limbs laden, eyelids heavy. 

“Yes?” 

“Just scenting,” you remind him, reinforce it with fingers tangling into his hair. 

“Yes,” he says again, and calms. The storm passes, but heavy rain follows. Drowns everything, soaks Viktor in sleep. He is safe. And then: gone. Not gone as in absent, but as in untethered. Knocked sideways by the weight of you—warmth, scent, hands threading through him like roots cracking a foundation. His mind unspools, ribcage loosens, instinct gives a final twitch and then falls quiet. 

So quiet, he doesn’t notice. 

Doesn’t feel the gentle peel, the subtle give of adhesive losing hold. Doesn’t register the shift of fabric against skin. The patch—small, squared promise of civility—comes loose beneath your clothes and flutters free, caught in the rumpled sheets behind you. 

But Viktor is sedated by the essence of you. Dream-drunk, purring into your ear. Spellbound. He breathes you in and doesn’t stop. Everything goes soft and still, and finally, he sleeps. 

[noxturnalmoth]

Repentance

Summary: Repentance: n. the action of repenting, sincere regret or remorse.

Hurt, overworking and miserable, two souls find one another and fates intertwine even when they are worlds apart. How can one deal with the guilt of wanting something they cannot have? And why does going against the very principles you have imposed upon yourself feel so good?

Warnings: negative thoughts, mention of drugs (weed)

Word Count: 8, 873

Masterlist: here

Chapter 6 - Dandelions in Bloom

All throughout Monday your stomach churned, stress rising like a meringue under the harsh motion of a whip and just as sweet.

Sickeningly sweet. You scoff.

The bile, so bitter and acrid, turned hopeful by the small part of yourself that still believes no matter how small it is. The egg whites of your life, bland and unsavory, beaten by the pain of each lashing your life delivered to you, lashing away at you when you are down, with the added sugar of a new presence.

One you would have never accounted for before you went to church for the first time that Sunday over a week ago.

A man as confusing in his kindness as he is infuriating for his silent way of chipping through the fortress you had built around the softest and most vulnerable parts of yourself.

That night you barely sleep, kept awake by the same thoughts that plagued your mind that day. Father Valášek was Moses and you were Ramses. Each of his apparitions in your life brought upon a massacre in your mind, storms in your heart, thunderous destruction in the fine balance of existence and self-destruction you had walked for over a decade now.

His smile. Is it fake or real? Are his eyes a reflection of his soul or a simple mask? Is his hair truly a halo or is it horns?

Are his intentions as genuine as he tries to make them seem or are they insidious, hidden beneath icing and laced with arsenic.

Do his eyes truly represent the sweetness of holy guidance, the juice of a fresh orange to quench your thirst and fill your stomach? Or do they represent the bubbling lava of the lake of fire?

So many questions you continue to jot down in the imaginary list standing at the forefront of your mind. A list you detest having, one that makes you wonder if you truly do this to protect yourself or if you are teetering on the edge of truly caring for the one that made your sweet oblivion crumble in your hands like a thin vanilla wafer.

The lack of sleep made your work on Tuesday morning grueling, you had to double your usual amount of coffees to get through the morning alone. Each one marking the passage of time, clock ticking rhythmically and taunting you as your lunch approached. Each client asking for your help felt like a mocking representation of Janna coming to check on the pressure encased in your heart, growing more and more intense each time. Leaving you feeling as if you were about to burst.

The lead in your stomach built upon itself with each breath, each blink, each second. Your stomach a crucible, fed by the toxicity of the heavy metals in your mind seeping through your veins and finding home in the pit of your gut.

When the clock struck twelve you hurriedly left your post, the chair at your desk spinning at the speed in which you rushed out to the front door and into your car, more than ready to spend your lunch so you can feel calmer. Finally rid of the priest until Sunday's mass.

Your car speeds through the streets, your mind zeroing on the location of the church as you take turns, the music on the radio muffled as if your head was underwater. The city passing by your eyes but they're blind to its beauty, focused solely on getting through the horrors of being alone with the Father once more, this time in a room away from any sort of social cue or escape.

The thought of being under the dissection of his scrutiny only brought more dread when you think of him being unhindered by the lack of a crowd.

The car is quickly parked when you get to the cathedral, steps rushed as you push the large wooden double doors, and your breath short as your body freezes at the sight of him already waiting for you, leaning against the altar. His fingers tap against the marble, eyes trained on a book while glasses rest on his nose. They quickly snap to you at the sound of the heavy doors slamming behind you, a smile, sweet as frosting and sharp as knives growing on his lips. The usual muted pink rendered into more of a raspberry color, as if he had used his teeth to pull and scratch at the skin, licking it over and over again to soothe it.

Had he been nervous?

Him, the picture of patience and calm growing restless over the anticipation of your arrival? It would have seemed next to impossible if you didn't remember how his shoulders relaxed and a sigh of relief escaped his mouth on Sunday when he realized you truly did come back to mass.

But why?

Was it because he wanted you to come? And if the answer was yes, was it because he truly wanted to help?

You sigh, rough and quick, expelling the air in your lungs in frustration. One only the man in the cloth seemed to be able to create within you.

