Nine Lives (witch's familiar!Ezra x witch!f!reader) - Part 9 and EPILOGUE
Moth's Masterlist // follow @mothandpidgeon-updates and turn on notifications to stay updated with my fics!
SERIES MASTERLIST
pairing: witch's familiar!Ezra x witch!f!reader
summary: As you came into your powers and your curves filled in, Ezra realized he feelings for you were more than just affection. The only problem? He's a 300 year old crused witch. Oh, and he's a cat.
contents: age gap (like 300 years), so much angst, violence, moth never uses y/n.
wc: 5.9k
a/n: Hello my friends. Maybe you've noticed that I haven't been around for a while. Life has been very busy and, frankly, this website just hasn't made me feel the way it used to. That said, I've had the ending to this fic in my back pocket since December and I really want to share it because there are so many wonderful friends on here who care about what happens and I care deeply about this story.
Which is why I'm currently revising it into an original work with a goal to publish it as a novel. Writing that "out loud" feels very scary and like I'm inviting the evil eye but maybe sharing that is a way to manifest that my dreams of being a published author come true. I've had false starts before. 🧿🧿🧿
So, yeah, this fic will be going bye bye soon but before it does, I hope that you enjoy this last chapter. Thank you so much for the support. The comments and reblogs have been everything to me. I've been very bad at responding to them so please forgive me but I read and savor them all. Thank you for being along for the ride.
Big thanks to my betas slash ride or dies Birdee, @whocaresstillthelouvre @schnarfer @toomanytookas
🐈⬛
You sit straight up in bed, a wave of hot panic descending over you. The sky is beginning to slip into the thinnest shades of violet. Dawn will soon be here and the other side of the mattress is empty. This must be a nightmare. Even if it’s not, you still fell asleep when you promised to stay awake.
“Ez?” you call.
Around you is all stillness.
You leap up, heart smashing against your ribs. You promised Ezra you would be with him when he changed.
His sweater lays on the rug where he left it the night before but the rest of his clothing is gone. You pick it up, clutch its soft fabric to your chest. A few quick strides put you in the living room. Empty. Somewhere far in the trees you can hear the first birds of morning warbling.
“Ezra,” you say with more urgency.
Did he change? Did something go wrong? Did they already take him? A moment ago you were deep asleep, now you’ve never been so wide awake. Adrenaline courses through you, stabs at your chest. You think you’ll be sick. How could you have fallen asleep? Somehow there are still tears left to well in your eyes.
You didn’t get to say goodbye.
You throw open the bathroom door, push back the shower curtain. In your room you pull boxes out from under the bed to check his old hiding place. He’s nowhere to be found.
You’re still calling Ezra’s name when you burst into the store.
It’s still dark down here where the windows face away from the rising sun. Fairy lights twinkle near the entrance, a dim glow that would be welcoming if you weren’t in a panic.
There’s movement in the office and you have a brief moment of relief until you recognize Margot’s shape through the shadows. She’s in the old armchair, a groggy gasp escaping her. She must have spent the night down here.
“Where is he?” you ask before she can even open her mouth to speak.
You take a lap of the first floor, searching high and low. The lights blink on as you enter each room. The basement door stands open and you shout Ezra’s name down the steps.
“What’s going on?” Margot asks, wrapping her cardigan tight around her. Her voice is ragged and if you weren’t in such a state you would notice that her eyes are just as red and puffy as yours.
“Percy, where’s Ezra?” you ask.
Percy is perched on Margot’s shoulder. He stands on his hind legs, balancing himself with one paw on her dangling earring. His dark eyes are alert, nose twitching, but all he gives you is a solemn shake of his head.
“Did it happen?” Margot asks.
“I was supposed to stay with him,” you say. You can barely manage a whisper.
You’re dizzy as you realize this is what the rest of your life will feel like. Ezra’s absence is so loud it makes your ears ring.
You shake the thought away, unwilling to accept it.
Margot reaches out a comforting hand but you’re already turning on your heel. Without another word, you begin to run.
It’s not long before you’re thick in the forest, dashing through the trees. Tears blur your vision, rendering your surroundings a wash of dreary brown and orange. You can barely see the path ahead of you let alone the last of the leaves clinging to the trees. The soft soles of your house shoes are saturated with last night’s rain and you can feel every twig and stone underfoot.
In your race downstairs, you’d thrown on whatever clothes were at hand and put Ezra’s sweater over your head. Each inhale you take smells like him.
Ezra.
You think his name, visualize his face in all of its detail down to each dark hair of stubble on his chin. You remember the feel of the planes of his chest, the smooth roll of his shoulders beneath your touch. Soon your powers will be gone but right now, you’re calling upon them to keep him safe, to take you to him.
You might as well be racing the sun itself as it begins to rise. The sky is a hazy sherbert orange now and light catches on the raindrops that hang from the branches. Your lungs sting and the muscles in your legs burn but you can’t slow now.
Somewhere in the distance, you can hear your name echoing off of the trees. Margot is calling after you but you don’t slow your pace.
By the time you reach the rusted, wrought iron gate of the old cemetery, the sky is kissed with pink. You've broken out in a sweat despite the prickling cold air that’s making your breath come out in steaming clouds.
You have no idea what you’ll find here, if he’s even here at all. You try your hardest to keep the worst possibilities at bay. This was where he hunted squirrels and tussled with the stray cats, where he went when he wanted to be alone. If Ezra is anywhere, it’s here.
You stop short. The sound of your heart pounding in your ears drowns out the noises of the morning. A sob catches in your throat.
“Ezra,” you breathe.
He sits huddled before one of the graves. You don’t even have to look at its marker to know that it’s engraved with a single name. Cee.
You gasp for air as you look at him, frozen and light headed. What you see confounds you. Dawn has well and truly come and yet Ezra remains unchanged. His body, which you so meticulously examined the night before, is still human, still broad and beautiful. He’s shivering, teeth chattering. Wet leaves are stuck to his bare feet which have become dirty and scratched. He looks up at you, his mussed hair stuck to his forehead, brown eyes dazed.
You throw open the gate and race to his side, falling to your knees beside him.
“You’re still here,” you say.
You hold his face in your hands, trying to make sense of him. This is no figment of your imagination. The stubble on his jaw bites into your palms, his skin chills your fingertips. It’s impossible yet you thank all the stars to have even one more moment spent with him.
“Forgive me,” he says, his voice weak. “I didn’t want you to see.”
You should be angry but you’re flooded with relief that he’s still here and concern for how utterly shattered he looks. You blow into your hands, heating them with your powers and rub his arms, then his ice cold cheeks. His lips have lost their color and you put kisses on them. They’re frigid and chapped but you’ve never had a better kiss than this one when just a few minutes ago you thought he was lost forever.
“Moon and stars,” you hear Margot gasp behind you.
She struggles to catch her breath, clasping a stitch in her side.
“How?” she asks.
The sun has risen, a new day blossoming through the trees. There’s no denying it now. The Elder’s spell didn’t work.
Ezra merely shakes his head. His eyes are glassy from tears and exhaustion. Neither of you are sharp enough now to understand it.
“What spell?” Margot asks.
It takes a moment to realize she’s not talking to either of you. Percy climbs from her shoulder into Margot’s cupped hand, all the while sniffing the air. The mouse begins turning in a circle impatiently until she sets him down on the leafy ground. Percy scurries to Ezra’s side, his nose poking around him as if he’s trying to seek out some cheese. Ezra puts out his hand and Percy lets him lift him up to his face.
“He says Ezra’s protected by your magic,” Margot says. “Did you do something last night?”
Your cheeks heat and you hope Margot can’t see the memories of those lingering touches, the all consuming pleasure that’s still so fresh in your mind. That’s not at all what she means.
“No,” you say, watching Percy’s little paws lean against Ezra’s bottom lip with an insistent squeak. His mouth falls open as he stares at the mouse in wonder.
“Not last night,” Ezra says. He looks at you, that familiar reverence in his eye. “On the full moon.”
You blink as you recall the words you spoke that night. The protection spell you'd hastily come up with. You’d forgotten it. It had been overshadowed by everything that came after, the exhilaration of learning about Ezra’s feelings, the first kiss.
“That was barely a spell,” you say.
Percy climbs out towards you on the tips of Ezra’s fingers.
“It’s strong,” Margot translates.
You shake your head. It doesn’t make sense. A spell like that, almost an afterthought, would be nothing compared to the magic of the Elders.
“Little mage, you can’t begin to fathom how powerful you are,” Ezra says.
Now your mind races with a litany of questions. Will they find another way to turn him? When your powers are gone, will your spell fade? What, exactly, are you capable of?
There’s no time to delve into any of them because a branch above you rustles as a large owl lands on it, sending leaves and fat rain drops to the ground below. Percy squeaks with alarm and scuttles back to Margot. Suddenly the elders are within the gates. Boggin scampers a few steps ahead of the witches, chittering away. The three Elders look quite at home in this ancient cemetery, regal and enigmatic.
A chill runs over your skin that has nothing to do with the frigid morning air. Esme’s eyes dart around the scene but Hester merely regards you with a raised eyebrow.
You can only imagine how you look. Your clothes are wrinkled, shoes muddy. There are bags under your eyes which are still red from all of the crying you’ve done.
Your pulse quickens but Ezra rises to his feet, standing tall. He pulls you up beside him, his hand holding firmly to yours.
“You ought to be a cat by now,” Hester says flatly.
“It would appear your potion was a dud,” Ezra says.
“And how could that be?” she replies. She’s smiling with cold amusement but her eyes are all suspicion.
“When I told you that her abilities were uncanny, I meant it. The magic of three prestigious elders foiled by that of a young witch,” Ezra replies.
His lip nearly curls into a smile. You wish you could share his confidence. Ezra might be safe now but if your powers are gone, will your spell go with it?
“Speak plainly,” Oswin complains. His gloved hand raps his cane against the ground.
“I cast a protection spell under a full moon,” you say.
“And the very same spell shields her from harm,” Ezra tells them.
It’s a bluff but your breath catches. If he’s right, if your gifts are that strong, maybe you can save yourself too.
It’s worth a shot. You quickly whisper words over yourself as Oswin glances to the others with concern. Magic prickles across your skin like goosebumps and Ezra squeezes your hand.
“You’re welcome to attempt to wrest her powers if you’re prepared to suffer more embarrassment,” he says.
“How dare you speak to your elders like that,” Esme says.
“I’m older than any witch here,” Ezra says with a smirk.
“Insolent beast,” she snarls and advances on him, eyes blazing.
Ezra suddenly doubles as if he’s been punched in the gut by an invisible fist.
“Stop!” you yell.
Esme twists her hand in the air, her bony fingers claw like. Hester’s familiar bounces, squealing and baring its teeth. You ready yourself for a fight but Margot pulls you back.
“Wait,” she says, breathless.
Ezra groans, the muscles in his neck straining. His jaw tightens but his defiant gaze returns to Esme. His shoulders heave with a great inhale and he straightens again. The discomfort on his face slips away and soon he’s wearing a wicked grin.
You let out a shaky breath. Watching your spell hold fast is so exhilarating you almost laugh.
Esme’s nostrils flare and Oswin staggers back, his dog familiar whining at his side.
It’s Hester who lets out a good old fashioned cackle.
“This is all quite impressive. Such a clever witch. No matter. We’ll deal with him once we’ve divested you of your gifts. I’m afraid that there is no spell strong enough to keep us from your magic,” she says.
You can barely draw breath. She’s right. A few muttered words are as brittle as an eggshell under the hammer that is Hester’s magic.
“Now. Step forward and we will do what we came for,” Hester commands.
You look to Margot who swallows hard. Her eyes glisten with tears but her jaw is clenched, doing her very best to be brave. Ezra’s brow is furrowed in determination and you remind yourself that dawn has come and gone. You foiled the elder’s magic unintentionally and you can do it again. At least, you have no choice but to believe that you can.
He gives you a nod and one last pulse around your hand before he releases you.
“Any last charms or incantations you would like to perform?” Hester asks.
You shake your head, already focused on what will come next.
Hester holds out her hand for the others. Esme grasps on eagerly but Owsin gives her outstretched hand a wary glance.
“I’m sorry, Hester,” he says. “I won’t do it. I didn’t get this far by crossing witches with such mighty gifts.”
“Very well,” Hester says with venom. “We can handle this ourselves.”
This is the moment. Your chest is constricted and your legs shake as you hope against hope that your spell was enough to protect you as it did Ezra. You close your eyes as you hear the witches begin to chant. You call on your own magic for what could be the very last time.
Wind swirls around you, lifting the sodden leaves from the ground. They pelt you in soggy patches as they fly about. Your clothes billow and your hair is caught in the storm. The early morning light is replaced by darkness, a swirling of black clouds. It’s hard to hear anything but the whistling of the air around you and it nearly chokes you, forcing itself up your nose and down your throat.
Through the chaos, you can see Hester’s eyes rolled back as she chants, her porcelain face made gaunt and ghoulish as if you can see her true form without the glamors of her magic. All the while, you try to say your own words, cast your own spell to counter hers, though no sound can fight its way out of your throat.
You fall to your knees, the hard earth biting them and you dig into the ground, mud catching under your fingernails. All of your muscles ache, spittle drips from between your clenched teeth, and you think you might break in two. You continue to recite your spell even as the air leaves your lungs.
Your vision blurs, and your body trembles, and all is quiet save for the drumming of your heartbeat in your ears. Without warning, a pulse leaves your palms. It’s strong enough to make the earth shake, radiating out from you in a great wave. Esme is knocked off of her feet and Oswin grabs hold to one of the old gravestones. That, you’re sure, is the sensation of your magic being pulled from your body.
Vertigo overtakes you and you give in, finally releasing your body and collapsing to the sodden ground.
🐈⬛
It was years ago that you found the young buck in the forest, the poor thing tangled in a clutch of thorny underbrush. The day was warm and green, perfect for a short hike in the woods. The sound of the deer caught your attention, bleating and upsetting the branches around it as it struggled. The poor thing became even more agitated when it saw you approach.
“It’s okay. I’m going to help you,” you said softly. You held your hands aloft.
“Careful, little mage,” Ezra warned.
He had been your familiar for only a year then but the two of you had become fast friends.
You moved towards the deer slowly as it huffed and pulled against the snare, tightening it further.
“Be still,” Ezra chided the buck though neither of you had ever possessed the ability to communicate with animals.
As you crept close the deer calmed, somehow either understanding that you meant no harm or giving in to whatever fate you had planned. With gentle hands, you unwrapped the vines from his leg. The buck gave a grunt as you pulled thorns from where they had lodged into its smooth fur. Though there was some blood, the cuts weren’t deep.
“Does that hurt?” you asked, though you knew it would give no reply.
When you released him, the buck stood gingerly on his hoof and took a cautious step. His honey colored eyes locked on you and you swore you felt its gratitude with perfect clarity.
“That’s better, huh?” you said.
To your surprise, the deer bowed his crowned head. You let out a laugh. At this point in life, you were no stranger to magic, but this moment held some special enchantment, something that couldn’t be captured in spellbooks and amulets.
You put out your hand again and the buck sniffed, the whiskers on his black nose tickling your palm. With a swallow, you slowly rested your fingertips on his snout. He didn’t even flinch.
Until a terrible crash came from the trees. Both you and the buck startled and he fled, leaping easily over the bushes and disappearing into the woods. The noise grew closer and your heart hammered in your ribs. More deer smashed through the trees– two doe and a spotted fawn– who raced past so quickly, you were knocked backwards.
“You alright?” Ezra asked as you stood and dusted yourself off.
“Yeah. That scared the shit out of me,” you chuckled.
Then another creature burst forth but this was no fawn. You’d always thought coyotes were cute with their bushy tails and pointy ears but you’d never been confronted with one in the middle of its hunt. It bared its pointed teeth, hunched in a mean looking crouch. Your eyes went wide and all of your muscles locked, useless to do anything but stare and shake.
The coyote crouched as if to pounce at you but it wasn’t given the chance. Ezra lunged for the animal, ears back and claws out, his own sharp teeth sinking into the coyote’s tawny fur. The coyote yelped and you screamed as Ezra slashed and hissed. He was fierce but Ezra was no match for the beast who easily shook him off.
“Ezra!” you yelled as his slender body hit the ground hard.
The coyote sprung over him, catching Ezra in his fearsome jaws.
“Run!” Ezra managed.
His claws continued to bite at the coyote’s face, the fur of his tail stood out straight, and he swore and grunted as he was thrown around like a ragdoll.
“Stop! Stop!” you begged, your cheeks wet with hot tears.
You were about to watch your best friend be torn apart by a wild animal and all you could do was scream.
“Stop!” you yelled again. This time it was different. The word came out of you with more power and depth, a voice you didn’t recognize as your own, and with it an echo that sent the coyote back a yard, toppling over its own feet. Ezra flew from its teeth, landing on the forest floor in a heap of fur and blood.
You barely registered the coyote whimpering, tucking its tail and running back the way it came. You were already at Ezra’s side, scooping his pathetic remains into your quivering arms. He twitched, eyes half open. You couldn’t bear to look at the wounds but you could feel them, hot and sticky with blood. There were spells that could help him, potions and salves that could ease the pain, but they were far beyond the powers of a teenage witch.
“You’re okay, you’re okay,” you chanted. These words were thin and strangled, so different from the ones that had shaken the animal off of him.
Margot. She could fix this. You began to run, holding Ezra against your chest.
Margot, I need you, you thought as loud as you could but you knew that it was impossible for your aunt to hear your thoughts from such a distance.
“We’ll get you home. You’ll be okay,” you said again.
You stumbled over rocks and roots, blinded by the tears in your eyes. Each step, Ezra grew closer to death. He’d lived for centuries and now he was dying because he wanted to protect you. Because you let that fucking coyote’s dinner get away.
Maybe death would be a gift for him. He’d lamented to you countless times how lonely his life had been, that the spell that made him a familiar kept him from taking his own life. But the thought of losing him was unbearable.
There was still a good stretch of woods between you and home when you heard Ezra wheeze. He was limp, motionless. You stopped and put your ear to him, tried to see if his chest was moving but saw only so much blood.
“No,” you sobbed.
You sat in the dirt and leaves and curled yourself into a ball around Ezra. His head rested in the crook of your elbow and you kissed his face and cried over him.
You didn’t know the right words and your powers were still young but you were desperate. With your eyes squeezed tight, snot gushing from your nose, limbs heavy and exhausted, you called on every ounce of magic in you and begged for it to obey. You willed it out of you through every muscle, every pore. The moon and stars and the trees themselves, whoever would listen, you plead for help.
All you could manage to say was a watery, “I love you,” and for a long while, you sat there rocking Ezra, sure that you’d lost him.
There was no gust of wind, no lightning or flickering of a candle. The birds sang and the branches rustled with squirrels. The sun shined through the leaves.
Until finally, you felt the faint beating of Ezra’s heart.
🐈⬛
Margot is beside you though the music of her earrings and bracelets sounds far away. Your eyes blink open and you find yourself gazing up into Ezra’s handsome face. This time you’re the one cradled in his arms. Your powers may be gone but at least you have him, just for a little bit longer.
“I’ve got you,” he says.
Oswin helps Esme to her feet, sticks and debris caught in her silver hair. Hester’s shoulders rise and fall with deep breaths but she remains untouched. The only sign of her exertion is a loose tendril of hair that’s stuck to her forehead.
Your eyelids are heavy and if it weren’t for Ezra holding you, you’re sure you’d melt away. You let them drift closed again, too weak to fight. It’s time to surrender.
And then you gasp. There’s something— it’s small and far away like an echo, a vibration from deep within your chest. It takes some effort but you sit up.
“Careful,” Ezra says, keeping a steady hand on your back.
“Are you alright?” Margot asks.