"Hello." He breathes out, it's softer than his already gentle speech. Nearly shy.

"Hey, padre." You nod back, trying to settle for something more impersonal as if you subconsciously knew to wall yourself in more in his presence, already anticipating his careful observation of each signs you may give, vocal or not.

Silence settles for a moment as you stand before one another, a stillness akin to how the world feels past a certain hour late at night. No sound, no movement, just a moment in time where time itself seemed to let go and slow so much it didn't pass at all.

But the stillness is shattered as he clears his throat, leaning on his cane. "I believe I should show you to the rectory then. You are on a tight schedule and I wouldn't want to waste your time."

"That'd be appreciated, yeah." Your body follows the pull of his like a magnet as he passes through what you recognize as the communal room and kitchen used for the luncheon.

At the back of the room there is another door that leads into a corridor, doors litter the right side, windows on the left alongside the symbol of Janna and small tables holding vases full of bouquets.

Chrysanthemums, daffodils, lilies, marigolds…

And bluebells.

The flower you'd want to grow in the place you let yourself rot for good, your body disintegrating and leaving nutrients for seeds and roots to grow and thrive.

The flower that thrives in graveyards.

Yeah, bluebells would be nice. You remember the thought that Father Valášek had interrupted the time he visited the library.

You quickly shake your head as he leads you into one of the rooms, an office, organized and decorated with rows of bookshelves filling the walls, a painting of Janna standing tall behind his desk, overlooking the room. The golden sunlight pouring from the windows feels less like a cascade and more like a small river here, as if the room itself dimmed the sun, leaving you feeling that uncomfortable itch.

This feels too close, too much, too intimate.

"Please do take a seat, and if you haven't brought a lunch I still have food in the kitchen that you can feel free to take from." His voice snaps you out again, somehow more accented, perhaps nervous, tentative, yet remaining within the same calm timbre you have grown used to.

You have a feeling that no matter many people come in this room either to speak about his work, his standing, faith…It may be the first time he brings someone for something purely personal.

That word feels vile. Personal. You know next to nothing about each other, he is a priest, you are a lowly sinner. He wants to help, no matter what his true motivations are, and you sought help once and are now trapped in his spider web masqueraded as a silk cocoon. Fake safety, soft apprehension, as you wait for the arachnid to devour you or forget you, leaving you to rot.

"No, no, I brought my own food. Thank you though Father Valášek." You pull one of the chairs for yourself, the backrest high, it and the seat cushioned with soft, velvety and padded pillows.

You release a sigh at the feeling of your sore back finally resting on something soft, these chairs were much better than the ones in the library, even more so than those at home. You had half a mind to steal one for yourself.

But how could one steal something so big, especially something from a holy place?No matter if you believed or not, it still felt like quite the horrendous transgression.

"What are you thinking about, little bird?"

"How I'd want one of these chairs for myself." The chuckle that leaves him seems to melt away at the last of the tension his body held, and the look in his eyes changes from restrained to the usual mischief you are used to as you open your bag to take out your bottle of water and lunch.

Two simple sandwiches and a fruit, enough to get you through the afternoon so you can scarf down dinner and immediately get to your shift at the bar.

"Barely stepping a foot in my office and you already want to steal my chairs? How uncouth." He teases, gold peeking from beneath a curtain of lashes.

"Don't tempt me, I'll steal a chair and whack you with it, padre."

At your first bite of your meal Father Valášek pulls out the Almakhtutata Aleazima, the heavy, leather bound book thudding against he carved wooden desk. The notes stacked on it shiver like leaves in the wind at the weight of the tome, then tremble again once the priest pries open the cover.

"I wouldn't dare. You did demonstrate that your threats were promises when you so rudely kicked my leg beneath the table at the luncheon after all." His lips stretch in an easy smile, teasing, full of the mirth that lights up the amber in his gaze.

"Exactly, so let's get down to business before my already waning patience breaks and I bash your face on your desk, grandpa."

With a laugh he opens the heavy tome angling it towards you before clicking his tongue, mumbling about how twisting and bending to read a book was no way to be, and got up. The soft fabric of the dark green cassock seemed nigh liquid in the dimmed light of the rectory, the man's allure itself should have been affected by the soft limp and the click of the cane but it wasn't. It were as if the priest was a regal kelpie, emerging from the murky waters of a stagnant lake, the algae clinging to him like a second skin as the moonlight illuminated his hair, forming a halo, a crown worthy of a king.

He soon took his seat next to you. The last bite of your sandwich, scarfed down in nigh starvation and used to push down and away your electric nerves, catching in your throat.

Why the hell am I describing him this way? Have I gone soft?

The man, in five meetings, had made a spot for himself in your mind, which terrified you. Walls of impenetrable steel had been molten by his scorching scrutiny, carved by the warmth of his words, molded by the heat of his skin.

He had brought forth existentialist chaos in the nihilistic harmony of your mind. Brought confusion, shaking the deep murky seas of your self hatred into a flood. Brought hope, a ray of sun bursting through thunderclouds and chipping away at the maelstrom of your mind.

"Do it for us."