You can’t respond, utterly focused on the sensation, trying to call it forward like you’re remembering the details of the dream. You look at your hands, clammy and caked with dirt, and then your eyes fall on the elders.
You snap your fingers. No. It’s not a snap. You do it just the way Ezra taught you, like flint hitting steel.
And there’s a spark.
Margot inhales sharply behind you. Esme actually lets out a yelp.
They wanted to take your powers. They wanted to take Ezra. The thought makes your heart beat so furiously, you’re sure you could set the world ablaze.
With another flick of your fingers, a flame leaps from your palm. The leaves catch as though they aren’t soaked in last night’s rain but kerosene. Fire burns on the expanse of ground between you and Hester’s feet.
Ezra is exhausted, every line in his face cutting deeper than ever before, but he beams at you with pride.
“I told you,” he says.
It’s hard to accept that he was right, that you have magic you can’t fathom but you’re grateful for it. With his help, you stand again, resolute about one thing– they won’t dare to take him away.
Oswin watches aghast, his familiar barking. Esme’s owl circles in the sky above, startled from its perch. Boggin runs up Hester’s robes and stands on her shoulder, squealing nervously.
“Well. That was quite a show,” she says, waving her hand to extinguish the flames before her.
She examines you, this time with a much more careful consideration.
“Maybe we were too hasty. There’s no reason these talents should go to waste,” she says to the others as if her judgement means anything.
She’s wise enough to know when she’s been bested and cunning enough to try and stay in your good graces.
“You wouldn’t seriously consider–” Esme begins, all puffed up with indignation.
“You’ll have to handle your personal squabbles some other way,” Hester snaps at her. She returns her gaze to you with a cordial smile. “Besides, think of all we could accomplish together.”
After all you’ve been put through in the last 24 hours, Hester’s sudden geniality makes you feel sick.
“I’m not interested,” you say.
Hester’s cordial demeanor drops, her mouth forming a tight line.
“All I want is to be left alone. And if you ever threaten another person I love, I’ll show you the full extent of my powers,” you say.
Hester’s jaw shifts and you wonder the last time anyone spoke to her in such a way.
“Alright, then. She has spoken,” she tells the Elders.
“Come,” Oswin says, eager to leave this behind.
You nearly collapse into Ezra’s arms as the three witches retreat towards the gates. You breathe a sigh of relief. This might not be the last you hear of the Elders. Esme might yet convince Hester to change her mind. But right now, you want to celebrate. You look up into Ezra’s soft brown eyes and your heart flips. Not only will he stay by your side but he’ll truly have the chance to live the life he deserves.
“Wait,” you say.
Hester stops, casting her eyes over her shoulder. You step out of Ezra’s grasp.
“There are others like him, aren’t there?” you ask. “Like Ezra.”
“Of course,” Hester says.
“Turn them back,” you demand.
There’s another Ezra out there somewhere. He’s done things he regrets but he’s paid the price ten fold. He deserves to find his own little mage or at least to stand on his own two feet.
“We coudln’t possibly–”
“Give them an appeal or retry them. Commute their sentences. I don’t care how you do it.”
Hester’s eyes alight again.
“Turn them back or I will,” you warn.
Hester’s frown is so sour you can almost taste it in your own mouth but she knows, maybe for the first time, that she’s powerless.
“Fine,” is her answer, a short, bitter syllable.
Before you can say another word or even crack a smile, she and the others are gone.
All you can do is laugh and it unwinds the knot that’s been tied around your heart.
“Did you see the look on Esme’s face?” Margot asks.
She puts a gleeful kiss on Percy’s cheek.
“Oh! I’m so proud of you!” she swoons.
She holds your arms and looks at you with fresh eyes, then pulls you into a tight embrace. You inhale, drawing in the familiar warm smell on her hair.
“You never cease to amaze me,” she whispers in your ear.
You bask in her joy, letting her sway back and forth.
Over her shoulder you lock eyes with Ezra. His face has regained its color and his cheek is dimpled with a wistful smile. Even unkempt and exhausted, he’s still the most beautiful man you’ve laid eyes on.
“Thank you,” Ezra says softly when Margot finally lets go of you.
“I haven’t done anything,” you reply. You’re so tired and just now realizing the size of the task you’ve undertaken. Holding the Elders accountable will be a feat in and of itself and, in this moment, it makes you want to crumble.
“There’s no need for modesty, little mage. You’ve just proven yourself a force to be reckoned with,” he chuckles.
You trace the pad of your thumb across the creases that form at the corner of his eye. He sighs contentedly before pulling you into a kiss that feels like magic.
🐈⬛
EPILOGUE
The sun kisses your bare shoulders. Soon, Ezra thinks, he’ll be doing the same.
Summer has well and truly come. The garden in front of the Arcane Page is lush with greenery and colorful perennial flowers. As the temperature’s risen, you’ve cast spells that keep the apartment breezy and cool. Much to Ezra’s delight, you’ve broken out your summer wardrobe. Shorts that ride up your thigh, gauzy tops that show off your decolatage, and today a sweet little sundress dotted with flowers.
Margot’s given you both a much deserved day off.
In the months since you faced the Elders, you’ve both been hard at work. Word got out quickly and familiars and witches alike sought you out. It’s been difficult. Not just the demands on your magic but your emotions too. Collecting centuries of trauma is a hard task for such an empathetic witch.
This morning, though, the two of you have only had to worry about what to order at the diner. Of course, Ezra has other plans for you once he gets you home and divests you of that dress.
You stroll down the main street hand in hand enjoying the warmth of the season, the color in the heart of town. The shops are full of patrons, locals and weekend tourists alike, and the smell of vanilla wafts out of the apothecary. The two of you have just passed the yarn shop and the florist when you gasp. Ezra’s arm is nearly yanked out of its socket as you pull him across the road.
He stumbles behind you, grateful that this isn’t a busier thoroughfare.
“Look!” you say.
A long folding table has been set out on the sidewalk in front of the pet store, atop it several metal crates hold cats of various ages and colors. For a moment, the sight makes Ezra’s jaw tighten. It was some time in the late 19th century that he served a witch who put Ezra in a cage whenever he was deemed disobedient. Centuries had passed but he can still remember the bite of the bars against his shoulders.
These cats seem quite content, though. Their enclosures are roomier than the prison Ezra had endured and they’re are filled with all sorts of enrichment. Water, food, even limp little mice and balls with jingle bells. The cats lounge happily in the sunshine, a few of them sleeping soundly.
“Hey there, handsome boy,” you say.
You poke your hand through the wire crate. The cat with a nipped ear inside runs his side against you, angling for a scratch. Affixed to the cage is a laminated sign: Adopt me: Chairman Meow 4Y 11LBs.
“Finally got you, eh? Well, life as a house cat isn’t so bad,” Ezra says.
The cat gives an unpleasant meow and you look at Ezra with a brow raised.
“We’re acquainted. He and I had a few altercations,” Ezra tells you.
“I hope you’ve both reformed your ways,” you say with the shake of your head.
You go on from cage to cage, cooing over each cat and coaxing them over with a pspsps.
“Oh, Ez!” you squeal at the last one.
Inside is a skinny little kitten striped with orange fur.
“Hi, baby,” you say, your voice a high pitched sing song that makes Ezra roll his eyes. It’s a good thing you never spoke to him that way. It’s utterly undignified.
“Would you like to see him?” the volunteer manning the table asks.
“Please!” you answer and watch with unbridled giddiness as the volunteer unlatches the door.
“Let’s see if he’ll come,” she tells you.
You hold out your hand and the kitten pads forward to sniff at your fingertips. He dips his small head so you can pet between his ears.
“What a sweetie,” you say.
Then he flops down and shows you his belly.
Show off.
You let out a delighted squeal, eyes glittering as you stroke the light fur on its belly. It wraps a paw around your wrist and gives bunny kicks as you giggle.
“Looks like he likes you,” the volunteer says. “You can pick him up.”
You need no encouraging. “Come here, you,” you say, scooping the kitten into your arms.
He begins to rub his cheeks against your jawline, purring so loudly Ezra can hear it.
He can’t help but feel a little jealous. For a moment, it’s like he’s forgotten that he’s human, that he can do much more than snuggle under your chin. Some instincts never fade.
“Oh, Ez!” you gush. Your eyes are as big as saucers when you look at him, absolutely smitten.
“Surely you jest,” he says before you can even say the words aloud.
“Why not? I’ve never had a cat. Not a real one at least,” you say, scratching at the kitten’s neck as it gazes at you reverently.
Ezra sighs. For years it’s been just you and him. Even when so many things came between you, he was always at your side. But seeing the unadulterated joy on your face, he knows he can’t deny you. You’ll always be his little mage and he’ll always serve you, once by bond, now of his own free will.
The kitten reaches out a paw as if beckoning for Ezra to come closer. He leans towards the little furball. It has a sweet face, round, green eyes and a pink button nose. His ears are too big for hisfeatures but Ezra can’t deny that they’re adorable.
“Hello, little one,” Ezra says.
The kitten smacks him, landing a direct hit on his nose. You laugh as Ezra recoils. A smile grows on his lips. He covers his face with his hand feigning injury.
“That was entirely unprovoked,” he says.
“That’s right. Show him who’s boss,” you say, scratching under the kitten’s chin.
Ezra can almost feel it on his own skin.
“Alright. I’m willing to acquiesce but let’s get one thing straight, you mangey feline,” Ezra says. He slings an arm around your waist and pulls you in tight. “She belongs to me.”
You give a sparkling laugh and then gift Ezra with a kiss so sweet, he’s glad he waited three hundred years for you.
THE END
🐈⬛
Thanks for reading. I would love to hear from you. Please send good writing vibes my way.
The love and sunshine and feeling of being found by someone who can make your world feel a little less scary and a lot more comfortable, perhaps for the very first time, is so tangible here. You’ve captured it with such clarity and intensity and it feels like the most perfect way for us to say goodbye.
Not without some anguish (the worry! the drama! it was all so delicious!), and of course I cried like a baby... In part because I think the thing that really nestles these two deep in my heart is that element of them having found this connection that they feel so deeply that it brings them to want to give over parts of themselves not just to but for each other, even when that is to the extent of near-obliteration.
The roles of empathy and understanding and vulnerability in their relationship are so important to me. And I love that you've continued the thread of those elements informing the standards of justice that LM wants to see in the world writ large.
Getting to watch you continue to build this story and these characters this past year has been such an immense joy, and I can't wait to see the depth you give them as you take them on their new journey.
Series rating: Explicit - just angst this week (my whole blog is over 18’s only)
Summary: Best friends to lovers, to worse.
Word count: 1,465
Part 3 Content: Set in 2014 & Dieter and reader are around 29 here. Reader POV. Set mostly in a hospital - Dieter is recovering from an overdose, so references to drugs & alcohol. Reference to anxiety and feeling sick. Reader has a nickname (Angel). Emotional torment and longing. Reference to infidelity. There are Britishism in here but I kept them because I liked them, yeah? Fucking about with canon. Soulmates & Best friends to toxic lovers. Always Fleabag coded. Let me know if I missed anything.
Listen to: Regina Spektor - That Time
A/N: This is a sad one, lads (gn). I kept it short because I didn't want to linger on it too much and truly, if you don't fancy it, you can skip this chapter and part 4 will still make sense. I'd love to know your thoughts if you do read. New chapter written and ready for next Thursday 🖤🖤🖤 As always, huge thanks to @toomanytookas for the beta read and helping me to create this world. So much love to @secretelephanttattoo @mothandpidgeon @whocaresstillthelouvre & @pascalssbabyy for being my cheerleaders.
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I Think Of You All Of The Time - 2014
There was a moment on the plane where you thought you were going to be sick. A swirling nausea that had you gulping for air, knuckles white as you gripped the seat, face forward so you didn’t catch the eye of the person next to you who you could feel staring. Just focused on getting air in and out of your lungs, ignoring the tears streaming down your face, crushing down the rising panic.
It was such an unpleasant, weird crash of feelings. Anger and fear and sadness all melding together, but something new this time had joined the melee; exhaustion. Dieter hadn't done anything this stupid since you left to live in London three years ago, yet it’s like you’ve been sat anxiously waiting for it to happen again. A constant worry, a hangnail that you picked until it bled. When you got the call, it was almost a relief. A collapse somewhere hidden within you, long-held unease giving way to a deep tiredness. Well, you reasoned, the bad thing has happened, you could almost relax for a second before the dread really set in.
Today the dread is fully in.
Dieter’s drug use has been spiralling for years. You’d watched with sharp eyes as he became more erratic, less fun. How it took longer for his Cheshire Cat grin to break through, harder to hear his real laugh and not the fake LA one he’d all but perfected. You were never around long enough to really question him on it. There was so much you both chose not to untangle before you even got to the drug paraphernalia that now littered his hotel rooms or how he often started the day with a drink. You slipped in and out of his life so quickly, a confusion of hook-ups and morning afters, and what did it all mean?
It’s as if you weren’t important enough to be able to pass judgment any longer. Once you left, once you clicked the door shut behind you, both of your lives continued on just the same. His current partner, his publicist, his manager, whoever was supposedly running his seemingly charmed, Hollywood life, they barely knew you existed. The childhood best friend who sometimes came to visit for a night to watch his new play or who he’d go for a drink with when he was in the same city for a premiere, that’s all. Certainly that was the story you told yourself. It’s like you became a different person for those few stolen hours together and it meant you could shake off the guilt for the boyfriend you would be cheating on and the lies you told so easily.
A different timeline, the Dieter parallel universe.
You’re sat in the waiting room of the hospital. Dieter’s assistant had been perfectly civil when you arrived, you’re sure she’s a little confused as to why she’d been made to call you, someone whose name barely appeared in her calendar at all. She’s a few seats over now, tapping on her phone constantly, shooting you the occasional side-eye but mouth thankfully shut, no barrage of questions hurtled at you. You’re grateful for that at least.
Lucky for you that Sexy Sadie is your boss in London now, didn’t hesitate in giving you the time off so you could run for the next available flight. You shake your head slowly at the memory, how you struggled to speak, tears choking you and hands trembling as Sadie calmly listened to your panic. By the time you’d got to the airport you’d become furious again, this tumultuous cycle of emotions careering through you as you attempted not to look at your phone and the dramatic headlines and horrendous pap shots of Dieter being rushed to hospital.
Last time it wasn’t this bad. Last time it hadn’t been quite the medical emergency. Last time it hadn’t been splashed all over the gossip blogs within minutes. Last time you’d lived a few hours away, not across an ocean.
You worry at your lip as you wait to be let in to see him. Take a sip of the too strong, now too cold coffee his assistant had kindly handed you when the doctors said Dieter was stable and resting, that you could see him in a few hours. Your head sinks into your hands, they’re cold but feel good against your face, hot from tears, puffy and exhausted. You must look a state.
Dieter looks worse.
He’s awake, propped up on the crisp white pillow behind him, a halo of wild hair around his head, eyes dark and sunken. It’s your Dieter but not, a distant figure from the mischievous, playful boy you grew up with.
He croaks, “You came.”
“Of course I came, you almost fucking died.” It’s the anger that swirls up first, so you let it out, biting and scratching inside your throat, “What the fuck were you thinking Dieter? What the fuck is wrong with you? Again? I’m so angry at you! I want to fucking punch you in the face right now.”
It’s a defeated boy that stares back at you. Eyes too big for his stupid, beautiful face, mouth drawn into a hard line, all his usual softness gone. He taps a finger against his too prominent cheekbone, “Right here, angel. I can take it, I deserve it.”
You try to laugh, but a sort of guttural choke comes out instead and you’re just stood there crying ugly tears. Your arms hang by your side, useless, awkward. You had so many things you wanted to say to him, weeping whilst Dieter looked at you like a kicked puppy wasn’t in the plan.
“I didn’t mean to do it, I promise.”
This just makes you sob even harder. How close you’d come to losing him, it pierces your skin and makes all reason disappear. You wish you could be strong, put on a brave face or at least a stern one, but instead you don’t think, you let yourself crawl up onto the tiny bed, kicking your shoes off as you go, wrapping your arms around his shoulders. You sigh at the contact, at how the feeling of Dieter beneath your skin still so sacred.
“I was going to shout at you until you promise to get clean, but I feel like that’s not going to work, is it?”
“I’m sorry angel, I’m so sorry. I can’t… I can’t explain it. It’s like… there’s something missing and I’m trying to find it, but I’ve forgotten what I was even searching for.” You hold him tighter, head tucked into his broad shoulder, as he continues, “I’m sorry I scared you. Scared the crap out of myself to be honest.”
You gaze into his eyes, won’t let him look away as you search for some truth in them, “Is it me? Do I make it worse? Am I fucking you up?”
“No, my god, no! You make life bearable. I don’t know what I’d do without you. You’ll always be my soulmate.” He sounds horrified, his whole face falling, “You push me to want to be a better man. I feel like I’m always letting you down.”
“I just want you to be happy, D.”
You instinctively tip your chin up, meet his lips with your own. A kiss that feels like so many things at once; a sorry, a forgiveness, a kind of acceptance. He tastes bad, like regret and charcoal. You draw back, return your head to his shoulder, hand now at his ear, playing with the velvet softness next to the gold hoop that still sits there.
He kisses at your crown, “How long do I have you?”
“Two days, then I have to fly back to London,” you pause, “I called your mom. She’s coming the day I go.”
You hear the breath go out of him, your body rising and falling with his chest, “Fuck.”
You kiss him again, almost to make sure he’s still there, that he hasn’t fallen from your grip, “Yeah, you’re in big trouble, D.”
He cries then, silent tears against your neck, you can feel them hot on your pulse. You caress your fingers through the almost curls that sit at his nape, hope you can infuse some comfort into his skin, that somehow he will feel all the love you have for him through your soft touch and it will stay bound to him like a protection spell. Maybe you can make him safe in your arms for at least a couple more minutes. Perhaps next time, before he does something stupid, he’ll remember this moment and it will still his hand or warm his heart and he won’t go searching in the darkness for whatever it is that he thinks he is lacking.
Your sweet, broken boy, both forever yours and forever lost.
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All images Pinterest & dividers from @saradika-graphics
Tagging in some pals & Dieter fans, let me know if you'd prefer to be taken off (or would like to be added).
They've grown up so much since we've met them, but gosh there are moments here where the enormity of their tragedy makes them feel and seem so young.
You've managed to so perfectly capture that eerie combination of comfort and and vulnerability that comes from being seen at your lowest by the people that love you and seeing someone you love so low. That way that Dieter is so lost and boyish and so ready to hear her anger kills me every time, this line: He taps a finger against his too prominent cheekbone, “Right here, angel. I can take it, I deserve it.” The way he is stuck with this horrible thing he couldn't get a handle on and yet at the same time is punishing himself, in part because of what he knows it does to her is 🥺
Her response, too, feels so driven by that feeling... it's achingly moving how she can't help but crawl onto that bed with him, to feel the comfort of his closeness, the tangibility of his body. I loved this: "he feeling of Dieter beneath your skin still so sacred." I always love how you borrow from worshipful and religious metaphor and I think it's particularly apt here when thinking about how raw and, in a sense (but not in others lol), pure their connection is, how deeply it reaches into them, how powerful it is to generate pockets in time that are just theirs...
Seeing her try and give him her protection and that sense of safety through her own touch has a bit of religiosity to it, too, in an interesting way. That kind of hope of a miracle, that she might be able to create her own divine intervention. It has such a softness and an almost-innocence to it, even as she is so aware of the realities of where they are and why. I think the fact that she does have that awareness makes it even more devastating that she has that urge to try and give him that comfort, to hope that this is a world where if she can give enough, at least some of his pain and troubles won't find him.
I think the line that probably haunts me the most is: He tastes bad, like regret and charcoal. The way kissing him is a mode of communication for them, a manifestation of the magnetism between them that they've never been able to shake, a form of her care and the way he reciprocates it, but now is disturbed by that clear reminder of why they are together... it's such a perfectly selected and communicated detail and it makes me weep for them, for everything about their situations that makes a them untenable outside of the Dieter parallel universe.