Easy to say when the consequences of wanting to be better for your friends led to a priest that was more than disarming.

"Because this is not the end of you. Not until I have tried all I can."

Gods damn this man.

All you wanted two weeks ago was to fizzle away, to disappear like a blooming dandelion's pods being blown away by the winds. Your misery was painful, yes, but simple, usual. It was grueling but did not bring forth the confusion he did.

He was infuriating, he was just supposed to be an unsuccessful last try at life, an uncomplicated pass that you'd cut off before the stem could bear fruits so you could enjoy the last of your misery before ultimately disappointing Sevika and Vi, Ekko and Powder, Vander and Silco, for the last time.

Because no matter how awful the thought of hurting them made you feel, the thought of being alive had been much more horrible to you then.

But Father Valášek had to come in, with his knowing golden eyes, his soft voice, his gentle understanding, his patient responses to your deflections, and ruin your demise. Leave you confused on whether you wished to die at all or if the tar that burnt the thin skin of your soul had just poisoned your mind.

He had sunk his fangs into you like a rattlesnake and imbibed you with his venom, trapping you in the coil of his serpentine soul.

For better or for worse there was no going back, and he was going to bring down the fortress you had painstakingly built around your heart, or he was going to make you do it of your own volition.

And you didn't know which thought was the most terrifying.

Your thoughts are interrupted as he opens another tome, The Great Universal Va'Shurima Encyclopedia.

"So, I have read some of the passages on these pages." He mutters, flipping colorful bookmarks to get to the pages he wishes to show. "But I wanted the full context of the excerpts, if you do not mind translating for me?"

You hum, mind getting out of the haze of doubt as you let out a deep sigh, looking at the passage he pointed out.

"So, I'll make a tldr of the part in the Encyclopedia first. It talks about how Nerimazeth, the first capital of the Shuriman Empire, was prospering at first. An oasis turned into a bustling town, then into the heart of the growing then kingdom of Shurima." I tap my finger on the glossy paper, which i then drag to the Almakhtutata Aleazima on the passage following the excerpt.

"In here, Xerath talks about the failure of the first golden disk, from a civilian point of view. Not an historic one like in Golden Disks and Burning Sands: The Rise and Fall of the great Shuriman Empire."

The father looked confused, perplexed, curious. The thirst for knowledge in his eyes reflected into the pools of celestial gold, molten and smooth, bubbling with an insatiable need for knowledge.

"See, the golden disk was not only a symbol for the people of Shurima, but a way to be in touch with the gods up in Mount Targon." I thumb through the pages to find a painted representation, a schematic made by Xerath himself of what would become his people's most important visual.

"And just like any important machine it needed trial and error to get to the final, fully operating version…" The Father mumbles to himself, fingers hiding his mouth as his focus sharpens same as his gaze. Something shifting in the air as his posture slouches over slightly over the desk, his hair falling to frame his face.

"I suppose you can say that." You clear your voice, readying yourself to both read and simultaneously translate for the man next to you who seems to lock with a concentration you seldom noticed in anyone that was not more scientifically inclined. People like Ekko and Powder often slipping into the same state when hard at work on equations or mechanical work.

"Our people, once tribes of the desert with only commerce as our way of finding one another, had decided that against the harsh climate and territory of the desert: we could find strength and wisdom in numbers. And as such, our faiths, our cultures and our lifestyles merged into one. The elders of each village had formed a council to rule us all in a proper manner, and Shurima thrived."

Your voice carries a certain assurance, the one of someone passionate, who had read the very same book laying on the table enough times to remember all its contents. It helps you with the tension hardening your body to stone, the familiar words eroding it like a river gently eating away at the stone of a canyon.

"Nerimazeth was founded, a jewel amidst the coarse sands of the desert, polished by the winds. And from the alliances made between each elder's families came one to rule us all, a royal family, that would bring order. One that believed that winning the favors of those high up in Targon would bring upon prosperity and safety to us all. And so as our tribes became a kingdom, and our kingdom became an empire spanning the whole of our continent, an idea was born. One to create, through craftsmanship and rituals, a golden disk to call upon the most holy, residing in the skies."

The sounds fade, as if your head was plunged in the cool Demacian water, your thoughts carried by the words like you would be in its currents. The world ebbs away, you see not what is around you, not the rectory, not the table or the well loved book you've owned since easier times. Not even the soft scribbling of the priest besides you, hanging onto your every words.

Father Valášek was bewitched, as if you were not simply reciting from a tome but casting a spell, one that had his hand clutching a pen, writing ink into cursive letters that formed words, words that formed sentences, which in turn began to fill out the pages of a worn out leather bound notebook. Less worn from constant usage but from age, from sentimentality. As if what he was hearing was so important he had to inscribe it in his own personal bible.

"Its creation lasted a decade, but when it came to fruition it was glorious. Like we had brought the sun onto the vast lands of Shurima, plucked it from the skies to make its power ours. But as a first try, it was crude, imperfect, and the worship of our prayers ran into the cracks and fueled the space between the divine and profane like rainwater. The weeds, shadows of our belief, the corruption of our mortality were watered instead of the seed of the divine. Our soil perished, our water all but condensed into acrid vapor. In ten days, one for each year spent creating the instrument, Nerimazeth became no more than another deshret for us to fear and flee. Red, hot, inhospitable sands that were once kemet, black with nutrients, rendered bare at the hands of our foolishness."

You take a breath, slow, long, letting the air fill your lungs. It did not smell of incense and holiness anymore but of heat, a dry wind. The same one that your ancestors suffered through day after day under the beating sun. And as you turn the page, the paper thinned from usage, yellowed from the years, it feels like sand slipping through your fingers and the words written in ink under your eyes are like the night bringing upon the soothing feeling of coolness as the moon replaces the sun. Bidding farewell to her lover until the dawn.

"The more fortunate ones, merchants, the royal family, warriors, all moved east. Leaving the rest of us behind to suffer the consequences of our empire's greed. We were made slaves, worked the dead sands for crops, carved stones from the mines, built weapons and tools for those who built our people a new capital. One sharing the name of our continent. Our stomachs were empty, our water and food supplies scarce and illness rampant, but we pushed forward. Some out of belief in the cause of the royal family, others simply out of spite like me. Gold is what those in the new capital wanted, and gold was what they got. To build themselves a new golden disk, a new attempt at bridging man and god, but this time not through unity but tyranny. So we dug, we dug and melted and sent all we had to the new city. Our blood, our sweat, our tears, our gold, even when our numbers were dwindling. Even when our existence was cursed."

Your words fizzle out like white hot steel quenched by a blacksmith, bringing upon finality to the current chapter. It felt peaceful, the slow rise of your chest, the lack of noise surrounding you as you lost yourself to your one precious hobby. You had forgotten all about where you were, who you were with.

That is until sound returned to you.

It started slowly, with the drone of cars passing by the church, then the ticking of the carved clock lining one of the walls of the rectory, followed by the soft scratching of pen of paper and the shuffling of fabric. Then came smell, incense, myrrh, books, and something nearly unfamiliar but not. Finally, sight came back to you, a page of printed words in old Shuriman, a wooden desk, an imposing chair, stained glass windows, bookshelves, a painting of Janna; and on your peripheral a dark green sleeve holding a notebook open. A pale hand held a pen, tendons shifting as the instrument glided over paper to leave its trace, the writing neat and methodical.

It is only then you truly remember who exactly this hand belongs to and a sigh leaves you like a gust of wind, a breeze of nigh despair laced with hope.

Why would I even hope anymore?

"Did you truly read all that? It did not even feel like translation, you were speaking like you were present then, when Xerath wrote these pages." Comes the sound of the low, accented voice. Soft as satin, tinged with an awe that made your stomach churn, wrapping around you like a spider making a cocoon.

Too close, this felt too close. Too personal.

"No, I just made all of that up." Came the smart reply from your lips, pried from your discomfort and made into the usual deflection.

Father Valášek sighed, knowing he has to get ready to dance around the point again. To sing to a tune close enough to yours that he could satisfy you, but personal to himself enough that he could pry truth out of your heart.

"Then you are quite the story teller, you should perhaps consider a career in such things."

You look up to the ceiling, your head rolling to the side as if dragging your eyes to the priest was too hard a task for you to accomplish. You ponder.

Should I indulge him? Or should I remain as I always am?

Indulging would mean leaving the door open for him, more than it already is due to his insidious kindness permeating the thick, black fog that had made its home in your mind. Refusing him would mean coughing and choking on that smoke alone once more, perishing in your own head before your body itself has a chance to decay. After all, you know there's only so much rejection one could take before they abandon.

Would he abandon you?

"Because this is not the end of you. Not until I have tried all I can."

Did he speak the truth or were these words only to appease your weary soul?

So, in a compromise, you decide to test him.

"Maybe I will, who knows? Does Janna give you foresight, and if she does can you tell me if I'll be successful and make it big? Maybe I'll get rich."

"What will you do in that case?"

"Definitely get as far away from you as possible."

"Now who am I going to bug if you're gone, little bird? You'd leave me here, utterly bored and alone? Surely you're not this heartless." The smirk on his lips is as sharp as the blades of his eyes, made of copper, created to cut through your stone hide and reach the soft, writhing flesh beneath.

"If you believe I still have a heart I got news for you, padre. I'm like fucking Davy Jones."

You say the words lightly, wondering if he will understand. If he'll follow you as he always does. Perhaps not, not this time. Not anymore.

After all, you play the push and pull game with him at each meeting. Maybe his patience will run out soon and he'll finally leave you alone to your own devices, to the decay of your mind, body and soul orchestrated by fate like a cruel conductor waving the baton of discord and transforming your frail harmony into chaotic dissonance.

It would be easier, it would permit you to return to your bad habits, to your hermit nature as you rot.

Death would have been easier. Kinder. But do I deserve that? Is he punishment, confusing me and throwing me off balance so that I collapse like a dying star and bring everything and everyone to an end? Or is he salvation, the love of a mother long lost, the strength of a father who cared and the protection of an older brother I betrayed. The support of a friend who's suffered enough to be there with me, for me.