Marcus Pike masterlist l masterlist l 800 words l M 18+
Summary: Marcus should have listened to his instincts.
Pairing: Marcus Pike x thief!reader
Warnings: Alcohol. Angst. Being ditched by a woman in hot pants. Theft of fries.
A/N: I wrote this for the Magic Number Writing Challenge hosted by @schnarfer @whocaresstillthelouvre and @mothandpidgeon . Lovely Al span for the wheel for me, and my three prompts were Marcus Pike, Jack Daniels & Reader. She was then kind enough to lend me her thief reader from her fic The Cowboy & The Thief and we asked ourselves "What if she's left a guy behind, and what if that guy was Marcus?" This was meant to be just a moodboard, but I accidentally wrote a few words to go with it.
“I’m trying to be good.” She says as she orders a side salad instead of a plate of fries. When their food arrives, she steals three fries of his off his plate and dips them into his strawberry milkshake, curling them into her mouth like a potato claw. “Can’t stop being bad, though.”
“I don’t mind you bad, if this is bad.” Marcus smiles at her. She is a little wilder than anyone he’s dated before, untamed in a way that scares and excites him.
She always seems to have one eye on the exit wherever they are. Always glances up at security cameras and clocks the cars in the parking lot on date night, or keeps her shoes on if they are just hanging out at his place. Her strangest tell, one he should be brave and ask her about, is how much she hates cowboys and bristles if she even hears country music. He’d once seen her freeze on the spot when a man in a Stetson walked into a bar they were in.
He tries to be her anchor, tries to ground her or maybe even save her as best he can. He hopes that maybe this time he can love someone enough for both of them.
The road trip had been her idea. Three weeks, the two of them, and one beaten up old map. She’s sold him a cosy vision of quirky motels and gas station breakfasts at sunrise all leading up to a weekend at a rock festival. The tickets had sold out months ago but somehow she’s got two, and backstage passes. Marcus just said yes to the trip, blinded by the thrill of her planning something with him more than three days in advance.
He sits on the end of her bed as she packs her overnight bag and lets out a low whistle as she tosses a tiny pair of denim shorts and a black vintage looking waistcoat into her case.
“Why have I never seen you in these before?” He smirks.
“They’re my bad girl clothes, and I’m being good now.” She steps into the gap between his legs and lifts his chin so that he’s looking up at her. “At least until the festival, when I plan to let my hair down a little.”
---
Marcus wakes late in a motel he can’t entirely remember checking in to. He screws up his eyes against the mid-morning sun that is already blazing through the thin red and orange floral curtains. His mouth feels cottony, and he blindly pats the bedside table for a glass of water he’s sure he put there before he'd fallen asleep, but feels nothing but the concertinaed shade of a knocked over lamp.
The dull throb of a hangover beats in his temples, and he tries to remember what the hell he was thinking last night, why he’d let her keep filling his glass with whiskey but not her own. A double, then a second glass, then a third. He rolls over, causing the polyester bedding to crackle against his skin, and his palm smooths over a side of the bed that is oddly cold. He mumbles her name into the pillow, a question, and then hauls himself up to sit with his back against the wicker headboard.
It’s another hour before he admits to himself that she’s gone. She’s left all her clothes except for one outfit, his stomach twists when he realises which one, and taken off with the car and his wallet.
It’s another three weeks before he finally cancels his stolen credit card.
He watches her travel further and further away from him with every new town she stops in for groceries or gas. At first he thinks that she must know that he knows where she is. Maybe she wants him to find her? She left her phone charger behind in the motel, perhaps that’s why her phone doesn’t ring anymore?
It’s another month until a file lands on his desk with a question mark hanging in the air above it. An intriguing theft, not his usual area of work, but could he help just this once? A stack of photos still warm from the printer depicting a Burst — his band days were long behind him but he still knew his guitars — some grainy CCTV footage from a music festival depicting a slightly bow legged cowboy, a roadie’s van, and her.
There’s that little voice in his head again, the one that whispers about hope and paints pictures of his future in all the brightest colours. Maybe he can find her, maybe he can save her.
Oh this feels like the ultimate “honey, no.” Poor Marcus, what a heart that boy has.
Such an interesting exploration of his character and how he so very much wants to love. It’s such a stubborn hope for it to marry his yearning heart with his analytical mind in a way that defies thinking badly of her, that always flips to the positive. You can see why he gets his heart broken so often yet lives to give puppy dog eyes another day.
The twisty logic of this:
At first he thinks that she must know that he knows where she is. Maybe she wants him to find her?
It’s very fun to see him try to give everything to such a sharp, untameable gal, although I must admit I cringed quite hard at that “I can fix her” attitude 😂. Loved seeing how you tied it all together with what we know of Al’s thief and that i this was set so close to the events of that story! That aversion to cowboys… 😭😭😭
Series rating: Explicit - here be smut (my whole blog is over 18’s only please)
Summary: Best friends to lovers, to worse.
Wordcount: 7,049
Part 2 Content: Set in 2008 & Dieter and reader are around 24 here. Switches between reader and Dieter POV. References to drugs & alcohol. Dieter is bi. Reader has a nickname (Angel). Emotional torment and longing. Infidelity and smut (big snogs, pussy eating, fingering, p in v). There are Britishism in here but I kept them because I liked them, yeah? Fucking about with canon. Soulmates & Best friends to toxic lovers. Always Fleabag coded. Let me know if I missed anything.
Listen to: The Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Maps
A/N: I adore these two and I loved writing this part, emotional torment and all. I hope you enjoy this whirlwind too, please do let me know what you think! As always, huge thanks to @toomanytookas for the beta read and helping me to create this world. So much love to @secretelephanttattoo @mothandpidgeon @whocaresstillthelouvre & @pascalssbabyy for being my cheerleaders. 🖤
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I Think Of You All Of The Time - 2008
It’s not like you to fret over what to wear. You’re normally pretty decisive and you don’t exactly have a mountain of clothes to choose from. You have very specific taste, so you’d rather go without than have something you only vaguely like. Your wardrobe is carefully curated with vintage pieces, thrift store finds, sample sale bargains and essentials from American Apparel. You’re the classic New York scenester, right down to your second-hand cowboy boots and heavily winged eyeliner. Looking like you’ve fallen into your wardrobe and right back out again is an art you’ve perfected.
Not today though. Today you’re seeing Dieter fucking Bravo for the first time, in real life, in four years. Not since your twentieth birthday have your paths managed to cross in the actual flesh. He’s been busy living his dream in LA and you have a new life you’ve been building in New York. Your friendship has survived through detailed missives via email; reporting on each new adventure, turning disasters into funny stories, hooting with laughter at the newest, stupidest misdeed from Dieter on set. Your confessions only involve other people’s feelings now, never your own. Long paragraphs from Dieter about the co-star who has a crush on him and he keeps snogging because he’s bored, or your own laments about the tedious guy you keep seeing because his Daddy helpfully owns a load of restaurants that you could now eat at for free.
You’re careful not to speak into existence the nights you’ve cried yourself to sleep because you skipped lunch again to afford your travel to work, or that you’ve missed Dieter so much you keep thinking you catch sight of him on the subway. The tales you tell are designed to paint a picture that doesn’t truly reflect reality, allowing him the luxury of never having to worry about you. Disguise the fact that the thought of seeing him again is making your eyes go too bright and your skin hot and uncomfortable.
You finally pick out one of your favourite dresses, a midnight number that’s so dark it’s almost black. Delicate lace stretches over your chest and skin tight velvet hugs your curves. Obscenely short. Paired with thick black opaque tights and well worn, Cuban-heeled boots with a heavy tassel. A slick of Chanel Red to complete the look. Nonchalant in the most fuckable sense. You swallow thickly at the thought he’ll be coming back here, to your little apartment, to stay. A whole season of Dieter whilst he rehearses and then performs in a new play. A whole season of you continuing to watch his star ascend.
You yank the hemline of your dress down a touch, try to crush the fizzing in your chest at the prospect of seeing those dark brown eyes once again, seeing how LA has changed him, watch him take in how New York has changed you. Are you tougher now perhaps, more resilient, do you walk with a purpose you didn’t have before? Being alone, truly, for the first time since you were six, not having Dieter’s hands to pull you through the crowd, no safety net of his teasing, playful words to bolster you, prop you up when you’re not sure. Maybe it’s a positive thing. It doesn’t do any good to be soft here, gentleness is not rewarded; strength and determination are how you survive. That and pointy elbows.
You brace yourself for the cold evening air, shrugging on your giant Afghan coat and holding it tight against you.
You see him before he sees you, hoodie up, but even then the shape of him is distinctive against the crowd. Too skinny really, lots of angles, jeans too low on that tiny waist and the curve of his broad shoulders pulling tight across his beaten up leather jacket. There’s a sliver of skin exposed to the elements where his top doesn’t meet the band of his boxers and you involuntarily shiver at the idea of the cold air hitting his body. Dieter never was any good at keeping still. He’s pacing the street where you said you’d meet, a rollie between those plush lips. You feel a smile pulling at your mouth. You couldn’t stop it even if you wanted to, especially now his eyes have met yours. His whole face lights up instantly and he’s running, running, towards you at full speed.
“Angel!” It’s an excited yelp that reaches you just as he knocks the air right out of you, sweeps you up off the ground and into an embrace, holding you so tight. The grip of his arms feels like home. He smells the same, familiar and comforting, so you breathe him in, your head staying nestled against his shoulder, the leather of his jacket soft against your face. It’s a long time before he puts you back down on the ground. When you take a step back to look at that beautiful face, his deep, dark brown eyes are glistening
“D, are you crying?”
He makes a show of swiping a finger under each eye, “I am not… it’s the wind, it’s fucking cold here.” He breaks into a grin, those perfect pearly whites shining against the golden hue of his skin, “OK fine, maybe a little. I’m an actor, angel. I have a lot of emotions, yeah?”
“Yeah and don’t I know it.” Your head tilts as you gently mock him, the affection you feel swelling in your chest means you simply have to reach out your hands and hold onto his, make that physical connection again.
Dieter squeezes you right back, as if to reassure himself you’re real, “Hey, hey, none of that, don’t be mean to me. I know you’re a big corporate girl now, probably don’t have emotions any more. Probably made a PowerPoint to take me through your dating history so I’m all caught up?”
You snort a reply, “What do you know about PowerPoint?”
“Absolutely fuck all, angel, and I intend to keep it that way.” He leans towards you and sweeps the hair out of your eyes before cupping your cheeks in those big hands, takes a moment to study your face, “I’ve missed this, I’ve missed us.”
“Yeah, me too, D.”
There’s a pause, a silence that’s filled with so much, too much. Dieter twists so his arm is around you now so you’re hip to hip and your arm can snake around that stupidly tiny waist. Tucked up against him in a way that feels just right.
“Right. Let’s go get really fucked up. Lead the way, angel.”
You’ve seen Dieter in probably 30 different plays since your childhood, and now you make sure to record all of his TV appearances, may or may not have a little scrapbook where you stick pictures of him when he pops up in the gossip mags. It’s not like a dedicated one or anything, just if you see something, you tend to rip it out and it was easier to keep it all in one place. You haven’t glued them down, just slid them into the pages. It’s where you put the birthday cards his mom sends. Tucked in a kitchen drawer in your minuscule galley kitchen of your New York apartment. Safe, but out of sight. The only visible sign that you used to be best friends with Dieter fucking Bravo is a single black and white strip of photobooth pictures of the two of you when you were 17 hanging on your ancient fridge.
It’s the press night of Dieter’s new show in New York and you’re sat almost front row, a few seats back from a host of critics, clutching your cup of warm white wine to your chest nervously. He’s got something of a cult following these days, there’s a bunch of Bravette’s patiently waiting by the stage door to try and get his autograph.
You worry at your lip, you feel like you’re always more nervous than him before these things, the anxiety churns around in your stomach until he’s said his first lines, when you’re sure he’s going to be as brilliant as he inevitably is. He’s been rehearsing for weeks, you’re pretty sure you know his lines as well as he does now.
A girl you vaguely know of as Sexy Sadie, her real name is Claire but you can see how she’s earned the moniker from Dieter, makes her way over to the empty seat next to you. She gives you a broad smile, recognising you from your brief introductions over drinks recently and leans in to whisper to you before the show begins. You’re surprised she’s British, a soft, posh accent coming through as she shifts closer to you.
“So you’re the best friend? Can’t tell you how much Dieter has told me about you. You’re in PR, yah?”
“Yes, I’m at Rubenstein, beauty stuff mainly at the moment. Not sure how I ended up specialising in that, but it’s fun. Like, really hard work, but it’s fun.”
“Well weirdly enough, so do I. I’m at Ketchum. Transferred from my agency’s London office for a three year project. Still can’t get over living in New-bloody-York. It’s even more frantic than London.”
You feel your eyes go bright, “I’ve always wanted to go to London. We should have a cocktail some time, I’d love to hear more about living there.”
Sadie gives you a warm, conspiratorial smile, “Darling I’d love that. I can grill you all about Dieter as well. I demand embarrassing teenage photos and a rundown of all the times you’ve snogged, please.”
“Oh, there was no kissing, I promise,” your laugh is real, even if the tug at your chest doesn’t feel good. A sore spot that’s never quite healed, easily nicked and reopened when you try so hard to ignore it.
She looks utterly perplexed, “No snogging with Dieter Bravo, the man who literally snogs anyone? He’s such a slut, I don’t believe it! I’ve snogged him at least twice and I’m a lesbian.”
You roar with laughter, you like this girl very much already, “He is, he is such a slut. Always has been. But I promise, we’re just friends.”
You’re saved from any more probing questions by curtain up. You take a big swig of your horribly warm wine, grimace as you swallow it down. You don’t normally let yourself revisit the last time ‘just friends’ almost became a lie. Prom night was such a disaster, you and Dieter never spoke of it again. You’re fairly sure he pretended not to remember and you chose not to bring it up, continuing your friendship over thousands of miles and a mountain of unsaid feelings. Easier that way.
It’s like you silently called a truce, one that means you can continue with the charade, both live the lie. The ‘friends who don’t think about each other naked’, lie. The ‘you’ve never ever, ever, waited until he left the apartment for rehearsals so you could finger fuck yourself to the thought of him, skin soaking wet, hard, playing with himself in your shower’ lie. Those ones.
It’s as if you keep Dieter locked in a separate part of your heart, shut tight against the real world. As long as you keep telling yourself these stories, you can make-believe you don’t notice how he watches you get ready for your dates with boring Randy. Pretend that Dieter’s eyes absolutely do not rake up and down your body slowly, greedily, eyebrows raised appreciatively. What he does to himself once you’ve gone is none of your business. Certainly doesn’t haunt you as you try to feign interest in your tedious boyfriend. When, on your most recent date, you tried not to feel the disappointment at how Randy’s eyes didn’t sparkle with mischief when he got a glance of your arse as you leaned down to pick something up.
The way you know you can turn Dieter on, it’s dangerous; so easy, so tempting. For such a good actor he was always fucking easy to read, you practically watch the filthy thoughts flicker across his mind, the naughty smile that creeps up onto his face, lopsided grin just begging to be kissed off.
The shared domesticity of living together hasn’t dampened this down as you’d expected. You’d thought perhaps it would become overfamiliar, the want that you nursed becoming numbed by dirty dishes and not enough space. Instead it’s only grown in the rhythms of your shared existence. Like the years between seeing each other had been but a needle jump on the record and you’ve gone right back to playing the same tune again. Teasing, playful, easily lost in each other's eyes as you bend over the tiny bathroom sink to brush your teeth together in the mornings. How easy it would have been to lean back against him this morning, feel the hardness you knew was there, just waiting for you. It made you dizzy, looking at his beautiful face, the patchy beard that now adorns it, the mismatched tattoos decorating his golden skin. You’d like to trace your tongue over every one, count his freckles with your teeth, lick his fingers whilst he watched you under darkening eyes. What would he taste like? Minty from the toothpaste, but warm, you guessed, an undercurrent of cigarettes and sweetness. You know exactly what it would be really; love. With all its confusion and desire, tangled up in the words that sat on both your tongues.
Fuck.
Dieter is stoned in your living room again. You smell him before you see him. You’re rushing to get changed before you have to go out to a press event, practically tripping over him as you try and find your one sensible pair of work heels.
“Jesus, D, have you done anything with your day at all? You’re still gonna be high when you get to the theatre?”
“Mmmmm….” his hand wraps around your ankle, warm, tender in his dope filled haze, “Doesn’t matter, I could do it in my sleep now.”
You crouch down, try and gently untangle his hand from around you, “That’s because you choose plays that are too easy for you, D. You’re bored.”
He makes a noncommittal noise but his fingers grip tighter, a sloppy grin spreading across his face as you watch him gradually realise he just has to give you one hard yank to make you fall on top of him. He moves in slow motion but you let him, a pleasure in letting him think that he’s won the game when you’ve been fully in control the whole time. Still, a jolt of excitement runs up your spine as he does it, bringing you down onto his chest, your hands falling around his broad shoulders, bright eyes meeting his red rimmed ones. He’s so soft like this, it makes your heart ache, makes you melt a little into the cosy warmth of him.
His words are slow, but considered, “You think I’m dumb.”
“No, I think you’re better than this.” You know he’s not listening, watch his eyes travel down to your lips, trying to focus as you run your tongue against the seam, your own little game, “And that you smoke too much skunk. I’ll make you a coffee before I go, yeah?”
You roll off him, give the clock a quick glance and leap up when you realise you’ve only got twenty minutes to finish getting ready.
Dieter calls after you lazily, “I didn’t just get stoned. I did you a picture, angel. I put it on the fridge.”
You spot it under a Hello Kitty magnet, next to the photobooth strip of you both at seventeen. A ballpoint pen sketch of you asleep on the sofa. Totally idealised, you reason, a softness to you that you don’t think is there in real life, but a glimpse into the girl that Dieter sees. You sigh, let it sit with you for a second, as if you can feel the warmth of his gaze, the beauty he finds in you that you can’t see yourself.
You hurriedly start making a coffee for him.
The theatre is dark tonight and Dieter is delighted that it means he gets to enjoy a rare moment of quiet with you. For once you’re not rushing out the door to a work event, instead you’re sat on the floor, knees drawn up tight to your chest, arms bare and twisted unnaturally as you smoke your way through a packet of Dieter’s cigarettes. Half eaten Chinese takeout boxes sit discarded by the TV,as it burbles in the background unwatched, an uneven soundtrack to this haunted dusk. The ghosts move effortlessly between the stillness, hundreds of evenings just like this flicker between you, a slideshow of laughter and tears and companionable silence. Of scraped knees and bruised hearts, late homework and surreptitious glances, of hands that never quite reached for each other in the way they longed to.
This past that constantly bleeds into your present is shifting, realigning with the reality of two people that hold each other so close that they’re touching without even being conscious they’re seeking the other. A new tension has been hanging in the air since Dieter’s arrival, from the moment his haphazardly tattooed arms had wrapped around your frame in a hello. He’d held on too long and he loved that he didn’t feel you pull back, just rocking back and forth in each other’s arms until he physically couldn’t hold you up any longer. There was always a comfort in each other’s presence, but now there’s an edge of awkwardness, a tingle of anticipation that something is about to change.
Dieter is stretched out on his back on the floor, gazing up at you as the evening sunset pours through the window, rays of orange cutting through the dust and smoke, soaking you in. He can’t help but think how beautiful you are.
“You’re so fucking hot, angel.”
You shake your head slowly, take a swift drag on the cigarette, “Don’t.”
Dieter props himself up on his elbows, brow creased in confusion, “What? Can’t I tell my best friend how insanely beautiful she is? You know it, right? You’ve always known it, surely?”