And the frustrating double edge of your thoughts cut you again, deeper this time.

Do you truly want Father Valášek out even if he destroyed the fragile balance you used to tip toe on like a tightrope walker?

Help is never for free, people ask for an inch then wrangle a thousand miles from your already empty hands. Drink from a cup that no longer exists between your hands, stolen like your dignity, like your integrity, like the hopeful willpower that normally defines humans.

He never talks about bartering, trading, giving and taking. But he will, everyone eventually does. But with all his insistence, you know that the longer you stay, the steeper the price will be. Will he take what's left of your soul? Will he claw away at what little mind you have left? Will he steal from your body like some have?

No.

A part of you says, the one that still dares to hope.

"Let me rephrase it. You need help, and you will come because you need it. I won't take no for an answer."

Do I really need help?

"Yet you stayed. Which already proves just how much you're willing to seek help, and that is a good thing."

I am seeking help, only for my friends.

"And that is more than alright. Sometimes to help oneself they have to begin by acting for others, especially when they do not have the strength to believe in themselves. It is still very much a small step in the right way in the grand scheme of things."

Why does he keep coming back? No matter how much I reject him?

"Because this is not the end of you. Not until I have tried all I can."

I am the one emptying his cup.

And he is giving it. If anything, I am the one stealing from him and giving nothing back.

"Maybe you just need someone unbiased to hear you out. Maybe you'll get a friend out of this, and gods know you deserve a bigger support system that can be here more often for you."

Oh, Sevika, Violet…I began this for you but I don't know what to do anymore.

How does one seek and accept help when they cannot even fathom deserving it? When hell opens its gates in your shadow and clawed hands clasp your legs everyday that the heavens make, when no matter how raw you scratch your skin you can't seem to erase the blood of your brethren and brother on your hands?

"It's hard to accept, but people do care and as cruel as the world can be you don't have to shoulder your burdens alone. You will always have a home within the church, even if divine guidance isn't what you seek."

Why is he so kind? Why does he care so much?

"You are doing it again. Shutting yourself away from help. I did not mind listening to you, nor did I mind helping you. I did not mind you leaving or talking back because I know how hard asking for help can be when you've had to be on your own. I don't mind helping you because from what I've learned last time, you're a good person. And you deserve to have some good for yourself instead of giving it all away to others."

For fuck's sake.

The sigh you give softens his gaze, his posture growing more lax in the comfortable chair. He knows the dance is over for now, that you've given him the key to the fortress if only for a while so that he can explore the empty, collapsing streets. Where stone erodes, wood rots and vermin has made a home for itself while the wind howls like an angered devil.

"No."

"No, what?"

"I didn't read…I-" You sigh, the gates heavy as you try to push them open, rust settling in the hinges and making every try at giving entry nigh impossible. "I memorized it."

"The whole tome?" His eyes are wide, curious like a child's. Full of wonder, not of disgust like the one you've seen so many times and come to expect.

"I've had this since I was a teen, read it so many times every word has been burnt under my eyelids, so much so I wonder how the pages still haven't turned to sand in my hands. When I felt bad, and I felt bad a lot, I would just open it and start from the beginning, not stopping until I either fell asleep or finished it."

"Do you still do it?"

You tear your eyes away from his, turning your head away as a gust of wind passes through the ornate doors of the decaying palace in your heart. Unable to watch the sun shine through the amber after your eyes got used to pitch black darkness.

"I do."

"Have you done it since you met me?"

"Yes." Comes the answer, it easily slips from you, and you wish he could stop. That you could stop. "But since I gave it to you, I've been reciting it in my mind before sleep, or at work when I am on break or whenever it's slow. Just passages, excerpts that are….fitting."

"Do you wish to have it back, if it's so important to your equilibrium?"

Yes.

Should be your answer, you should snatch the book back, leave, never come back to the church. Abandon Father Valášek. You wouldn't be missed anyway.

"And I'm very sure Huck would love to have you around much longer with how happy he looked at your presence last Sunday, at the very least I know I would."

Gods damned rat bastard.

"No." You sigh out, as if the truth scorched you and you were trying not to display the effects of the boils it carved upon your flesh. "Keep it until we're done reading it."

We.

You realize too late that you've included yourself in this.

Too close. Too deep. Too personal, you need to do something, anything-

"Very well, I thank you for your generosity. I promise you that I'll care for it. As a matter of fact-" The wood groans as he stands, the cane thumping while he rounds his desk once more, the cassock flowing around him as if made of fine mist. The kind that crawls in each streets like a tsunami on the cold winter days, dark, biting, but beautiful, shimmering as the sun rises. He opens a drawer and retrieves a dark green, copper embossed, tome from it, little bookmarks sticking from the top of the yellowed pages. "-as proof of my good faith, no pun intended, I'll lend you a precious book of mine too."

His hand slides said object to you from his side of the table and your eyes widen at the title.

Codex of the Golden Winds

The fucking Janna bible.

"You- what?" For all the words you usually speak, the man had rendered you utterly speechless.

"Davy Jones has a heart, he is not heartless. And you gave me yours so, in turn, I'll give you mine."