Your head is still shaking, as if batting away the compliment.
“This is the longest time we’ve spent together in years, D. Can we really still call each other best friends?”
He’s sincere, eyes wide, “Of course? You’ll always be my best friend, even… even if…” He wants to say even if everything changes, even if you become more, even if you break his heart or turn him down or whatever thousand ways it could all go dreadfully wrong, “Just, I don’t know how to say it right, angel, but I think we’re soulmates.”
Dieter feels a bit shocked that he’s said it so casually. This truth has been sitting on the tip of his tongue since he was old enough to know what the word even meant, and now he’s just thrown it out there on a random Tuesday evening. He waits for it to hit, eyes never leaving your face, taking in each microexpression, the way the corners of your brows move up almost imperceptibly, a tightening of your jaw. It’s such a familiar feeling, trying to read your thoughts, the same ache in his chest where he frets that he’s fucked everything up again.
You sigh a little as you begin to speak, your voice strangely flat, “I keep reading all these self-help books and fucking, like, inspirational quotes that tell me that there are people in your life who are like the seasons, they come and go and it’s special and magical and you learn some shit about yourself, but then you move on.” You take a deep drag of your cigarette, eyes not meeting his, “But I can’t… I can’t seem to move on, it’s like somehow my world stopped spinning and the seasons stopped changing and it’s only ever you, forever, just like, ingrained in my life. I keep waiting to wake up and not think of you, for it to finally be a new spring day where I’m free of this tug at my sleeve and the itch at my skin that something’s wrong, something is missing because you’re not fucking here with me.”
You can’t look at him, eyes glassy, mouth held tight again, a hard line where softness should sit, as if you’re holding more truths in. The cigarette burns, smoke swirling around you and ash piling up but not flicked away, as if you can’t bear to move your wrist even slightly to tap it. That in this moment, keeping entirely still is what’s holding you together.
Dieter struggles to think of how to reply to this outpouring of a grief that he too feels. That you’re etched in permanent ink above his heart, that every other fuck and suck and kiss means so little to him because he knows, deep down, that you’re his story. You’re the one he’s supposed to reach for in the night and pull close. And being near to you again, being under the same roof and sharing the same polluted New York air and wet bathroom floor, it somehow made the distance seem greater. It hurts even more than when he was thousands of miles away, to know you’re in the bedroom across from the sofa he sleeps on, body curled up into a ball, sleeping like you’ve always slept, scrunched up to try and protect yourself from the unknown horrors of the night. He dreams of folding himself into you, becoming part of that little fortress of tangled limbs. All these missed moments of quiet joy you could have had and now it’s like you’re both furious with each other, angry that you never took the opportunity to be so much more but with no idea what to do with it.
Wanting you, dreaming of you, fantasising about you, it’s almost like a habit, like bedtime prayers and biting his nails, part of who Dieter is. What happens if it becomes reality, what will it be like if he reaches out and actually touches you with intent? Years of longing and denial all wrapped up in how he moves through each day. His mind is racing, trying to find words that might convey even the tiniest morsel of how he feels about you, “I’m… I’m here now. I want to be here now, with you. I always wanted, angel… I think you know what I’ve always wanted?” His words feel clumsy after your beautiful ones, “Please, please can you let me love you?”
Dieter knows, truly, in his stupid, feckless soul, that there is no going back now. So he leans a tentative hand out towards you, thumb against your chin, waits to see if you’ll lean into him or flinch away. He feels you soften beneath his touch now, yielding to his warmth, your eyes linger on his lips and Dieter decides to stop thinking. That the only way to quiet this assault of his doubts and fears is to cross that forbidden boundary, see if the dream can survive in your living, breathing world.
The first touch of his lips to yours is a taste of heaven. The second is even better, like coming home.
He can barely breathe, every ounce of his being tuned into the next press of your mouth, following your tongue with his own, teasing and tasting, lost in the dance you’ve been scared to try for so, so long. For once, he can’t remember a single reason why.
You stiffen ever so slightly, but he feels it instantly, pulls back to look into your eyes, the ones he swears he knows as well as his own. You stub out your cigarette, take a deep inhale of air.
“D… you know I’ve got a boyfriend.”
He pauses for only a heartbeat, murmurs, “Technically so do I.” His mouth finds yours again, soft but sure, “Do you want me to stop?”
You shake your head, already moving back into a kiss, “No, no I don’t want you to stop, D.”
Kisses on kisses. Dieter wants to savour every second, be soaked in your spit and dizzy with it before he can bear to let his tongue leave your pretty mouth. He feels like his heart might beat right out of his chest, his hips grinding against you to the rhythm of this frantic pulse, his whole body covering yours and pushing you against the hardwood floor as your lips melt together. Fuck, it feels good, to have you keen beneath him, legs wrapped around his waist, tilting your pelvis so he can rub himself against you as the kisses soften and deepen, warm and wet, opening up for each other, finally, finally.
You let out a little whimper from your throat and Dieter finds he has to chase it, has to have his tongue against your neck and make you whine again, feel the heat of you under his touch. Suddenly there are too many clothes in the way. It’s as if you realise at the same time, disentangling yourselves with a giggle, eyes bright and hungry for each other’s exposed flesh as you both shuck off your clothes as fast as possible. Just in your bra and panties now, Dieter holds onto your hands to stop you yanking the black lace down, shakes his head at you.
“Let me, angel, I can’t tell you how long I’ve dreamed of doing this.”
You give your shoulders a little shake, mischievous grin lighting up your eyes as you let him gaze at your body.
“You like what you see, D? Am I how you thought?”
“Better. I didn’t think it would be possible, but, fuck, you’re perfect.” He takes a bite, mouth around your hip, sucking at the flesh there and leaving indents of his teeth, as if he really means to eat you. You laugh, not soft, but loud, rounded, happy.
“D… I…” you stop speaking as he traces his tongue and his fingertips down your belly, tasting the salt of your skin before he reaches the sodden material that is barely keeping you decent. His head dips down and he runs his tongue against the black lace. He feels like his eyes are going to roll into the back of his head with the ecstasy of it all, fuck, the divine smell of your excitement, how wet he can feel you already are, how hot and sticky. Dripping for him, ready for him, he thinks he might just pass out from the longing, from the pulsing of his cock in heady anticipation of what you’ll taste like, what it’ll feel like to press his face into your heat and devour you.
“I’m gonna make you feel so good, angel, every filthy thought I’ve ever had about you, I’m going to write it on your cunt with my tongue. Do you know how many times I’ve fucked my fist thinking of this, of what you’d feel like?”
You gasp an urgent, “D, please, please.”
“I know angel, I know.” He hooks a finger each side of the flimsy material of your panties and drags them down, “Fuck, fuck, look at you. Prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Dieter doesn’t pause, instinctively licks a stripe across your pussy, groaning at the pleasure he wants to give, wants to feel you wriggling and bucking from the sheer joy of it. He can feel your hands raking through his hair, urging him on, hard tugs at his almost curls as he licks and sucks, circles his tongue firmly against your clit so that you cry his name.
He drags his nose against you, feels you shiver, looks up and sees your eyes blurry with pleasure, watching him, “Does it feel good, angel, do you like it?”
“Fuck yes, D, is feels so, so good. I need, I need your fingers, I need you in me.”
He likes that, likes you telling him what to do. He kisses his way back up your body, nuzzles at your breasts, before he’s looking into your eyes again. One hand lazily curled around your throat, he pushes his thumb into your mouth, your eyes dark and filled with sex, his chest tightening as you bite down on his thumb, sucking and then soaking it with your spit.
Dieter whines, “Jesus Christ, you’re gonna make me fucking come if you do that again.”
You laugh, but you’re more gentle with the next finger, just trace your tongue along it, wetting it delicately, tiny flick of your pink tongue along his thick digit, before you take his middle finger into your mouth. Dieter watches you under his lashes, his cheeks flushed with happiness, a guttural moan leaving his chest as your hand snakes down his chest and holds him tight around his throbbing cock.
You release his finger with a pop, “You’re so big, D, I always thought maybe… but… so big and so pretty. I want you to fuck me.”
Dieter shakes his head, a hiss escaping as you gently pump him, “No. I want to make you come first, angel, then I want you to fuck me, yeah? I want you to ride me, use me, please? I want to watch your tits bounce.”
He sits up slightly, slips one, then two fingers into you, sliding easily into your wetness and warmth, curling his fingers to seek out where makes your eyes crease tightly shut, “want to watch you come apart on my cock, like you were made for me.” His thumb starts circling your clit, finding the right pressure to make you moan, “Please, angel, will you do that for me?”
He watches as you fall off the cliff edge, the prettiest thing he’s ever seen, your mouth crashing against his urgently, messily, as he feels you tightening around his fingers and a wave of euphoria hits his chest. That he could make you shake like that, that it was him that had you holding on so tight, tongue sloppy and eager, chasing him with your high. Fuck, it’s everything he’s ever dreamed of. He’s drunk on the lust that fills the air, on the scent of sex and want that’s filling his heart and lungs. It’s never felt like this before, never felt like this with anyone, this heady mix of desire and safety. That he can give himself entirely to you and be consumed, it’s all he’s ever wanted.
An urgency spirals down his spine as you wiggle out from underneath him and push him to the floor, your shaky legs wrapping around him as you lower your still throbbing cunt onto his achingly hard cock.
“I love you,” he stutters, words escaping as your warmth envelopes him.
You place one hand flat on his chest, angel tattoo beneath your hot palm, and wrap the other hand around his neck.
“I know, D, I know.” You lift yourself slowly, so slowly, every inch of him soaked in your wetness, teeth biting at your lips as you get used to the sensation.
His hands grip around your arse, helping to lift you and drag you back down, a steady rhythm of want, “And you love me, don’t you?” He knows his voice is edged with pleading, that there’s a desperation in his words, but he can’t pretend any more, can’t play this game while he’s in you and can feel your pulse beating in time with his own.
You lean down, cupping his face in both your hands, rubbing at the scuff you find there, looking into his begging eyes, and he swallows thickly, the tightening in his belly making him dizzy as you continue the steady punch of your hips, “I’ve always loved you, D.”
Everything sort of disappears around him, all he can do is feel, as if a white light blinds him to the world and it’s just you; his heartbeat, his twin soul, entwined in your joint bliss. It’s messy and hot and fucking perfect. You come again with a ‘fuck’ breathed heavy into his mouth and he follows shortly after, his own ‘angel’ whispered onto your shoulder as you collapse together onto the hard floor. Breathless, no more words left.
You nestle into the crook of his neck, your face pressed up against the furiously beating vein in his throat, crushed up against him in soft devotion. Your fingers play with the ring in his ear and Dieter truly believes he’s never been happier.
When Dieter wakes, you’re already up. He can hear you bashing around the kitchen and he tries to stifle his disappointment that you’re not tucked up next to him still. He allows himself a moment to take a deep sniff of your pillow, it smells of you; your fabric softener, your perfume, the sweat of both your skin after sex. It’s so intoxicating, he practically falls out of bed in his urgency to reach you, to press his mouth against yours again, make sure this is real, that he didn’t imagine the magic of last night. He wraps himself in your dressing gown, practically skips into the tiny galley kitchen.
“Morning, my angel,” he goes to slip his hands around your waist, pull you up close to him, nestle his head against your shoulder. It’s all he’s ever wanted.
Except, you flinch away from him, move quickly out of his path, removing yourself from his outstretched arms. He feels like you’ve thrown a glass of cold water in his face, he’s so confused his mouth actually falls open, the hurt washing over him and dripping down into his stomach.
“Wh..”
You cut him off immediately, eyes anywhere but his face, “I told you I have a boyfriend, Dieter. This,” you wave your arms around theatrically, halfway to the door already, “This can’t be a thing. I’ve got to go, I’ve got a breakfast meeting. Try and do something with your day that isn’t sitting around getting stoned until you have to go to the theatre, yeah?”
“But, I love you.”
You stop in front of the door, one hand on the handle, turn slowly to look at his devastated face, “I know. And I love you too, D. But it doesn’t change anything.”
You slip out of the door quickly, pulling it tight behind you with a firm click.
You’re wrong, of course. It changes everything.
You try to fight it, to ignore that pull in your gut towards him, but now the fuse has been lit and you can’t seem to stub it out. It happens again a few nights later. Your eyes keep meeting, knees bumping together under the table at dinner after his show with some mutual friends where you drink too much wine and spend too much time talking about old times. Then that stupid, infuriating half smile playing on Dieter’s lips as he lets a finger trace up your back while you walk to the club. That no one knows, that these friends are so used to your closeness they don’t suspect that there’s been a monumental shift in the timeline, it adds an element that you weren’t expecting at all. That secrecy makes this even more exciting. There’s a promise of sex now in your shared glances, a fizz in the air that is making you feel stupid, making you feel dizzy and, most of all, reckless.
It’s why you drag him into a toilet cubicle at the club, fingers desperate for his skin, lips locked onto his without a second thought. You feel no hesitation from Dieter, as if he’s been waiting all evening to devour you, tongue licking into your mouth as if it was written. You’re drunk and messy and it feels fucking incredible as he pushes your soaking panties to one side and fucks into you. Teeth at your throat, fingers both rough and playful as he seeks out your orgasm, making you come before he’ll let himself give in to the heat of you, spilling himself with a joyful ‘fuck’ moaned into your skin. You’re both laughing as you try to slink away, but he grabs hold of you, pushes you up against the wall and kisses you so hard it knocks the breath right out of you.
“Just wait until I get you home.”
That was you, you said that, the one who keeps telling Dieter this isn’t a thing. You, who is cold and aloof with him, who tries to push him away at every opportunity during the daylight but loses all sense of reason once the sun sets.
You find yourself counting down the seconds until you can leave work, or tapping your foot impatiently on dates with Randy. A little timer ticking in your head that runs down until you can have Dieter’s fluffy, wild hair in your hands, his mouth toying with yours, bodies fused together in a hot, slippery mess of want. It’s like you’re addicted to him. Any sense of what might be wrong with your behaviour, how confusing it is for Dieter, how unfair it is on your boyfriend let alone the boyfriend waiting for Dieter back in LA, you don’t waste a moment thinking about it. Squish down the moral part of you that used to guide your actions, instead just gorge yourself on the love and infatuation that pulses between you and Dieter.
Gradually it doesn’t have to be dark for you to hide this obsession you have with each other. It creeps into the mornings, makes you late for meetings and has you daydreaming at your desk, all bitten lips and last night’s eyeliner. You shower together before work, enjoy lazy breakfasts at the weekends before you push him out the door to make the matinee, only emerging otherwise to get groceries and more condoms.
It’s so heady and exciting and, somehow, not entirely real.
Dieter has tried to stop himself being jealous, to pretend like he’s cool with this loose arrangement you have together. Which is apparently; fucking at every opportunity and never, ever discussing your feelings. Or your boyfriends. But tonight he can’t help it, he’s been hanging around at a bar with some friends from the play and he’s keyed up. There were shots and lines, so he’s jumpy as hell, feeling worse and worse about himself as he waits for you to finish your fancy dinner date with Randy and come find him.
You slide into the bar without a backwards glance, reapplying your Chanel lipstick with the aid of a delicate gold mirror you keep stashed in your handbag. It’s in the shape of a shell, Dieter recognises it as one he bought you many years ago, found at a thrift store and he knew you’d love it. Strangely it doesn’t make him feel sentimental, instead it’s like he’s just another thing from your past tucked away in your handbag and only used when you need it.
Dieter downs his drink, fingers itchy and uncomfortable. He knows he’s the wrong side of the booze, sneaks off to the gents for another line to straighten himself out. His jaw is grinding by the time you leave the bar together. You’re dancing down the street as if you don’t have a care in the world, fingers tugging at his, playful, hungry eyes shooting in his direction. You look fucking gorgeous and for a moment Dieter hates you for it.
He can’t stop his mouth, “Do you even like him?”
You laugh, amused still, seemingly unaware of the storm that’s brewing under Dieter’s skin, “Randy? Of course I fucking like him, fuck off.”
He spits out the name, “Fucking Randy. I can’t get over that you’re going to ditch me for some guy called Randy.”
You’re trying to keep it light, link your arm through his, voice teasing, “Alright Dieter fucking Bravo. And I’m not ditching you, I never had you. We’ve got a couple of weeks before you’re going to leave me again and I will still be here… I have a proper life in New York, Dieter, and I have some kind of future with Randy, I’ve worked hard at that relationship.”
Dieter can’t match your tone, bitterness edging each word, “Worked hard? Jesus Christ, so sexy, so romantic.”
You don’t like that. Drop his arm, step away from him as you keep walking, “Jesus, you’re such a child still! Relationships take work, Dieter, just because you’re pissing about like you’re 17 doesn’t mean the rest of us are.”
His voice is raised now, “Oh yeah, worked hard at being taken out for nice dinners and being brought fancy handbags have you? Worked hard at not falling asleep whilst he explains another thing you know far more about than him?”
You’re shouting right back, “Oh, right, of course. Because I’m not allowed nice things, I’m not supposed to have someone who adores me and wants to buy expensive things for me. I should be suffering and miserable, should I? Does that fit with your idealised version of me? Suffering demurely whilst I sit pretty and wait for you to fucking grow up?”
Suddenly, somehow, you’ve become a couple that fights in the street. People are crossing the road to avoid you. Both of you have a flair for the dramatic, arms flailing, no attempt to quiet how loud you’ve become.
Dieter yells, anger right at the surface, even when what he’s saying is a kindness, “I know you. You’re not like that. You always wanted a big love, a big romance. This guy isn’t that, you’d be fucking settling!”
You’re quieter when you reply, sullen almost.
“Yeah, well maybe the big love wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
You still sleep together that night, angry and brittle as you are, more of a continuation of the fight than the delicate or lust filled sex you’ve been having. It’s sort of empty, the afterglow a strangely silent affair, wrapped in each other's arms but not speaking, limbs heavy with sex but instead of softness and warmth, a burden hangs in the air.
Dieter checks into a shitty hotel for his last weeks in New York.
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Tagging in some pals & Dieter fans, let me know if you'd prefer to be taken off (or would like to be added).
Oh, the things we swallow because of how deeply we might believe we must sacrifice when it comes to those we love. 🥺
As always, Al, you have worked your magic to show us the hurt on both sides, the parallel journeys of ache and yearning and not getting to truly have that sparkly love they both had in their hearts for so long…
It really does make me weepy to think about this sense that each of them has swallowed something so painful as part of staying in orbit.
This line in particular was sooo achy and communicated so much of the way she has been swallowing that bitter pill of her disappointment and loss of him since prom, no matter how successful and strong and independent she’s come to be:
The tales you tell are designed to paint a picture that doesn’t truly reflect reality, allowing him the luxury of never having to worry about you
I think it’s so interesting how she sheds some of that protective, almost coddling behaviour when they are reunited in the flesh and she’s confronted with the ways in which he, too, has become his own person, and yet also has chosen not to really grow up at all. The almost childlike purity of the way he believes everything will change for them and his conviction of their soulmatehood (soulmatery? soulmatitude?) felt so soft and to see it crushed hurt me because I wanted to believe even as it felt like such naïveté… I think it’s also so interesting to place into context with the choice he made all those years ago? Kind of that question of whether we carve our own fate to make those connections real vs do we just let the wind take us and believe things will happen eventually? And what does it mean when one believes one and the other the other?
Anyway, I’m rambling, but just one little spotlight more on this:
Dieter recognises it as one he bought you many years ago, found at a thrift store and he knew you’d love it. Strangely it doesn’t make him feel sentimental, instead it’s like he’s just another thing from your past tucked away in your handbag and only used when you need it.