You laugh incredulously, bile climbing at your throat at the saccharine kindness of the Father, at the bitter words of a god carved from ink on paper right before your eyes.

Of course he followed along, the damned priest.

An exchange of weaknesses, the keys to the front door, the map to the soul. That's what it was.

"And do you really think it's a good idea to give me of all people a book on one of the things I hate the most?"

"You don't hate Janna, you hate the impotency that the existence of a god brings. Because if you've suffered while doing all you can to get better it means that they never favored you and left you to rot. Like they've punished you for the simple sin of being human. And that is sickening to you, who's suffered enough to become the martyr and the butcher."

Silence.

Pure silence.

And your blood boils within your veins. You have half a mind to climb over the table and claw at the man of the cloth. How dare he-

-be right?

You had given him, through the Almakhtutata Aleazima, a part of the puzzle of your soul. And within the hands of a man so observant, so obstinate, it was a dangerous thing.

You had cracked the gates to your inner fortress open and he was lithe and nimble enough to slip through with the knowledge he gained from your four previous meetings. And no matter if all that was left were ruins, he'd be able to piece them back together as well. Investigate every corner of what's left within your desolated heart. You know it deep down, that it's too late to go back to how things were before you first stepped foot in the beautiful cathedral.

Damn it.

Before the luncheon he had asked if you knew of Jan'ahrem, and you told him. He asked you to translate, and you did, from memory. Words anchored in your mind as if they were all that was keeping the ship of the last of your humanity from sailing away.

You didn't speak of her badly then, because to you she is fiction, she is a part of the stories, of the texts, you love so much. And in a way, you still love her too.

No you didn't hate Janna.

You despised the fact that, were she real, she left you to fend for yourself as your existence decayed and corrupted into misery incarnate. That she let all of these people die over a decade ago, that she left your brother to die. All that while others like Father Valášek, Huck, Zeri…found comfort in her presence and the thought she was there through good and bad, like a friend that never left their side.

And you suffered in silence after trusting her to help you as tragedy disfigured your life like a child wielding wet clay.

And he knew, simply from observing.

Your rage eats at you, eyes narrowed into slits as your nails dig into the mahogany of the desk. Something cracks, is it you or the wood?

As a hand snatches you with uncharacteristic panic, you realize that it's your nails. Bleeding again, like at your first meeting. A tribute to hatred, made by blood.

Not to the gods, but to yourself.

To your own self-inflicted Tartarus, trapping you in a loop of agony for eternity. Always starving, never satisfied by any amount of your blood, sweat and tears spilled over the years.

"You have to stop harming yourself like that." The Father sighs, reaching again into a drawer to pull out a small kit. The antiseptic burns as it seeps into your nail bed, the bite bringing you back to him.

"It's not-" You choke up, throat tight with sobs you keep under lock and key.

He shushes you. "I know that by this point you can't even notice when you do. So, perhaps it's time you open up instead of losing yourself in your head until your body defaults to what has grown to become natural behavior."

The way he handles your hand is like he is carefully piecing up broken glass, dangerous while he remains unafraid to get cut, the way he talks to you is like that of a gentle parent teaching their child after they've broken something unwillingly.

It's almost enough to carve your tears out of you and let the dam break.

He wraps the tips of your fingers with the delicate precision of an archaeologist caring for an artifact. That gentleness the shepherd always seems to display, it feels wrong, it spills poison in your lips and lead in your stomach. You feel unworthy. Especially when he never seems to pay quite as much attention to others as much as he does you, the world fading away whenever the two of you find each other together.

Whether it is a good or a bad thing you don't know. You're leaning towards the latter as always, distrust and fear stronger than whatever you know of the man even if it's all good in appearance.

"You don't have to do that, I can care for myself." The slight movement of you trying to take your hand back prompts Father Valášek to tighten his grasp, eyes narrowing slightly in warning.

"Let yourself be taken care of for once, by Janna." He sighs, it's forced as if the words were both relieving to him and pried from his lungs.

"Second guessing yourself, Father?"

"You are infuriating."

"I never pretended I would not be, I've warned you."

His tongue clicks as he ties the last of the bandages on your poor fingers, his head shaking pensively as he seems to contemplate what to say.

"I know you have, I may be over thirty but I do not have early onset Alzheimer."

"Yet." You grin, sweeping the seriousness under the rug. Wishing for the comfort of banter back.

"You will grant me painful death via elevated blood pressure."

"You wanted to try and help, you deal with the consequences, padre."

"Helping you is to the price of my mental and physical health? Is that how it goes with you?" He scoffs, lips slightly curled up in disbelief and amusement.

"All is but transaction in this world, capitalism baby!" His head rolls and he inhales deeply while his eyes close for but a moment, a way to recenter himself. Probably to maintain his facade of the ever dutiful priest.

"I will reiterate, you are absolutely, utterly, immeasurably infuriating."

"Oh yes, don't forget hysterical and beyond reason too."

He sits in his chair with a huffed chuckle, slumping as if he were made of heavy stone, sinking to the bottom of the ocean. Then his hand waves to the Codex unceremoniously.

"I've marked passages I believe would be interesting or prompt introspection or reflection. Feel free to read at your leisure if you wish, the book is yours for as long as you want it even if it is only to take up dust, never to be read again."

You bite your tongue, deciding against teasing him any further. Any protest or smart comment dying in your mouth as you look down at the dark green cover of the holy words of Janna.

What a load of bullshit.

It was probably going to be dollar store therapy, mixed in with some classic entitlement and nonsensical rules. As all holy books contained, truly. Enough substance to reign in the hopeless, not enough to truly be worth anything information wise. A nothing sandwich paraded in Zaun's colors.

But somehow, your disdain for the cult of Jan'ahrem, your hatred at the lack of action from the goddess, did not quell the flames of curiosity.

What could the Father even think would be good for me in there?

"You said you wouldn't proselytize." You murmur, bandaged fingers slowly inching towards the tome as if it were cursed. As if you needed to keep away lest terrifying plagues fell upon you and destroyed everything in your vicinity.

"And I am keeping my promise, I don't want you to read because I want you to believe. That is your choice to make. No, I want you to read because maybe you'll find words that resonate with you, food for thoughts others than the self-destructive ones I can only guess your mind harbors."

"A seed that grows from the wind of breath and not the water of tears." You whisper back.

As a child, whenever you cried, you remember your mother singing the same soft lullaby to you to calm your heaving lungs.

"Bey'fet ihru ga, Ahuni lek'cho.

Bey'un habbab, Ahuni lek'cho

Suhbi al naa yih

Kha aademas auja."

Her sweet dulcet tones would still the quaking of your chest as she held you close. And your father, with a hand over your hair, ruffling it with tenderness would always follow his wife's song with a sentence.

"A seed that grows from the water of tears and not the wind of breath will only bloom into a weed, so hope it will become a dandelion you can blow on to make a wish that will reach Janna."

And his words would bring a smile to your face each time. The very same ones anchored in Zaunite tradition from the day your ancestors stepped on the fertile coast and watched dandelions bloom, their seeds whisked away by the breeze.

Words you had forgotten until today.

Words that made Father Valášek look up to you with mirth, soft and warm like the sunlight of his eyes.

"Do you know the end of the idiom?" Your head shakes in response.

"A seed that grows from the water of tears and not the wind of breath will only bloom into a weed, so hope it will become a dandelion you can blow on to make a wish that will reach Janna. You'll find a field of them blooming at your feet soon enough, seeds dispersed by the Winds herself. Yellow like the sun, graying like the clouds, so you can wish again forevermore."

His voice is light as he recites from memory, nostalgia tinting every accented consonant like a hammer hitting a nail. And despite him not being your father, his title not at all descriptive of the real nature of your confusing alliance, you feel the same peace you had as a child. Calming the stormy seas of your soul for a moment, bringing clarity to the dark waters of confusion and panic the Father always seems to stir and quiet at once.

He seems to notice the tension leaving your body, just enough so your breath comes easier, your eyes softening, your features melting from the usual stoic expression you harbor.

"That's…nice." Your response lacks the usual snark, sass or even exhaustion. As if you had reverted back to a bright eyed child for a second, admiring the words spoken by the man of the cloth who chuckles at the sudden change.

"It is, Blistering Sunrise 11:5, the promise of Janna always granting us the ability to wish and dream for ourselves."

"Oh, it's from the Codex?" Your eyebrows furrow in surprise, unknowing that a sentence so integral to the comfort you felt in your childhood was uttered by those who believed in whom you knew left you for dead.

"It is, I marked it down for you." His hand reaches for a bookmark near the beginning of the thick tome, flipping the page so your eyes can gaze upon the ink transliterating his previous sentences. "But it seems you already knew of it, after all it has become a staple idiom for us. Like many references and passages to it, truly. Even if you do not believe, Janna is a part of our culture, and she is a part of us all."

To some like him, who are devoted to the Blue Bird, the words are comfort. To know that every breath you take is like worship to she who looks down upon us all from the gales.

To one like you, it is nigh infuriating, frustrating, maddening. Because the dandelions that the book promises filled your garden until nothing could bloom anymore. No hope, no peace, only weeds whose roots intertwined beneath the earth and formed a coffin above the beautiful flowers which wished to thrive. Never to be granted their wish by the gales because the earth doesn't breathe, it suffocates. Just like your dreams had long ago.

Yet despite its origins, the idiom still brought comfort. And despite the voice uttering it not being your father's, Father Valášek's seems to work the same way. As if the meaning does not come from some make believe book devoted to a goddess although she had abandoned her followers, but from the mouths speaking it.

And if that's the case, why does the priest soothe your soul when his voice curls around each syllable of it?

"Right." Your hands reach for the second, abandoned until now, sandwich so you can stuff your mouth and quiet it. Same for your mind hopefully. Which seems not to go past the ever observant man sitting before you, separated by his desk, head tilted, eyes dissecting you with clinical patience and careful kindness.

Both of your hearts on the table like a trade, a simple exchange of books with a much deeper meaning than on the surface.