My chest hurts every time I read it and I think it’s such a fascinating glimpse of that like… waiting for her to come home and pick him up to play with him again feeling that it can be so easy to get trapped submitting to when you have fallen in love with someone who isn’t available to you in the same way? Still almost passively hopeful about their dynamic, but now because she’s almost forced him to be. Swallowing, swallowing and not voicing the pain of it… until they just can’t do anything but explode.
And then THEN you leave us with that ache of seeing how they still couldn’t let go of each other even after that fight… couldn’t help but be drawn together and yet… to what end? That sort of cosmic magnetic draw that is an all consuming black hole that doesn’t give back anything of what you give, so unsatisfying and yet impossible to ignore.
I probably have stopped making sense, so I’ll end it here. My heart hurts for both of them. I’ve cried soooo many tears for both of them. You are a magician. An evil evil magician. Forever in awe. 🖤
Series rating: Explicit - but just yearning for this part (my whole blog is over 18’s only please)
Summary: Best friends to lovers, to worse.
Wordcount: 5,237
Part 1 Content: Set in 2002 & Dieter and reader are around 17 here. Mainly Dieter POV, ends with reader POV. Body piercing & tattoos. Childhood best friends in love. A lot of teen angst and longing. References to drugs & alcohol, dead parent, poverty. Dieter is bi. Reader has a nickname (Angel). There are Britishism in here but I kept them because I liked them, yeah? A line from The Royal Tenenbaums because I was obsessed with that film when I was their age. Fucking about with canon. Soulmates & Best friends to toxic lovers. Always Fleabag coded. Let me know if I missed anything.
Listen to: New Radicals - You Get What You Give
A/N: I love them. And I really, really really hope you love them too. Part 2 same time next week. As always, huge thank you to my beloved @toomanytookas for the beta read and listening to me wail about them incessantly since probably January. So much love to @secretelephanttattoo @mothandpidgeon @whocaresstillthelouvre & @pascalssbabyy for being my cheerleaders. 🖤
Series Masterlist / NEXT
I Think Of You All Of The Time
It’s more than just a sharp scratch as the pin pierces Dieter’s earlobe. It’s an agony, having you straddled on his lap, leant in so close he can feel your breath hot on his neck, thighs tightening around his waist as you try to stop him from wriggling away.
You give him a hard whack on the top of his bare arm, the slap echoing around his bedroom, followed by your raucous laughter, “Hold still, D, I’ve still got to get the ring in. Quit your squirming.”
It’s not the ear piercing that’s Dieter’s problem, it’s the raging hard-on he’s trying desperately to conceal. If you move just an inch backwards he’s terrified you’ll feel how fucking turned on he is right now.
You’ve chosen a simple gold hoop for him, carefully threading it through the new hole and slipping it into place. You sit back slightly to admire your work and you let out a sudden loud squeak, as Dieter practically hurls you off him and into the messy, unmade bed. It’s littered with books of plays with a million turned corners, half eaten Kit Kats and ‘in progress’ sketches in everything from chalk to ballpoint pen. A little nest of Dieter, a cocoon of safety the two of you have been retreating to since you were both six years old.
He skuttles off the bed, all skinny loose limbs and skin golden from sitting out on the science building roof during your lunch breaks, “Gotta check out my new look, make sure you didn’t fuck it up.”
You scoff, “I did not fuck it up, D, it looks cool. Now you’re gonna have to keep it clean, you don’t want it getting gross. No scaring off all those casting directors.”
Dieter isn’t really listening, he’d pressed up against the tiny mirror above his sink, pretending to admire the new ring but really trying to think of anything, literally anything, so he can get rid of the tent that’s formed in his jeans.
Math lessons. Mrs. Palmer’s math lessons. Mrs. Palmer’s math lessons and it’s double algebra.
Problem is, he knows in math class he just has to turn his head slightly and you’ll be sat right there next to him. Tiny bit of tongue poking out as you try to concentrate on the lesson, your brain whirring as you copy down the formulas and give him a sharp kick under the table to remind him to look forward and not at you. He can’t help it, he could look at you forever. The way your lips part, a glimpse of the wetness of your tongue flicking back inside and fuck, he’s making it much worse again.
He hops up and down a few times, dances around as he runs his hands through his increasingly wild hair, “Yeah, yeah, I promise, rubbing alcohol, yada yada.”
Maybe the jeans are thick enough that you won’t notice, he reasons. Just because he feels like he’s about to explode doesn’t mean you have any awareness of the depraved thoughts that are running rampant in his teenage head.
Hormones, right? Just hormones. That’s why he can’t stop thinking about you, his best friend, and what it would be like to hold your face and part your lips with his. Let his hands reach out to you and slide them against your hips, pull your body close to his. It’s been unbearable recently, this trend for ultra low slung jeans, the ones that you pair with a tight baby-t or worse, one of his t-shirts you’ve hacked off the bottom of. An expanse of your tummy always visible, always taunting him with your softness, with what it would be like to run his tongue against your skin, bite at the flesh, taste you. He has to physically shake his head, freshly pierced ear stinging somewhat, to remove these thoughts from his overheating brain.
Unfortunately, Dieter’s mouth often runs away without his brain being remotely involved, “What can I pierce on you?”
You’ve sunk back against the poster-covered wall, thumbing at a poetry anthology and your attention seems to be elsewhere, he’s not sure if you heard him. Maybe it’s for the best, he doesn’t know if he could stop himself from doing something really fucking stupid if he were to get that close to you. Just a pin and the single ounce of common sense he has left standing between him and disaster.
Your voice is quiet when you do speak.
“I really want my belly button done but… I think I’d need it done properly so it doesn’t go gross and I’ve got no fucking money, have I? I never have any fucking money.”
“You and me both, angel.”
You roll your eyes dramatically at him, then press your hands against them, rubbing silently. Your ever-present thick black eyeliner smudging even more, layers of the stuff clinging to your lashes, to the hollows of your eyes.
Dieter knows, really, it’s different, that his lack of cash isn’t the same as yours; his comes with a fridge full of food, heating always on in the winter, no stress about new school shoes at the start of the semester. It’s the reason you always hang out at his, rather than three doors down the hall at yours. It’s cold there, the lights don’t always turn on, the cupboards are more often than not bare. He hates to think of it, wants to wrap you up in a blanket of his care and stop you from ever having to leave the safety of his mom’s apartment, but he knows you’d shake it off, chin held defiantly in the air, the refusal to be pitied or accept help written all over your face.
He drops down on the bed next to you, crawls up on his tummy close to you, frown creasing his pretty brow, chews on his lip, “If I get that stupid hair gel commercial gig, l’ll take us down to the tattoo place to celebrate. You can have your belly pierced and I wanna get my first tattoo. Commemorate the beginning of my rise to stardom.”
As you trace your hand over your exposed belly button, Dieter has to look away, rocks his hips slightly on the bed below him, a tiny tinge of relief. He waits to see if you’ll accept the kindness or bat it away. He can never quite tell if he’s done the right thing.
“That’d be cool, D. What are you going to get?”
He sighs with happiness, delighted that you’ve accepted his gift, “Just a tattoo of your face on my chest, yeah?”
After Dieter confided in his mom late one night that he thought you were often going to school hungry, she had found a way to make your life that little bit better without you realising.
His mom had pressed a key into your palm, “I’d been meaning to give you a spare key for a while now, please take it so you can let Dieter in when he forgets his,” she said it so easily, a master storyteller just like her son, “But you can use it whenever you want. You know, my schedule is all early shifts for the next few weeks, it would be a real help if you came for breakfast, made sure Dieter gets out of the house on time?”
So now, you go over to Dieter’s each morning. Today you’re here, licking butter off your fingers and hurriedly finishing your reading for today’s classes. Dieter doesn’t normally like the mornings, he hates an early start, would probably offer up one of his limbs if it meant he could stay cosy in bed for another ten minutes, but now he finds he rolls right out after only the third snooze of his alarm. Eyes not quite bright, but certainly more alive when you’re in his kitchen, your legs curled around each other as you shovel a second bowl of cornflakes into your mouth.
You gift him your own drowsy grin, “Hurry up sleepyhead, or we’ll be late. Again.”
Dieter shoves some bread into the toaster, rubbing at his tired eyes and trying to steady his half-awake feet. Considers his new confession.
“Something happened after drama class yesterday.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Doug kissed me. Like, a proper makeout.”
“Did you like it?” Dieter nods and you look entirely unfazed, almost nonchalant, as you ask, “So, are you gay now?”
He doesn’t answer straight away, takes his time to let it roll around in his head, lets himself be brave, “No, I don’t think so. I fancy boys but I’m still really horny for girls too.”
You nod seriously, “Makes sense to me. I fancy boys, I think, but girls are like, way hotter. I reckon I’m about as obsessed with boobs as you are.” You catch Dieter’s eye, “Stop looking at my tits, D.”
“I can’t help it, angel, they’re spectacular.”
That gets Dieter a whack round the back of his head, yet he can’t help but notice you look a little pleased with yourself, a secret smile creeping into the corners of your mouth while you try and pretend to be mad at him. He’s happy he said it, happy he made you smile like that, wants you to know how fucking gorgeous you’re becoming. Sure, he said he’s still attracted to girls, but the reality is it’s just one girl. You. Running around in a loop in his head, a constant just out of reach promise. You’ve never made him think you like him more than just a best friend, an amusement more than anything. Your touches are playful and teasing, he can’t seem to make out anything deeper than that. No lingering glances, no gentle caresses, surely if you loved him back he would know?
He watches you now, tries to divine what’s going on in your pretty head, if that brush of his hair out of his eyes as he leans over to copy your homework is some kind of sign? The mix tapes you create for him, featuring all of his favourite bands, are they simply what you’d make any best friend? Or are there hidden messages written in the scrawled track listings, in the stickers and the pictures cut out from magazines that adorn the cases? He feels stupid, as if he’s scrabbling about in the dark, unable to work out what the right path is, how to navigate being your closest friend and also being wildly in love with you.
The commercial does happen. Dieter throws himself around for a day in a weird latex outfit and pouts on cue. It’s hardly taxing or Oscar worthy, but it’s one step closer to doing what fills him with joy and he knows, he really knows, that the camera loves him. He’s got a natural talent for finding his angles and turning those big brown eyes on the right people. Dieter spends a considerable amount of time chatting to the team and understanding how everything works. He leaves with some new industry contacts and enough hair gel plastered against his head that he’s still trying to wash it out three days later. A few hundred dollars richer as well. He’s thrilled he can afford to take you to the sketchy tattoo parlour round the corner from where you both live, the one that won’t ask for ID but still looks cleanish. He can pay for your belly ring and get his first tattoo.
Dieter’s vibrating with excitement as you both walk into the studio. You’re right there next to him with a wide grin, not a drop of nerves as you watch with big eyes as the heavily pierced woman with neon ribbons threaded through her dreadlocks takes out the large needle that’s about to go through your belly button. Scooched up on the bed, top rolled up and cargo pants low on your hips, you’re chatting away, only the gentle nibbling of your bottom lip giving away that you’re a tiny bit anxious about the impending moment.
Dieter smiles at you, full Cheshire Cat mode activated, “Are you nervous?” He hops from one foot to the other, suddenly feeling like a much younger version of himself, eyes wide, “I’m a bit nervous.”
“No, no! I’m excited!” You reach out to him, give his hand a little squeeze, “Thank you, D. This is so generous of you. Gotta promise to remember me when you’re a Hollywood A-lister, yeah?”
He thinks there’s a hint of a blush beginning to bloom on the apples of his cheeks which he tries to ignore, a warmth that’s travelling from his belly to his lips. He pouts a little, feels the fizz that now bubbles up whenever he looks at you, shifts on his feet again, “It’s just a stupid hair gel commercial.”
You look at him so sincerely it makes him pause, “Nah, it’s just the beginning, I got a feeling.”
Dieter feels your hand tighten around his as the needle makes contact with your skin and he grips harder, taking a moment to notice how much has changed recently. Your hand looks small compared to his now. He was so used to it almost being the mirror of his own, yet somewhere along the way your bodies have diverged from the similarities of childhood; he feels lanky and sloppy next to you, like he’s all sharp angles and too big features. The matching chipped black nail polish is a comfort, anchoring him to you, to late nights where you’ve painted his nails and talked into the early hours about applying to schools in New York together.
A melancholy descends upon him, one which he doesn’t seem to be able to shake off. As he watches you admire your new butterfly adornment in the full length mirror, he has an awareness that he’s nostalgic for a time that he’s still in. That these moments you have together now, they’re the beginning of the end. One day you won’t be just down the hallway or sat at his kitchen table in the morning rubbing sleep out of your eyes or sitting next to him in boring math classes. He won’t have you all to himself. If his dreams of acting and films and stardom do come true, then soon he won’t be here at all.
He can’t take his eyes off you, yet it hurts. There’s an ache right down to the soles of his feet, a heaviness in his belief that he’ll never be this close to anyone ever again. It’s a magic and a sadness all at once. That’s what stops him from leaning over, wrapping his arms around your shoulders and pressing his lips to yours. That’s all he wants to do, all day, every day. Yet for all his wildness and that permanent air of chaos, Dieter doesn’t want to ruin what you have with his stupid teenage impulses, he can’t sully how special this friendship is just because the thought of his tongue in your mouth is driving him to a kind of insanity.
“D, you’ve gone very quiet, you’re not chickening out of your tattoo are you?”
“Have you ever known me to back out of anything? I’m just thinking how fit you look.”
You give him a hard shove, but it’s there again, that look he just loves. Each time he compliments you, it’s like a little building block in your confidence, a tiny LEGO brick that’s helping to form your self belief, makes you smirk at the mirror. And you are, you are so fucking fit.
He takes a deep breath, pulls off his ratty t-shirt, stares down at his skinny chest, bare for the last time, ready for the angel that’s going to be sitting above his heart forever more.
You were both going to skip prom. There were long, heated discussions within your friend group of theatre kids and gaming nerds. Should you all refuse to go, or go as a big group? Was it an antiquated tradition with a wild amount of pressure on it, or a rite of passage and an excuse to snog your crushes?
You were hesitant about the whole debacle and Dieter had listened intently as you’d said your piece to the group; that maybe it wasn’t about being part of a stupid popularity contest or even being too cool to attend, it was more having fun and being with each other while you still could. He’d felt this, so hard, especially considering everything that had been happening recently, with the news he’d just received.
Dieter had suddenly experienced a flood of interest after the commercial aired, a slew of castings for more modelling gigs, call backs for plays and even an audition for a new show called Drug Cops as the main protagonist’s son. Suddenly the life he dreamed about, these fantasies of stardom and fame, felt like they were in touching distance; an unfamiliar hand at his wrist tugging him into a glorious future but pulling him out of the safety and comfort of your arms. Into the unknown. One he wasn’t quite ready to trouble you with yet.
Neither of you had made a final decision about prom until you’d accidentally found your dream dress in a thrift store; a golden, brocade vintage piece that fit you like it had been made just for you. How Dieter had felt seeing you step out of that grungy changing room, the air musty with old clothes and someone else’s cigarette smoke, it’s like his stomach had actually flipped. You were glowing. Radiating with a confidence that he’d only caught glimpses of every now and then, but in that moment it poured out of you, all wicked grin and arched brow.
He’d fully gasped, “Well now we’ve got to go to the stupid fucking prom,” and you’d laughed in agreement, delighted with yourself and your miraculous $5 find.
Dieter’s mom had fixed the various holes and snags in the dress. Sat straight down as soon as she’d got home that evening, still in her scrubs, thread between her teeth in the low light of a lamp, using her nurse’s precision to make it look almost new. She’d then dug out an old suit that once belonged to Dieter’s dad, not worn since the 80’s, it had sat patiently in a wardrobe waiting for him to grow tall enough to fill it out. It was still oversized, but his mom reassured him that was the very thing. When he’d tried it on, she tried to surreptitiously wipe her tears away at seeing him, but he knew she was thinking about how he looked so like his Dad and yet still so himself. A thrift store bow tie and his favourite Converse had completed the look.
Dieter’s memories of his dad are sketchy, often he’s not sure if they’re memories at all or just photos he’s brought to life through sheer force of will, family stories repeated often enough that they’re woven into his memory alongside actual glimpses of the man who died when he was five. One year before Dieter had met you. He knows, in the depths of his soul, that you two would have got on. That the loud chuckle he can just about recall would have rung out around the apartment at your sassy retorts, delighted by your sarcasm and dry sense of humour, just like Dieter is. He lets himself have a little fantasy conversation where his dad is still alive, had given him a pre-prom prep talk as his mom had taken the photos of you both dressed in your finery together. He would have no doubt made some comments about you going as ‘friends’ not official ‘dates’ and then made a clumsy dad joke about being safe and condoms. Probably delighting in the embarrassment it would have caused.
Instead, it was just the three of you; Dieter’s mum had handed you one single glass of sparkling wine each and taken probably about 1,000 photos on her digital camera. She’d grabbed his hand before he left, pulled him into a hug, whispered, “You have to tell her, Dieter.”
It’s come around so quickly, after all that anticipation and planning, now there is a big group of your friends dancing theatrically to the cheesy DJ in the sports hall. Glowing rainbow under the heady disco lights of the prom, Dieter watches his friends. He gazes at you with a wide grin plastered on his face; you’re ignoring all your natural impulses to be a cool girl and instead twirl madly to the Spice Girls with your best girl friends. Your smile, he could look at it forever, so wild and full of hope, never better than when you’re letting your guard down, being silly when you often have to be so serious.
He hates that he’s going to fuck it all up.
The unmissable chimes of ‘You Get What You Give’ by the New Radicals starts playing and you run towards him, hands outstretched, begging for him to dance with you to one of your favourite songs.
Unapologetically optimistic, you bounce together, singing at the top of your lungs, stupid grins on both your faces, a circle of friends forming around you as you shout to the sky.
This whole damn world could fall apart
You'll be okay, follow your heart
You're in harm's way, I'm right behind
Now say you're mine
You’re laughing, falling against him, a mess of hair and glitter and limbs. He holds onto your hand, slippery with heat, dances you out of the crowd, pulls you up close so you can hear him over the music. He feels like he might scream if he doesn’t tell you, his news is burning in his chest.
“Angel, I’ve got a confession.”
The way your eyes are sparkling at him, a magic and an anticipation, as you roll your lip against your teeth and your tongue, Dieter knows he’s already fucked it. That the words he’s about to say are going to shatter everything. What he should do, really, is swallow them down and close the tiny space between you, air thick with want. How easy it would be to finally, finally, lean down and capture your pretty mouth in a kiss.
The look in your eyes, it’s hurting him, because for the first time he thinks maybe he knows it’s what you’d want as well. That for once he’s reading the signals right and you’d like him to do it, press his lips to yours, tangle together with the energy that’s fizzing between you.
Only he knows he can’t. Imagine if he did that and then told you. It would be worse, much worse. He’s been battling with himself for a few days now; when to tell you, how to do it, if he’s making the right choice? It’s eating away at him, a constant rot in his stomach meaning everything turns to ash as it hits his lips, a lurch in his gut whenever he’s thought about this undefined future you’re both hurtling towards. Now he finds he can’t run away from it any longer, that this desire to take you in his arms, it’s being completely overwhelmed by the need to tell you the truth. So, he fights down what he really wants to do, flinches a little as the words leave his mouth, the one that should be meeting yours and not breaking both your hearts.
It all spills out at once, “I got the Drug Cops job. They’re flying me out to LA next week. I’m not going to finish school. I’m not going to New York. It’s a two year contract.”
It feels a bit like watching a car crash in slow motion. He thinks he might see the moment the light goes out of your eyes, when something cracks in you. Jagged, sharp. He can see that you’re struggling to speak, to make your face take any shape that isn’t utter devastation.
You sort of choke out, “Oh, D. That’s amazing.” You swallow thickly, “When did you find out?”
“A couple of days ago. I didn’t want to ruin prom, but it felt so wrong not telling you.”
“You couldn’t… you…. I’m happy for you, it’s everything you’ve always wanted.” Your cheek is shaking, he knows you’re on the edge of tears, your words coming out with a catch that makes it sound hollow, like it hurts to speak. He doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know how to make it better, to soothe this ache. He wishes he’d just kissed you, pretended this wasn’t happening for a few more hours, found out if you feel the same way, but he can already see you drawing back from him, your arms hugging your own shoulders, an almost visible prickle at your skin.
You shake your head at him, he watches as you swallow slowly again, eyes glistening, before you disappear into the crowd.
You watch the evening spiral away from you.
You try to clutch onto the moments of happiness once Dieter reveals his news, but they slip through your hands like water, a steady drip of sadness which you can’t shake off however hard you try to fix a smile to your face. The music and the dancing and the press of friends, it should be enough to lift you out of this dread, but it’s as if you’re held in a strange half conscious state, hovering a little way above the ground, watching everything happen around you but unable to immerse yourself into it. You’re numb, eyes heavy with what is yet to come.
You watch as Dieter laps up all the attention of your classmates, the way the kaleidoscope of colours dance off his cheekbones, how he has steadily become the centre of attention as if the golden glimmer of celebrity already lights his skin. It hurts your heart. That people are finally seeing him as you do, your charming best friend, your beautiful, talented beloved who is already beginning to walk away from you before you’ve told him what you see. That in your eyes he is already all of the things he longs to be. He doesn’t need to be successful or famous to be considered worthy of your love.
You know it’s in him, this insecurity, this constant shifting of the sands beneath his feet that makes him doubt himself. You’ve watched him battle with it ever since you’ve known him. This strange mixture of being so ridiculously talented that everything is easy for him, every play he’s ever been in, every person he’s ever fancied, it’s all come some naturally for him. Yet it makes him feel like he doesn’t deserve it somehow. You? You think he deserves the world; your generous, softhearted, chaotic friend, you want him to have it all. Even if that doesn’t include you.
You take a swig of your warm beer, press your fingers against the plastic of the cup and feel no resistance. It squeaks beneath your fingers unpleasantly. You know, you’ve always known, that you’d have to let him go.
It’s too late now anyway. The partying has continued well into the night at a friend’s house, where there are shots and booze and bongs and no one is thinking straight any longer. You toy with a stray thread, a tiny golden piece that has come loose from your beautiful dress, after being so lovingly repaired by Dieter’s mom. It is damp with sweat and spilled beer.
Everything, you think, everything is falling apart.
Dieter is smashed. You watch as he bounces from person to person, feet unsteady and hair increasingly wild as the night slides into early morning. To be fair, everyone here is smashed. The floor sticky with booze, discarded bottles everywhere, a mess of shrieked laughter and illicit snogs over too loud music filling the house. A teenage dream, a longed for release, an ending.
You’re sat up on a kitchen counter, same crushed cup beneath your fingers, worrying at your lip. You’re weirdly sober. Nothing seems to have touched the sides since you heard Dieter was leaving. The dreams you had of being in New York together, they disappeared in that horrible instant. You scolded yourself for ever playing with that fantasy. You should have protected yourself better, you’d allowed yourself to enjoy the anticipation when really you should have been preparing yourself for disappointment.
Like tonight. One disappointment after another.
Dieter washes over to you, so handsome in his disheveled suit, bow tie hanging loose around his neck, hair a halo of fluff and stray confetti. You pick a piece out from its place on his crown, smooth the rogue almost curl you find there. He looks so goofy now, all too big smile and glitter on his cheekbones, delighted with himself in his drunken haze.
“My favourite girl!” He throws his arms around your waist and as much as you want to instantly shrug him off and give him a sharp shove in the opposite direction, you let him sink into you, head heavy against your shoulder. Even covered in sweat and beer he still smells like him; comforting, home. Hidden underneath that awful aftershave he drenches himself in and the permanent lingering stale hint of weed, it’s pure Dieter that snakes its way into your senses. A recognition that blooms in your heart, so many hours sown into your memory that now, all of sudden, seem to have an ending. A tangle of moments that you thought would continue forever, your promised life together in New York another thread you were going to add to the bundle, now all preparing to be wrapped up in a neat bow of goodbye.
It takes you a moment to realise that Dieter is talking to you, his words slightly slurred. It makes you feel a bit grubby, your stomach tight and uncomfortable, the exact opposite to the softness emanating from his warm skin against yours.
“I hope you’re not mad at me, angel? We’re still going to speak all the time, yeah? I’m going to miss you so much.”
He squeezes his arms tighter, lifts his gaze up to yours, those dark eyes sort of blurry in his inebriation, like he’s struggling to focus on you. His eyes travel down to your lips and his mouth opens slightly, you watch as his tongue wets the seam of his lip and you know how easy it would be to follow his train of thought, kiss him like you’ve been dreaming of for so long.
Just as Dieter had pulled back from you on the dance floor, now it’s your turn to change what could have been into a never was.
You shake your head, “I’m not going to kiss you, D. Not like this, I don’t…” You wiggle away, out of his grip, off the counter, onto the floor, feet so unsteady beneath you. You’re actually shaking, grasping for something to say to the broken expression that’s staring at you right now, those big puppy dog eyes you love so much on full blast. You clutch at the skin between your thumb and forefinger, pinch down, trying to ground yourself, make sure your voice is steady.
“I think we’re just going to have to be secretly in love with each other and leave it at that, D.”
Series Masterlist / NEXT
All images Pinterest & dividers from @saradika-graphics
Taggin in some pals & Dieter fans, let me know if you'd prefer to be taken off (or would like to be added).
So delighted that this scruffy, gorgeous, idiot boy is now officially a part of your kaleidoscope of Dieters out there in the world for all of us to enjoy and cry over.
Al, you never fail to make me yearn. To capture the magic of what it means to love someone with your whole being, to bask in their softness, to want to give and receive everything and yet be plagued by things that hold you back, that fuck it all up, that push you past the point of no return but not in the way you dreamed.
I am obsessed with this pair and their history, the details that show just how deeply intertwined their lives are.
This has been one of my fave lines from the start: A little nest of Dieter, a cocoon of safety the two of you have been retreating to since you were both six years old.
The comfort that Dieter and Dieter’s mom and their apartment provide for our gal is delightful, the energy of that safety so clear from the small glimpses we have of the larger portrait of their childhood years together. It’s such a gorgeous tribute to that safe space outside of your home that provides you with solace as a teen, and it warms my heart that she had that just as much as it makes me ache to think about how it will always be haunted now by the loss of that version of “us” that Dieter’s revelation has initiated.
It’s devastating, watching as the things they covet and hope for—at first similarly in lockstep and in many ways built as a shared vision in the future—unravel from their shape as two peas in a pod as a result of mutual silences and Dieter’s pursuit of his career.
I think it feels much like those moments in the tattoo parlour to me, how Dieter realises that the shape of something permanently one way in his heart in reality has changed without him expressly noticing. What a killer moment that is, it continues to strike me down. This line in particular: He was so used to it almost being the mirror of his own, yet somewhere along the way your bodies have diverged from the similarities of childhood; he feels lanky and sloppy next to you, like he’s all sharp angles and too big features. Just MWAH such a hard hitting and gut wrenching narration of the type of angst and sense of uneven footing that they continue to be confronted with as they realise just how separate their lives will be from each other and the dreams they separately had of being together.
You’ve captured the ache of teenage imaginations of forever so beautifully. The buzzing and stressful energy of the possibilities, the seriousness of the fears and the disappointments, the clarity and the confusion that seems to come in equal measure…
Perhaps no surprise, I’ve found myself tearing up like five separate times as I try to formulate the words to tell you what the experience of meeting them has been like for me, which speaks to just how masterfully you have brought their story to life and how very deeply I care for (and relate to) them.
Grateful that your brain has housed and nurtured these idiots and that the treat of putting them to paper means that they are living rent free in my head too. 🖤💕
Following on from transgender day of visibility (tdov) earlier this week, I wanted to make a list to share wonderful works from authors who write trans inclusive fic in the ppcu fandom
Trans people are here, trans people are real and trans people are important. Especially now when a lot of the world is rallying against us. Please remember to show your love and your support for trans people in your community, in your country, in this world. Please stand up for us as allies, and as friends, when you see we're facing adversity. It means so much that you do. There is power in community, please never forget that.
Before I get into the list, I wanted to share some resources and information you may find useful (Please help to provide more resources espeically outside of UK & USA, add them in the comments or reblogs if you can)
A guide to being a trans ally
Black trans advocacy coalition (USA)
UK clinics and resources for trans and non binary people
Trans Latina Coalition
TransActual UK
Guide to Being an Ally to Transgender and Nonbinary Young People
Trans lifeline (USA)
Get the Facts on Gender-Affirming Care - HRC (USA)
Mermaids UK
Trans justice project (AUS)
Minus18 (AUS)
Finally, below you will find authors and their respective works listed, where a trans person (individuals whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth) features either in the form of a reader, oc or Pedro character themselves.
Most works 18+, please make sure to read individual warnings
Author: @crowandmousewritingco
Dream Daddies Part 1 / Part 2 (Various Pedro characters x trans reader)
Quite the reunion (Jack Daniels (Agent Whiskey) x transmasc!reader)
Locked room rivals (Max Philips x trans!reader, Dave York x trans!reader)
Facing the monster head on Part 1 / Part 2 (Dieter Bravo x trans! actor!reader)
Crimes Against Each Other (Dio x trans!reader)
Guitar Picks and Drum Sticks (trans!Dio x punk!Benny Miller)
Strange Creature (Ezra x trans reader)
Another Cog in the Murder Machine (Frankie Morales x trans reader)
If You're Reading This (Joel Miller x non binary reader)
A Taste of His Own Medicine (Oberyn Martell x trans!reader x Ellaria Sand)
Also find various kinktober fics on their masterlist
Author: @demonsandbullets
Claudia Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 (Trans Mama Flores x reader)
Good Boy Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 (Trans Dieter Bravo x reader)
We meet there all the time (Dave York x gnc transmasc reader (second person) x softdom!Carol York, Mystery PBoy)
Author: @djarinmuse
Ni Cuy' Val (Non binary Din Djarin x reader)
Never Say Never (Din Djarin x non binary oc)
Author: @for-a-longlongtime
Coming (Dieter Bravo x non binary reader)
Author: @its-quiet-colter
Worn bedrolls (FTM Pero Tovar x Male reader)
Author: @kingbrat
Want you to beg for me! (Frankie morales x trans male reader) links to AO3
Author: @max--phillips
Edging trans!Dieter drabble (Trans Dieter Bravo x reader)
Pussy drunk drabble (Trans Dieter Bravo x reader)
Author: @nonbinairyboi
Nothing Left (Joel Miller x non binary reader/oc)
Author: @pedritofics
A little longer than seven minutes in heaven (Javi Gutiérrez x ftm reader)
Author: @perotovar
into the beat of the night (Frankie Morales x non binary oc)
Rebirth (genderfluid javi gutierrez x reader)
Cold (jack daniels x trans man reader)
Author: @qveerthe0ry
Lions Ain't the Kind (Frankie Morales x non binary/genderfluid reader)
Truth or Consequences (Ted Garcia x ftm reader)
What Means to You, What Means to Me (Max Phillips x non binary reader)
Author: @romanarose
About a Girl (Joel Miller x trans fem reader)
Happy birthday, Joel! (Trans Joel Miller x reader)
Author: @seventeenpins
an infinity (Trans man Joel Miller x transmasc reader)
wanna be felled by you, held by you (Joel Miller x non binary reader)
Author: @sp00kymulderr
Lover boy (Joel Miller x transmasc reader)
If you have any fics or any reccomendations to add, please send them my way! Thank you ❤️
A/N: I'd like to thank my brain for gifting me this scenario in a dream last night, so I thought I'd share it with the class.
You never expected to see him again. Men like him don't kiss you like that and hang around for long.
You carry Lucien around with you like a ghost. A whispered secret that occasionally reveals itself in the touch of your fingertip to your bottom lip or the twitch of a smile in the corner of your mouth.
And yet, here he is, standing in front of you right now in this hotel bar in a town that neither of you should be in. The low light of the pendant lights reflects off the mahogany bar top and makes his skin glow golden.
He shakes the hand of the man you're with and squeezes his shoulder, then he leans in to brush a polite peck on your cheek. Tonight, he's suave and businesslike. So much so that the note he presses into your palm goes undetected. A room number, a ticket to the second act at an hour when you should be asleep.
When the clock strikes twelve, you pad down the dimly lit carpeted corridor to meet your fate. How many more times will this happen, you wonder?
As many times as he'll give you.
The door is ajar. An observation that almost makes you laugh, but instead, you step silently inside and let the room swallow you whole.
The cotton hotel robe - the one you'd tied closed over underwear that wasn't bought for his eyes - is brushed from your shoulders by his warm palms, and the practised flick of his thumb and forefinger at the clasp sheds you of your black lace armour in seconds, leaving your skin bare as he traces the curve of your spine with his fingertips.
His mouth finds the shell of your ear as he casts his spell in a low growl.
"I missed you."
He tilts your chin up with the knuckle of his thumb to make you meet his dark gaze as he nods towards the bed.
i contemplated on whether or not to just delete this and move on but after sleeping on it i realized that no, i will not just be pretending like i'm not being called a racial slur (n word) by some anonymous racist for doing absolutely nothing but just existing as a BLACK woman.
i don't know what this fandom's (i'm aware that this isn't the only space that this occurs in but right now i am specifically talking about the PPCU fandom) issue is with terrorizing and hating on POC but it's honestly quite fucking pathetic. we can't even exist without being sent torrents of hate and the moment we decide to speak on it, instead of things getting better—they get worse. why? why is is that the white people in this community feel so threatened by the mere presence of someone that doesn't look like them? why are anonymous users (who i am assuming to be cis, straight + white) up in arms every time the spotlight is shifted from them and put on to marginalized groups?
i know the answer to this, it's rhetorical really, but i still can't help but ask why? why not choose empathy and kindness over hatred and degradation?
all week i've been seeing everyone reblog the fuck nazis gifset of pedro pascal and it's actually laughable because of how rampant the racism runs in his fandom. a fandom for a PERSON OF COLOR.
and people wonder why talented writers decide to leave. why they're being run off, we already get this racism shit in our every day lives—we should not have to fucking deal with it here as well.
and for those of you who are fake allies, display performative activism or are SILENT when things like this occur, trust, us POC take notice. you will defend your dark kinks tooth and nail but decide to remain idle and complicit when people are being sent slurs, death threats, threats of SA (i was sent a very disgusting ask wishing SA upon me that i promptly deleted but it affected me nevertheless) and just fucking hate in general.
this space has brought me so many good things which is why it pisses me off that it's becoming insufferable to even be here. it makes me not want to write or interact with anyone, which is crazy because i know i have tough skin but that does not mean i have to endure the constant hate speech that i receive. not me or any of my fellow writers and readers of color.
i'm not putting this under a read more cut. if people of color have to experience racism, then everyone can handle us talking about it. do better.
Previous tags from @/almostempty that are important additions, especially given how people were responding to things a few weeks ago:
#and don’t burden ur bipoc peers by asking them to assuage your white guilt or to validate your allyship or listen to your confessions
#and don’t turn conversations about the racism specifically directed at Black and brown folks into tangents about your own experience with #with feeling underrepresented in size or hair color or nationality and dilute this very specific and targeted issue
Sometimes when you’re stuck stewing over something, the best thing to do is remember that one of this guy’s go-tos is flipping the bird and his first instinct to make himself look the sexiest he can is to hit the Dr Evil pose.
So much love to @schnarfer for supporting my madness.
All images harvested from Pinterest. I acknowledge this isn’t technically proper credit.
The way I want them to have had some version of this in the quiet moments:
Let me tell you a story about love: …
She had a soft voice and strong hands. When she sang she would seem too large for the room and she would play guitar and sing which would make his chest feel huge. Sometimes he would touch her knee and smile. Sometimes she would touch his face and close her eyes.
— Also in Richard Siken's War of the Foxes, from the poem "War of the Foxes"
Moth's Masterlist // follow @mothandpidgeon-updates and turn on notifications to stay updated with my fics!
rating: E (18+!)
summary: You hacked into Dave Yorks computer and found more secrets than you bargained for.
contents: Non con/dub con, mean!Dave, voyeurism, sex toys, masturbation, mutual masturbation, porn, breaking and entering, violence?, gun, gunplay, choking, morally grey reader, reader is Girl with the Dragon Tattoo coded but not physically described
wc: 3.4k
a/n: So I've been having some ✨writers block ✨ (hence the lack of updates last month) but for some reason, Dave York did a little breaking and entering in my brain and shook it loose. I've been writing a lot of heartfelt romance recently and I think I just needed a little depravity I guess.
Thank you @moonlitbirdie and @whocaresstillthelouvre for giving this a look and for anyone I shouted at about this idea (looking at you @schnarfer and @toomanytookas but I know there have been others). Dividers by @ saradika-graphics.
You squint in the light of the refrigerator. It’s empty save for some cartons of half-eaten Chinese food and cans of energy drinks. Check the time— half past one. Too late to order in. Guess cold lomein it is.
The apartment falls back into darkness once you swing the fridge door shut. You’re used to it, the soft glow of your computer monitors illuminating your little space. It’s easy to forget to turn the lights on when you’re focused on your work. Forget to eat. Forget to meet people that aren’t on the other side of a screen.
You sit down at your desk, legs crossed in your seat, and shovel some food into your mouth. Most nights are like this, lost in your work. It’s never felt like a job, not really. More like a way to do the shit you’ve always done except now you get paid to do it. You’re a subcontractor of a subcontractor, someone far enough away from the government that they can get information while still maintaining plausible deniability. You don’t know who you’re working for and most of the time your assignments are vague. All you have to do is gather intelligence and put it into a neat little report without mentioning the methods you used to get it.
You’ve always enjoyed uncovering people’s secrets, reading notes over your classmates shoulders, looking through the search history on friends’ computers. That insatiable curiosity is what led you to start hacking. The targets these days aren’t always exciting but at least tonight’s is.
David York.
Early 40s, divorced. Ex military. DIA. There’s much more to him than that, though. A little program hidden on his computer lets you track each keystroke he makes.
You’ve learned all about him. Dave he prefers. There’s a lot that won’t make it into your report— where he shops online (Brooks Brothers), the take out he orders (one large pepperoni from Frankie’s Pizzeria), the porn he watches (girl on girl). But there’s one thing your bosses will be interested in: Dave York is a contract killer.
You could’ve ended this project by now. You’ve got plenty in your notes to make your customers happy yet you’re still logging onto his computer. It fascinates you that a man so normal, almost on the borderline of boring, could be so dangerous.
You shovel some food into your mouth and go drag your mouse over your desk. You’ve been reviewing footage you recorded through his webcam today. A few lines of code and you were able to turn his laptop’s camera on without activating the tally light. He was smart enough to use unique, complicated passwords, two-factor authentication, and encrypted emails but he didn’t take the time to put a sticker over his webcam.
You’ve found some interesting information this way— listened in on conversations, heard the things he only says into his burner phone. Tonight most of it is just Dave at the keyboard, his tie loosening over time.
You scrub through the footage, Dave drinking coffee and typing in fast forward punctuated by stretches of his empty home office. Nothing exciting until—
You pause the video when you see it. Lomein hangs from your open mouth. He’s half naked, head thrown back, hand buried in his lap. His dick is engulfed in a big fist, a bead of precum frozen before it rolls over his fingers.
It’s not the first time you’ve seen a mark in a compromising position. In this line of work, you’ve seen all the dark corners of people’s hard drives. There’s worse than nudes and home made porn out there. Normally— if it’s not illegal, at least— you just scroll by. But Dave, it’s different when it comes to him. For some reason, seeing him in a compromising position has your blood rushing in your ears. He’s a killer. How many people have had the opportunity to see him in such a vulnerable state?