"I would have offered to uphold my end of our deal right now, but since you'll have to work soon I would hate you to go back in any other state but sober. So here-" He slides a metal case, the same one he had so mirthfully presented to you after your visit at Ekko's, on the table. "-I believe these are now yours."

You nearly choke on the last of the simple meal, remembering what the small box contained, having forgotten this was even a deal at all. A way to pacify the ever growing confusion in your mind for more time against a small price.

You had, in exchange of something as simple as your time, made the Father barter his weed. Which he apparently smoked to calm his chronic pain.

Maybe it'll help me too.

The thought is passing, but interesting. Help disguised as a simple deal, his interest quenched with an hour and a half of your time in exchange for two carefully rolled blunts in a metal case.

Hand rolled too by the looks of it. And expertly too.

A snort makes its way out of your nose before you can stop it at the very thought of the holy man toking since his teen years and pursuing it still as a man of faith.

"Thanks, padre. How kind of you."

"A deal is a deal, little bird. And I am a man of my word, not only because I must be, but because I appreciate being gifted your time and knowledge."

"I just translated a part of a book, it's not all you make it to be, dude." You wave him off, shoving the little tin box in your bag, hand now reaching for the clementine you had taken for dessert.

"Oh but it is." His voice is light, soft, something prideful and full of a gentle joy you haven't brought to anyone not close to you, and perhaps anyone close to you at all, in many years.

"Alright, I'll bite. Give me your big philosophical talk." You say as your thumbs slide beneath the peel and rip skin from flesh.

"Because you let me see what little joy you have left in this world. And to me, seeing that in you, is further proof that you are worth helping."

You rip a piece of the fruit, popping it in your mouth. The sweetness and the citrus' tang mix and awaken your senses.

"You know as much as I do that it's rotten work. I see your facade crumbling at times Father Valášek, it's exhausting you."

"Quite on the contrary. What you mistake as annoyance or frustration is my interest spiking and new theories blooming in my mind."

Another piece, chewed between your molars, fills your mouth with its juices.

"I don't believe you."

"You don't have to, I can do that for the both of us."

By the third wedge you sigh, the taste lost on you already, leaving nothing but the movement of your jaws.

"Why do you persist?"

"Because I promised you, and myself, that I could help."

You take two at once at his words, as if mirroring their meaning subconsciously.

"You never did."

"Simply because I didn't outwardly say the words, doesn't mean I meant them any less."

When you are done with the first half you place the second on the table. The arch of the fruit pointed upwards to the vaulted ceiling.

"It's rotten work."

"Not to me. Not now, not ever. No matter how much you try to push me away. You may be stubborn, but so am I. And I am not one to let go that easily."

Your gaze is upon him, body slumping in your seat as you consider his words. The bastard is stubborn, you'll give him that. And it seems that he really won't let go of you even if you're an hopeless case.

Arguing feels futile, useless. Especially now that he's seen more in over an hour than you had shown many in over a decade.

So with a sigh, you slide the other half of your clementine to him. Bright orange intense against the dark green of his cassock and the mahogany of his desk, but as warm as the turmeric of his eyes.

Common, known, but a staple nonetheless. One that brought health and warmth. A simple root turned spice, something that makes life better than it is despite how easy it is to find.

And, gazing into your own eyes, his hand reaches for the fruit. The motion nearly reverent, as if handling something much more fragile than a peeled clementine.

An olive branch.

No more fighting, not today.

His smile tells you all you need to know, that he understands. Because of course he does. He always does, even when not holding all the cards in his hands. What you can decipher from it is a certain sense of pride, at you perhaps? But it would be overzealous of you to assume. So you'd rather think he's proud that he finally got your running mouth to stall.

A quick look at your phone makes you stand, straightening yourself as you begrudgingly accept his offering, his heart made of green leather, yellowed paper, black ink and copper thread, and shove it in your bag. Taking its place next to the small metal case.

"I think my time's running out, Father. Gotta go if I don't wanna be late to work, if I start leaving now I'll be lucky not to get caught in traffic."

He stands too, a wedge of fruit in hand that he savors before delivering his answer.

"Please, don't let me keep you. And thank you again for indulging me, I really appreciated not spending my entire day on my lonesome." He offers his hand.

"Yeah, I guess it was nice to not spend lunchtime alone for once." And you take it in yours, a single shake, a single squeeze, before letting go. Your bag's straps now wrapped around your shoulders.

"I hope you have a nice day." He utters your name in such a way you wonder if the clementine didn't add more sugar to his saccharine tone.

"Yeah, you too I guess. Have a good one, padre."

Your eyes trace the Almakhtutata Aleazima on the table one last time, the Codex of The Golden Winds suddenly feeling all too heavy in your backpack. Like Atlas' burden, the world's weight carried atop his back.

Then you turn, taking your leave. No glances are given to Father Valášek behind you as you close the door to the rectory and your back doesn't turn as you leave the cathedral to get in your car. Not even through the rearview mirror does your gaze observe its grandeur.

You had somehow let the Father in, and your heart squeezes at the thought of what he may do now that he has passed the threshold to the ruined kingdom of your soul.

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[rcntlydcccased]

real-world Silco AU!!! Very self indulgent and also very obviously a Leyendecker study / repaint