He’s bare to the waist, his chest so smooth you wonder if he shaves it or if he’s naturally like that. His broad shoulders look perfect to grab onto if you were on top of him. Riding him.
Of course you notice all of this after taking a good, long look at his cock. A clutch of dark curls trail down his soft belly to where it stands, drooling in his fist. You realize you’re salivating.
Guilt pokes at you as you move the playhead back. It’s a violation. Then again, you’ve all but eviscerated Dave's privacy. You know exactly how much money is in his bank account, that his daughter Molly has a sleepover this weekend, that he’ll kill innocents.
He’s not a good person. You’re not either.
You roll back the tape, finding the start of this, and hit play. Dave’s palm traces his bulge through his pajama pants. He’s watching porn, you can hear the over-exaggerated moans through the computer’s tinny speakers.
It’s not the first time you’ve noticed that Dave is hot. After all, you have access to all of the pictures on his laptop. Including the selfies he takes after his runs, muscles glistening with sweat. He’s a bit clean cut for your tastes but right now, he’s something else altogether– the lust in his brown eyes, the control as he teases himself. You swallow hard.
It’s a while before he actually takes his dick out of his pajama pants. You remind yourself repeatedly that you can stop, just click away and let him keep this moment to himself but you’re on the edge of your seat, already throbbing. He finally pulls down his waistband and you’re looking at his upright cock again. It’s thick, a flushed vein running up the underside. He squirts lube into his hand from a bottle that’s just out of frame and when he finally lets his fist move down his length, his eyes sink closed, savoring the sensation.
He touches himself with a practiced motion, gripping the shaft and pulling upwards, a twist of the wrist so that his palm caresses the tip before squeezing back down the length again. His strokes are agonizingly slow. He’s so methodical, patient, like in everything else you’ve discovered.
You’re holding your breath, the suspense aching in your core. There’s plenty of time to study him— those full lips parted, muscles in his arm flexing. Every once in a while he grunts and loosens his grip, keeping himself from going over the edge.
By now, your hand has found its way between your legs. Your fingers trace absentmindedly over the seam in your sleep shorts, already sticky and soaked through. You match Dave’s lazy pace, giving yourself the same pleasure he’s experiencing.
Without taking your eyes off of the screen, you lean over to the set of drawers beside your desk and pull out your favorite vibrator. You shimmy out of your shorts and panties and drag the toy over your needy clit.
You moan with him, watching Dave’s toned arm flex up and down. His bottom lip looks so thick, you want to rake your teeth across it. It’s almost grotesque the way his nostrils flare, the rhythmic grunts that leave him as his hand works faster. The muscles in his neck strain and you can tell he’s close.
You are, too. You swivel your hips against the vibrator, speeding up the thrusts and strengthening its power. Fuck. What would it feel like to have Dave’s mouth on you? His cock in you?
He can’t hold back any longer. Dave’s eyes squeeze shut and his jaw clenches and he makes a noise more animal than man. The eruption of cum is the last thing you see before you’re sent reeling, moaning out your own desperate cry as you pulse around your vibrator.
You take deep breaths as you return to earth, hitting the spacebar to pause the video and blinking back to reality. Your heart rate slows and you wipe your hand across your face. That’s enough work for one night. That might be enough Dave for good. Tomorrow you’ll finalize your report and put him out of your mind.
The vibrator is tossed carelessly onto the desk. You put your panties on but leave your shorts discarded on the floor amongst the rest of your laundry and then you put your computer to sleep. Without the light of the monitors, the room is cloaked in darkness and you drag yourself from your chair a few short paces to the bed.
It’s still dark when you wake, an uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach. You strain your ears for noise, any sign of what woke you but there’s nothing. Then a creak. Your heart leaps into your throat. Someone’s here, in your apartment.
You fumble for your backpack in the dim. Somewhere in the bottom there’s a can of pepper spray that you bought for a situation just like this but your hands are trembling and you can’t see a fucking thing.
A figure appears behind the French door that separates your room from the kitchen and any drowsiness that was lingering evaporates immediately. It’s a man— broad body clothed entirely in black— and in his hand you make out the silhouette of a gun. The room’s too fucking tiny for there to be anywhere decent to hide. There’s no time to think. Your only choice is to brandish your bag as a weapon. He barges in and you swing for his face.
“Fuck,” he grunts but it merely slows him for a moment, knocking hm off balance and his beanie off of his head.
You scramble towards the front door but you’re tackled to the ground, wind knocked out of your lungs. As you gasp for air, you’re flipped onto your back and you find yourself face to face with your assailant. Even in the darkness, through your terror and disorientation, you recognize him.
Dave York glares down at you, his angular face cast in shadows, a menacing snarl on his lips. The muzzle of his silencer is far too close to your face but there’s no shrinking from it with your head against the floor and Dave’s heavy hand on your middle.
“You and I have a problem,” he growls. “You know why I’m here?”
You shake your head frantically, still barely able to fill your lungs.
“Don’t play dumb, sweetheart. I know you’re not stupid,” he says.
He pulls you to your feet as if you weigh nothing and hauls you towards your room. You’re thrown into your desk chair, head still spinning. Dave stands over you and clamps your wrist to the arm rest.
“You know why you’re spying on me?” he asks, a cold threat in his words.
You nod.
“Then you know you don’t want me as your enemy.” You say nothing but a shiver runs down your spine. His eyes are nearly black, reflecting the dull light of the sleeping computer monitors.
“I want your hard drives. Back ups, too. Everything you’ve got on me,” he demands.
“Okay,” you manage. “Would you just get that gun out of my face?”
“Get to it,” he says, and spins your chair so you’re facing the keyboard.
The monitors come to life and, suddenly, you’re in deeper shit. You try to hit a shortcut on the keys to close the window that’s open but your fingers are trembling so hard, you miss. Dave sees it all.
Something changes in him— a tightening in his jaw, a flaring of his nostrils— as he sees the evidence of your surveillance. His spent form, blissed out and covered in his own release hovers on screen. Right where you left him.
Dave’s eyes narrow at the video then slide down to the toy sitting within arms reach and there’s no denying what he can see so plainly.
He rounds on you with a wild look, flinging the chair back so its wheels hit your bed.
“You get off on that?” he demands.
Your heart might have actually stopped for a minute.
“Answer me,” he demands.
“I– No,” you lie.
He appraises you with a deep scowl until a wicked grin spreads on his lips.
“You’re a pretty little thing, huh?” he muses.
He drags the gun across your breast, your nipple hardening beneath the muzzle’s brush. You let out a whimper— out of fear or arousal, you’re not sure. You swear he growls under his breath.
“You’re trouble though,” he says.
You swallow thickly, your entire body quivering.
”Show me,” he says, depositing the gun on the desk and thrusting the toy towards you.
”What?” You ask.
”Show me how you touched yourself,” he tells you.
That’s what you thought he was saying. You stare at him dumbly, too shocked to even protest.
“You watched me. Only seems fair,” he says as if this is some bargain you’re cutting with the man holding the gun. ”Do I have to make you?”
He leans over you, his hand braced on the back of your chair, and presses the vibrator into the gusset of your panties. Rough and clicked onto the highest setting, you squirm and cry out. You’re already so overstimulated, it’s torture and bliss all at once. Your hips buck against the toy but Dave holds your thigh open.
”Okay! Stop! Fuck!” you whine, wrenching at his wrist until he lets up.
You try to catch your breath.
“Take these off,” he instructs, snapping the elastic of your panties against your waist with a thick finger.
You hiss and glare at him but you have no choice but to obey, sliding them down your legs. Dave watches, his eyes darkening once you’re revealed to him. He swears under his breath.
”Look at that mess,” he says.
Your whole body burns but the hunger in his gaze makes your fear take a back seat. Defiantly, you put your hand out for the vibrator. You open your legs wider so he can get a good look at you. There’s a tick in his jaw that gives you some satisfaction.
The vibrator purrs dully in your palm and you take your time bringing it to your clit. A low, long moan leaves you. You’re swollen but slick and even gentle strokes feel electric in your veins.
There’s a tent already forming in Dave’s pants. He’s a killer, sure, but right now he’s horny.
Your head falls back as you continue. His gaze devours each part of you— where the toy glistens against you, your nipples rising and falling below your shirt, the crease in your brow as you keen.
“You’re a filthy girl, huh?” he asks.
You nod and a smile actually pulls at the corner of your lips. It shouldn’t turn you on so much to jerk off in front of a man that has seemingly no hesitations when it comes to killing you but somehow that fact has arousal mounting faster. Your eyes drift closed as you focus on the heady sensation of the friction on your overworked nerves.
The sound of a metallic clink and soft zip distracts you from your reverie. When you look at Dave, you find his hand down the front of his pants, knuckles straining against the fabric of his black boxer briefs as he tugs at himself.
“Keep going,” he breathes and you realize you’re staring slack-jawed, desire flooding out any remnants of fear left within you.
After a few blinks, you press the vibrator against your clit again. Your back arches and you give a luxurious sigh for his benefit. His fist tightens, muscles in his neck straining and, fuck, you have to grip the seat of your chair to keep yourself from falling out of it.
With a grunt, Dave’s pushing his jeans out of the way, freeing his cock so he can work himself in the angles he likes, the same ones you watched through his webcam. The sound of his shallow breaths and slick strokes mix with the rumble of your toy and the creak of your chair as you writhe. It’s absolutely maddening. And then he starts babbling. Saying things like, “You like this, huh?” and “Say my name sweetheart.” You do it, panting out the word to a hum of approval.
He crowds you and for a moment you prepare yourself for the chance he’s about to shove his dick down your throat. Instead he’s yanking up your shirt, exposing your tits to the cold air in the room. Dave fondles one and then the other, squeezing the tender flesh with a groan. His hand is much softer than you’d expect for a contract killer, his touch almost gentle as he teases your nipples with the pad of his thumb.
Dave’s expression nearly looks pained, a delicious frown over his plump bottom lip. It makes you mewl and your hips jump.
“You close?” he asks. His voice is ragged.
A breathless nod is all you can manage.
“Good girl,” he rasps.
His words are enough to send you over the edge, with a wanton moan. It crashes over you with so much more intensity than the one that came before it. Your spine locks up, thighs shake as you clench around nothing. Your heart hammers in your chest and between your legs and it’s as if the room is spinning. You twitch in aftershocks, completely spent.
The fog of pleasure has barely lifted when you glance up at Dave, fist still diligently pumping. There’s a fire in his eyes, that untamed excitement.
“Give me one more,” he commands.
“Can’t,” you plead. Need still bubbles at your core but your body is so exhausted from adrenaline and exertion, lust and release.
“You better,” he says.
Dave grinds the vibrator mercilessly against you and you swear aloud. He lets up only for his hand to close around your throat. It’s an unbearable mixture of pleasure and dull ache— the bruising pressure on your clit, the muscles in your thighs taught and burning— underlined by that euphoria. He squeezes around your jaw just hard enough to see stars again.
“That’s right,” he breathes against your cheek, his nose pressed into your temple.
Another orgasm comes almost immediately, pulsing at your core and squeezing through every fiber of your being. This time, you’re quiet, just a high pitched whine like a hurt animal though you’re anything but.
Dave groans. You can hear his teeth gritted though your eyes are shut. He swears and his hot release paints your bare chest, thick and sticky.
Everything stills as you both come down, all loosening muscles and shaky breaths. Dave remains close to you, stroking your cheek. His lips brush your hairline and you notice the smell of his cologne for the first time, something clean and masculine.
Dread should come now. He’s had his fun, now he can do away with you — yet it doesn’t surface.
Slowly Dave stands and tucks himself back into his pants. He almost looks ashamed of himself. You pull your shirt down, covering your stained breasts, and watch Dave smooth his hair.
“So are we good?” you ask.
“If you do what I said,” he answers. “You’re going to get rid of anything you have against me and you’re going to tell your bosses that all you found was a regular guy.”
“Alright, Dave,” you say.
He scowls at you like he doesn’t like your tone. “When I say delete everything, I mean everything,” he says, eyes flitting towards the monitor.
You steal a glance in that direction as well. Dave half naked, still frozen there looking absolutely ruined.
“Understand?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“I’m going to know if you don’t because I’ll be watching you. And if you cross me, I’m going to come back here and I won’t be so nice to you next time,” Dave says.
You wish that threat didn’t make your body light up like a Christmas tree. It’s absolutely reckless. There’s no chance in hell you’re letting go of that piece of treasure and if the consequence is Dave knocking on your door– or letting himself in– that’s a risk you’re willing to take.
It’s as if he knows. Dave scoffs to himself, then fishes his hat off of the floor along with your panties.
“These are mine now,” he says.
And you’re almost sad to see him go.
comments and reblogs always appreciated! or scream at me in the ask box or dms!
Moth's Masterlist // follow @mothandpidgeon-updates and turn on notifications to stay updated with my fics!
Ohhhhhhh wow, Moth. This is so fucking delicious. The way you play with textures and combinations of the senses is such a delight and it really drew me in to feel that sense of heightened arousal in the face of danger, fear, and morally questionable activities.
I particularly loved how you built up that sense of the erotic in Dave's more aggressive choices, how her excitement swirled with acts that really put immense trust or at least an abandonment of suspicion that he wasn't going to suddenly choose harm. There's this razor thin edge between what he does to her as pleasure and what he could do to her as violence and the toeing of that line is really breathtaking. The gun play had me on the edge of my seat as did that moment of him choking her out as part of getting her over the edge for that last orgasm... 🫠
I'm going to go on a bit of an M-reads-into-things-a-bit-too-much-and-maybe-she's-totally-off tangent here:
Something that I found really interesting is that in spite of his aggression and murderyness and the fact that you've tagged for mean!Dave, there was this undercurrent of a sort of softness to him. The fic as a whole felt like is such an interesting glimpse into how you see Dave and construct him as this character that holds both violence and perhaps a bit of warmth within him at once.
He leans towards these very potentially terrifying acts of dominance, yes, but at the same time we get these peeks of how his threatening self can be viewed in complement to the fact that he has these parts of him that are very ordinary and just searching for control and in some cases perhaps a little vulnerable, both in terms of what she sees in surveilling him but also in how he treats her.
That moment of him being so enamoured with her breasts in particular really stood out to me... the contrast of her thinking he was going to roughly take her mouth and the near tenderness of his touch! I really was fascinated by how it was surrounded by him talking her through it in a way that felt very commanding but also had a distinct warmth (the sweetheart didn't feel nasty, that good girl very full of praise). I was melting, really, I don't know how I'm talking about it so methodically now hahahah
Also the fact that he did seem to be wrestling with this sense of discomfort or remorse or shame after coming down from the high of their encounter... I would love to get in his head and hear his inner thoughts about what was going on then.
Absolutely no pressure whatsoever, but I did feel a little wiggle of excitement that the ending felt like it's been left a bit open for an opportunity to revisit them. That sort of creep-matches-creep of her clearly not planning to delete the video and him taking that as an invitation to... check in on her is quite delicious. Would love to see how a future encounter would play out if you ever felt so inspired, but I'm also very happy to just sit here daydreaming about what you could cook up. <3
Rating: Explicit (my whole blog is over 18's please)
Summary: Joel Miller is the loss of your life
Word Count: 5,169
Content: Knights and Kings AU, sort of GOT adjacent but no dragons, VERY heavy on the angst, light regicide, there is murder/violence/blood, metaphors using birth. So much longing, kissing & smut; p in v, pussy eating. Always fleabag coded. Let me know if I missed anything.
Listen to: Taylor Swift's The Prophecy
A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who convinced me these two needed a second part & especially to those people who became slighly murderous. Very inspiring. As always, huge huge thanks to my darling @toomanytookas for being an amazing beta & supporting me with my stories. Part of @almostfoxglove Angst challenge.
Prev/Mini series Masterlist
The Prophecy
The blood is soaking your hands. Thick and crimson, seeping into your skin, staining the white of the sheets that adorn your marital bed. A steady drip, drip, drip onto the stone floor. No hint of the blue that was supposed to flow through your husband’s veins. In truth it’s just the same as your own, no different from the buckets you’ve lost bringing life into this world. Now you’re responsible for draining it away, slaying the man that helped you create those little lives.
It is for the children that you fought, their innocence that looked to you for protection, why you had to be the one that authored this brutal ending. Plunging the knife into his chest.
It had been much easier than any of your labours. Certainly much faster.
The shock you saw in your husband’s eyes, there was a flicker of recognition inside you when you saw it. For the first time he was truly seeing the woman he had married. No longer obscured from him with polite disdain and quiet hatred, eyes always reverentially downcast and palms tightly clasped together as if in prayer. Instead, with your hands gripping the hilt that knocked the last breaths from his chest, he’d witnessed your purest self; determined, fierce, wild.
Yet it was more than an unveiling, for in that moment the knowledge that he’d never experienced a moment of discomfort in his sheltered, pampered life crept into your consciousness. As your eyes met his for the last time, you’d understood that he was finally feeling pain.
You’d lent in harder, twisted the blade slowly.
The depths of your hatred have made you deaf to the sounds around you, the lifeless body of your husband drawing all of your focus.
Joel doesn’t burst through the door. Finding silence he instead slips quietly into the unnatural stillness of the room. There is no gasp of shock as he takes in what you’ve done, instead he latches the door behind him, makes his way quickly to you. Holding one finger to his lips, brow creased with courage, his other hand wrapped tightly around his sharpened sword.
The blood is growing cold against your skin and the heat from your anger is quickly cooling into fear. You know what Joel is going to do before he even speaks. This intuition is caught in your throat and sends shivers through you. Familiar jolts as the adrenaline leaves your body, a rattle right down to your bones that you recall experiencing after each birth, a strange alchemy of the high of survival and a shock that your mind can’t quite comprehend. The same tremble unsettles you now, but with no warm little soul clutched to your breast to comfort you this time. Only the knowledge that nothing can ever be the same again.
You shake your head, speaking barely above a whisper, “No, Joel. No.”
Joel’s large hands rest on your shoulders, just for a second, just long enough to offer you a morsel of compassion. A moment's reprieve from the unfolding tragedy. You can hear your own heartbeat thrumming in your ears as you inhale the scent of him, let yourself be consoled by his solid, calm presence, if only for a single breath.
His voice is low, soothing in its urgency, “I need you to scream, my Queen. You’ve got to do it for me. Scream.”
You’re still moving your head from side to side, willing this not to be happening, for there to be another path you could take. Joel leans his forehead against yours as he slides the knife from your hands, looks into your eyes, pleading, aching, commanding all at once, “Scream.”
So you do. You let out the horror. A bloodcurdling noise that has been lurking inside you for years. The sound of rage and despair and terror, a howl that you don’t recognise as coming from within you but could be made by no one else. A scream to set you free, but to damn the man you love.
The castle bursts alive around you, a rush of bodies breaking down the door and crashing into the room. A confusion of panic and horrified faces. What do they witness? Joel holding a bloodied knife, a stricken wife screaming for help, their King slain in his own bed. Glass shatters as Joel escapes through a window and his figure disappearing into the black of the night is the last thing you see before you let a faint rescue you from this nightmare.
You retreat into the safety of the darkness that now consumes you, despair crawling up your spine and tightening its hands around your neck, allowing you to be embraced by unconsciousness.
The Before
There is a storm raging. Both outside the thick castle walls and within your heart. Every fire in the building is alight, the wind roaring down the chimneys and requiring the servants to constantly replenish the wood, a perpetual battle to make sure none of your esteemed guests feel the cold for even a moment. You watch the nervous glances between the servants all evening as they wrap sheepskins around shivering shoulders, top up goblets of wine, try to remain out of sight but attentive enough that they won’t be punished by their petulant King.
You know better than to get involved, that trying to help will only draw attention to yourself, incite your King’s ire as you inevitably do something to cause a flare of rage. Which either you’d feel the consequences of or would have to watch being taken out on someone else. So you sit and try not to tremble instead, pretend there isn’t an icy dread whistling through the hallways and creeping up your skin.
It’s almost unbearable, having Joel sat in your home, mere feet away from you, and not being able to do any more than simply feel his presence. He’s dressed in a fine green robe, his voice so warm and confident, dripping into your ears like the sweetest honey even though he’s talking about the most boring subjects imaginable. Your head tilts a tiny increment towards his side of the table when he speaks. You could listen to him forever, let his words wash into you and tangle themselves into your very being.
The evening has been full of trade talk, new alliances agreed upon and safe routes across borders promised. You and the other wives are dotted amongst the arguing men, supposedly to lighten the mood and give them something to admire in between all the diplomacy, but you know you are failing miserably in your role tonight. Your voice has all but disappeared under the weight of all your secrets. It is exhausting noticing not only every single movement of Joel’s from just out of your eye line, but also keeping track of exactly where your husband is and what he can see. You can barely breathe.
You know with even a fleeting look at Joel, you will be lost. That your eyes will betray you, somehow your husband will be able to see the depth of your love in a single glance. That your truth will be laid bare for all to see. A glimpse of those heavenly dark eyes and it’ll be as if you’re in Joel’s arms again, a stranger to reason, clawing and grasping at his skin, searching and crying for his tongue against yours once more. The scent of his sweat is forever imprinted on your soul, the feel of his scruff against your hands burnt into your fingertips. There isn’t a drop of blood in your veins that doesn’t belong to him, screaming for his touch over and over. You swallow thickly, push the cooling feast around your plate, no morsel touching your dry lips.
You’ve nursed the terror and the hatred; bottled up both your longing for Joel and your loathing of your husband and secured it in a tiny blue vial. Just three drops to stop any heart, however cold. Trying to find the right time to slip this poison into your husband’s drink or a bite you know he can’t resist, that’s what helps you make it through each day. Your quest enables you to survive the casual cruelty he inflicts on you and those around you, the hope itself a kind of freedom, a world where perhaps you can look upon Joel and not fear for both your lives.
Today is not that day. Today is about survival, about not raising suspicions or allowing your husband any excuse to raise his hand against you. Not that he requires justification for anything he does. The divine right of kings covers all manner of sins.
By the time you leave the banquet hall and retire to the sitting room, where there is music and a bard reciting limericks for the evening's entertainment, you are unsteady on your feet. A lethargy seeping into every ounce of your being, you can barely keep your eyes open, so drained by the pretense of it all.
It’s why you stumble, your feet catching briefly on the flagstone beneath you. Unthinking, you reach out to the hand outstretched in front of you, let it catch you, steady you. The moment you grasp onto those familiar fingers you know it’s too late, that you’ll look up and see Joel standing before you. Of course he would not have been able to stop himself from helping you, it’s there for everyone to see. That and the way your face falls when your eyes meet, a connection that simply can’t be hidden. He looks as stricken as you feel, a glassy sheen in his gaze and his mouth slightly open. You try to whip your hand back against your chest but you already know it’s been too long. A fate that you have no control over has already been sealed.
Your husband waits until you are almost alone to say his piece, find you guilty of what has long been lurking in the shadows, right underneath his nose.
The dread, the awful twisting terror of what would happen if your husband found out about your love for Joel? It’s strangely peaceful when you’re confronted with it. You find that you’re still, detached almost, from the wall of bile that is being thrown your way. The threats and accusations, the truth of your King’s power and what he can do to you now he’s able to call you a traitor. It’s as if you’re watching it happen to someone else.
Your faithful maid has been unceremoniously thrown from your chamber and now it’s just you and your husband. So angry that flecks of his spit adorn your face. You know he wants you to break down and cry, to sob for forgiveness, to plead with him for your life, for Joel’s, to beg that he not take your children away from you.
Only, you know where the knife is in this room. You hid it there yourself. You can see a glint of silver from behind your books and all you need is for him to turn away for a moment before you can quiet this rage forever.
The After
There’s an instant drop in temperature as you push open the heavy oak doors, step through the intricately carved stone doorway into the chapel. The iron of the handle is cold to the touch, your slippered feet feel damp from the early morning dew that covered the winding pathways leading here. It’s a gentle light that tentatively touches the stained glass this morning, most of the small chapel is still bathed in last night’s darkness. The chill of it makes you pull at the black furs around your shoulders, as if they will help warm what you already know is frozen within you.
There is a strange kind of relief that you can hide behind the costume of a mourning wife, hide your stricken face behind a veil of gossamer and pretence. You wear your supposed grief as an armour from the world, a careful act of bereavement that can mask your truth.
The priest standing before you has kind eyes, takes a deep bow before reaching out his hand to take yours. He speaks and you have to try and make your face appear neutral, as if there isn’t an icy dread dripping down your spine, “My Queen, we are heartbroken for your loss. The whole kingdom mourns with you.”
You stiffen involuntarily, your skin prickles and a hard intake of breath echoes around the space as you feel the cameo necklace pressed into your palm. You clench your fist around it, let the corners dig into your flesh, use the pain to ground you, stop you from sinking to your knees. A message from Joel.
Alive. Thinking of you. Waiting for you?
You have no choice but to trust this stranger, “Thank you, Father. I wish to come here tonight, to pray alone. Can you make sure it will be private for me?”
“Of course. I’ll make the arrangements. You will be left in peace for as long as you need.”
A kind of hope flickers against your skin, but you push it down, remain as cold as the flagstones beneath your feet. You nod curtly at the priest, a look so sharp you know it confirms any suspicions he might have had about where the blade that killed his King actually came from. Doesn’t do any harm to strike a little fear of god into him. You begin to walk away, a definitive swish of your long skirts as you turn.
“They’ll catch him soon.”
You stop immediately, your scowling face thrown back towards him, “Excuse me?”
The priest doesn’t meet your eyes, stares despondently down at the floor. You recognise the fear etched onto his furrowed brow as the same that sits heavy on your chest. He almost whispers it, “Joel Miller, if he hasn’t run already, they’ll catch him soon. It’s only a matter of time. A traitor's death awaits him.”
The priest doesn’t see what effect this warning has on you, you’ve already swept out of the church before he’s finished his piece. As if you haven’t been caught in a desperate despair with the knowledge since the news reached you of where Joel was hiding. It swirls around your stomach like a sickness, turning your mouth to dust as you wish with all the strength you have left that Joel had immediately fled the country. Joel putting himself further in peril is eating away at your heart, choking every breath out of your lungs.
You will see him tonight and you will send him away, even if it means breaking off a piece of yourself forever more.
The sight of Joel emerging from the shadows should fill you with joy. Those deep brown eyes, soft and searching, clearly exhausted but truly never more beautiful than now, full of such hope. To be able to look upon his noble face bathed in candlelight, his arms open for you, a welcoming embrace waiting, waiting for you to collapse into him. It should be like a dream, this clandestine meeting is a gift that has cost so many sleepless nights, endangering the few that secretly aid Joel. Yet you’re unable to grab at the fleeting happiness being offered to you.
Instead you let rage fill the silent church, the heavy stamp of your feet against the stone floor a warning of your impending ferocity, ripping off your widow’s veil and tossing it to the ground. You haven’t yet reached Joel when you begin bellowing at him, “Why are you still here?”
He stands up straighter, a frown etched deeply onto his brow, a quick deep sigh, as if he’d been readying himself for exactly this, “My Queen…”
You cut him off instantly, sharp slaps hard against the tops of his arms, “No! Joel, no! You must go. Why? Why have you stayed?”
He doesn’t flinch. Mouth set in a firm line, broad shoulders ready to take your fists again, “I needed to see you. I had to say goodbye. What if I never get to hold you again?”
You laugh, bitter, strangled, mirthless, “I’ve already taken your freedom, now you want me to be responsible for you losing your life as well?”
He’s stubborn, his words sharp and pointed, “It’s my life to lose.”
You actually stamp your foot, push hard against his chest with your whole weight behind you, palms flat and hard, “Go. Go and don’t come back.”
“Even if this is the last I have of you, raging and storming, I’ll take it.” His hands wrap around your wrists, securing you to him, trapping your hands against his hammering heart. His pulse betrays the calmness in his voice, broadcasting his true sentiments one beat at a time. Fear and love all tangled together, an ache that echoes in your ears, the thrum of your own pulse almost deafening.
He grits his teeth, jaw ticking, the press of his fingers hard enough to bruise. It hurts. Yet your anger won’t cool, you twist against him, wild and raw, sure he can feel your rage pulsing against him. Joel’s grip on you tightens, you try to pull back but it’s useless, he’s so much stronger than you are. He watches, almost amused, mostly resigned to letting you flex your temper, “Your fire doesn’t scare me. I know you, you can fight me all you like, but I love you. I believe I have earnt the right to one last act of selfishness.”
He gives you a hard yank, drawing you up close to him, pulling you onto your toes. The burn of a stretch as you crane your neck away from him, physically resisting his words, trying to nurse your resolve to push him away. His voice is hoarse as he whispers against your skin, “You are entwined with my soul, my Queen. I will take your anger as gladly as I’d take a kiss because it’s you, it’s truly you. I love the woman that plunged the knife as much as the one that holds my heart so gently.”
It dawns on you then, that this is only the second time that Joel has ever held you in an embrace and here you are, fighting it, skin prickling with a chill of anger rather than the warmth of longing that usually kisses at your cheeks.
You close your eyes, your voice finally cracks, “I won’t beg. Please. Leave.”
Joel releases you, hand tender now, tipping your chin upwards, waiting until your eyes open and meet his before he speaks. “No. Let me say my goodbye.”
Your eyes are burning, the salt of tears threatening to spill as you look at Joel. His usually golden skin is grey with tiredness, lines etched around those beautiful, pleading eyes and a deep set crease between his brows. The man that you love, hurting just as much as you; the mirror image of your own agony. He rubs a thumb to catch the tear caught on your cheekbone, bringing it up to his lips to kiss it away.
A shiver runs down your spine and something within you shifts, the rush of fury that had you wanting to bite at the throbbing vein at his throat, this sharpness of your bared teeth softens to a desire to feel it beat beneath your tongue. A whimper escapes your mouth, to be consumed by him, that’s all you want. Let him eat you alive, down to the bone, lick his lips as you drip down his chin. You want to be lost forever to the hunger that’s alight in his gaze.
You don’t wait for him, you take the kiss you want. A bite rather than a press, a frisson of that anger still within you, but transformed from a burning of your fingertips to scratch and claw, to a tingle in your pout that makes you wet your lips and search out his tongue. A dizzying dance as you eat into each other. Your hands are at his face, you can feel his jaw working as the scruff of his beard rubs against your palm deliciously. He chases after your tongue with his own, searching and taking, taking, taking.
“I want you to have all of me before you leave. I need to know all of you before,” you pause, trace your little finger over the seam of his always pouting bottom lip, soaked with your spit and love, “before I have to spend the rest of my life walking into rooms that are forever empty of you.”
“I’m always going to be searching for a way to come back to you, you know that? When your children are grown and safe, we’ll find a way.” He touches his lips to each one of your fingers in turn, presses kisses with a reverence of a priest clutching his rosary. A momentary smile gracing your lips for the first time since there was a knife in those very hands, disappearing even as he paints your throat with hot, open mouthed kisses that feel like heaven itself.
You let him lift you from the floor, the irony of Joel carrying you in a bridal hold down the aisle of a church is not lost on you, but instead of letting it tear at you, your head finds its place nestled on his shoulder. Arms wrapped around his neck, there’s a safety cradled like this that you have never have felt before. Will almost certainly never feel again. The loss hangs in the air, like the scent of the incense that drifts through the atmosphere, it clings to your skin and hair.
Hidden behind the ornate wooden rood screen of the nave, there is makeshift bed, furs and sheepskins offering Joel a sanctuary to hide from the world, watched over by the painted saints. The flecks of gold from their halos catch the flickering candlelight as he gently lowers you down.
“Make me forget Joel, take me away from this nightmare. I need to stop thinking, I need you to stop this despair that’s living in my chest or else I won’t be able to keep breathing. I am so afraid.”
Joel kisses you first this time, gentle yet urgent. It feels like a pathway out of this melancholy, if only for these stolen seconds that are hiding from the ticking clock, the unstoppable countdown to an ending. You can feel the corners of his mouth turning upwards, the ghost of a smile caressing your own.
“But, my Queen, I don’t want to forget a moment of this.”
You reach up, a delicate finger pushing the almost curl that has fallen forward up and out of his darkening eyes, brush your thumb against the softness. Your nail scratches gently against his scalp. Let yourself imagine this is simply the first of many times you’ll do this, that cradling his head in your hands is your future, a gift you can unwrap forever more.
Neither of you speak as you slowly undress the other. There’s a reverence in your unveiling, in the revealing of the skin that has been burning for the other’s touch for so long. It feels as if words would break the spell, that speaking this moment into existence will shatter it into a million pieces, eviscerate the magic that you’re trying to grasp onto. Instead you use your mouths to kiss and caress; you must touch each freckle on his broad, firm chest with your tongue, you must lick at his nipples, trace the thatch of hair on his soft stomach with your lips.
No words now, the only sound a gasp from you as Joel consumes you in his own way, mouth hot at your breasts, strokes at your nipples from his firm tongue sending a shiver of bliss through you. It’s cold in the chapel, but the warmth of his touch and the growing tingle in your belly mean you barely notice. His fingers join his mouth in holy prayer at your cunt, taking you apart with each lave of his tongue against the pearl of you, thick fingers slipping into your wetness and searching for what makes you whine, what rhythm makes you almost call out his name.
Your hands card through his hair as he feasts on you, devoted to your joy, grinding his hips into the furs beneath him for a sliver of relief. You want to watch him, his eyes blown black with desire, you want to soak in the image of him devout between your thighs, but you find your eyes close with the force of it. Each tilt of his head a new sensation, each rub of that fine nose against you a pleasure you have never known, each curl to his fingers a glimpse of heaven. You want to cry with it, with the love you can feel building at the base of your spine and finally snapping something deep with you, a burst of white light in your vision as you come for him.
You lower yourself onto Joel, the stretch of his cock divine and dizzying. The palms that had pushed him away now flat on his chest again, this time anchoring you to him as you roll your body slowly, building up a pace that has you both cursing into each other’s mouths. Joel’s hands are wrapped around your waist, dragging you against him. A new sound echoes round the walls now, the obscene smack of skin on skin as you’re both lost in bliss, finally, finally, you’re burning together. Tongues tangled together, each punch of your hips binding you closer, wrapping you in heat and lust, sweat dripping from your brows as you feel the warmth building within you again. A memory you’ll hold like a prayer said each night; your body, your soul, you give it all to him freely, for now and forever.
Your ecstasy washes over you like a scattering of stars, a heaven you can almost taste, pulsing and fluttering around his cock and tipping him over into his own bliss. A moment so magic you can feel it in your fingers, a tingle to the tips of your toes. You melt down onto his chest, head against his heart, both breathing hard and deep.
Joel’s hand toys gently, rhythmically, with the velvet of your ear, as he shares his secrets, “I have dreamed of this since the moment I first saw you, my Queen. Did you know I was there on your wedding day? That’s when I knew. I could have fallen to my knees watching you be bound to that man, knowing that some twist of fate had stopped me from ever seeing your face before it was too late.”
You tilt your head up, make sure you’re looking into those beautiful dark eyes, “Do you believe in prophecies? Because I was always told I would love a king. From when I was a little girl they promised me a fairytale, but… I hated almost every moment of my life until I met you.” Your hand is at his face now, stroking at the softness of his patchy beard, “What if I brought a curse upon us when I willingly gave you my heart? Did I break open something that I wasn’t supposed to, let the devil dance his way into our lives? I killed a man and I didn’t flinch, Joel.”
He kisses at your damp forehead, still warm, your body melted into his with a softness that lives only in these intimate moments, two bodies tangled in each other, pulses still racing to the same beat. He brushes your hair out of your eyes, “Hush now, my love, damn those so called prophecies. I think we make our own destiny. And I know that mine was always leading me to you.” He leans down, traces his lips against yours, whispers his promises there, “My brave and fierce Queen, you were protecting those you love, you were slaying a devil not inviting one in. You didn’t flinch because you knew it was right. With that knife you sacrificed your innocence, just as by taking it from you, I sacrificed the life I have. But for your safety, to protect you and the children you love? I would do it a hundred times over.”
“I have damned you, with my love and my hands, I have damned you. Joel, I think I can feel my heart breaking.”
“I know, my love, I know, because I can feel mine too.”
He just holds you, no comfort except for the love that will soon become grief.
Joel has never seen the dawn break on the horizon like this before. Stretched out ahead of him, the sea seemingly endless, he could almost believe there is no beginning and no end, that this ship could sail for eternity and never see another living being. But he has been assured that in a few days he shall be safely stolen away to new shores, welcomed by Sarah and her husband to begin again, start his new life in strange lands, unfamiliar customs, grow old away from everything he’s ever known. That he is sailing towards his daughter does give him some comfort, a slight balm to the roiling in his stomach with every churn of the ocean that carries him further away from you.
A heavy sigh escapes his chest. None of it matters. The hurt in his heart means that he barely cares if the waves roar up and swallow him whole, but he made a promise. His hand grips onto the chain around his neck, lets the silver links press into his skin, the bite of it the closest he can get to your kiss.
He has left to protect you, to continue the lie that it was him that murdered a king, keep your children and the line of succession safe. He hopes beyond hope that one day when your eldest son is grown and crowned, there will be a day that you can meet again.
Prev/Mini series Masterlist
Tagging in some part 1 fans - as always let me know if you'd prefer to taken off:
DEvAStATIOn. What a follow up this is, so full of that feeling of time being against you, of heartache waiting at your door. And yet a celebration, too, of strength and loyalty and love and HOPE.
What a queen our Queen is, the way she burns so brightly. I love how you capture her passion and anger, the way that she is so aware of the rules of things and how she must play the game for her safety and the safety of others and yet has found ways to hold onto the woman she could be (or could have been).
Your language about what she has given up and birthed into the world is so gorgeous, and it really is such an interesting meditation on the strength and sacrifice of women and the expectations and constraints they often receive in return... It feels quite fitting that this stabby lady is making her return so shortly after IWD heh.
The joy and love she finds in Joel is so beautiful and yet so ill fated and the way you explore the pain of them experiencing that together is so similarly gorgeous and achy. I loved this particularly:
You reach up, a delicate finger pushing the almost curl that has fallen forward up and out of his darkening eyes, brush your thumb against the softness. Your nail scratches gently against his scalp. Let yourself imagine this is simply the first of many times you’ll do this, that cradling his head in your hands is your future, a gift you can unwrap forever more.
That blend of indulgence and anticipation of loss is so compelling and I adore how you combine these feelings of reverence and wistfulness.
That said, I think my favourite thing about this piece is the way that hope is never far from view. Be it in how she has found hope in her poisoning plot or that ending line or the way that both Joel and his Queen choose to allow themselves even just a second to cherish each other even as they feel everything building up to get ripped away.
I loved these lines of Joel's:
✨Even if this is the last I have of you, raging and storming, I’ll take it.
✨But, my Queen, I don’t want to forget a moment of this.
There is something so pure about his love for her, the way he cherishes what he can have even when faced with everything he cannot. I love that it feels so warm and floaty and yet is still grounded in his understanding of things. That he chooses to look for the light says so much and gives me such warm fuzzies.
I also very much enjoyed the return of your explorations of fate and destiny and the choices we make in life and love. That thread of crafting and enjoying the life we live within those things we cannot quite move to change.
So much classic Al in this, I love it very much <3
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